home again

Never, where ever else you may travel, connect through Toronto. Fly into it? Sure. Fly out of it? Why not. Connect through it? Hard pass. (Avoid Charlotte too if you can...)

The trip home was quite as brutal as on the way there (that's hard to match), but it most definitely had its high points (arriving in Atlanta and not having to go through customs again) and its low points (having to go through customs THREE TIMES in Toronto. While carrying my bag that was big enough for a person to fit into. While trying to figure out how the devil I was supposed to get from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 even though there was no Terminal 2 that seemed like the logical segway to travel through. Two and a half hours somehow was barely enough to get all that done.)

We spent the last day in the city of Reykjavik shopping around and seeing the sights.  It was gift buying time for everyone, and I think we all found good mementos of our trip for friends and family.  A group of us found a thrift store and bough discounted traditional Icelandic sweaters (still expensive, but less so).

Then came time for goodbyes.  There were tears all around, but we managed to get everyone who was flying out on the bus to Keflavik, and the ones who were hanging around for a few extra days to their hostels in the city.

The second round of goodbyes at the airport didn't go any smoother as we all parted and went our separate ways back to our respective cities.  Once Free As A Bird pulled away one final time, we headed through to our gates and that was that.  Some of us had close enough departure times to hang out for an extra few minutes, but by then it felt like we were simply prolonging the inevitable.

I had some buddies on my plane to Toronto so there was a third round of goodbye-ing amidst the struggle to find baggage and make sure that we were heading in the right direction.

Now I think it must be bed time.  It was a whirlwind of a trip and I can't wait to do it again.  #GenerationStudyAbroad