"Who says you can't go home..." (End of EuroTrip 2011)

I figured I might as well end this trip with one final blog. I'm typing this from my house in New Albany, but I wrote most of it while on our long flight from Munich, Germany to Chicago (good way to kill time on a 9+ hour flight!). I realized that by the end of the flight, we'd traveled 5000 miles in just one day! That's pretty crazy to a small town girl like me. When we were boarding this Munich flight, I realized it is the sixth flight of the trip. I love flying. I still always get that little excited kid feeling every time a plane takes off. And I feel so incredibly lucky, not only that I was able to go to Europe on this amazing trip, but even down to the small things like the fact that I've been on an airplane six times in one trip! My parents and I didn't fly a ton growing up, so it still feels special every chance I get to do so, which I like. I think it makes me appreciate these opportunities even more.

I'm not going to lie, I got a bit teary eyed as our flight from Munich to Chicago got off the ground. This first visit out of the US for me has been so enjoyable. I've always known there is so much more out there to see and experience, but this was my first chance to actually do so, and I can't imagine a more perfect trip. In a lot of ways it almost feels unreal, that we got to do so many amazing things in just a month's time. So many things on my bucket list can be crossed off just from this vacation! :) It was everything I dreamed it would be, and honestly I think a bit more.

I'm not trying to suck up in the slightest, but I truly think a big reason this trip was so wonderful was because of the extremely warm welcome we received everywhere from Keegan's extended family. I've been excited to meet all of these people I'd heard so much about for quite awhile, and I'm so glad we were able to meet as many family members as we were! :) Thank you to all of you for showing us around, feeding us, and just letting us spend time with you. I think I can easily speak for Taylor and Keegan when I say we loved every moment with all of you! :)

We really got lucky with all of our flights/trains/planes during this trip! Zero delays!! :) Our only small hiccup was in Paris when we were heading to Munich and then home. We assumed our flight was with United (which we flew at the start of this trip when going to London). We got to the United counter and saw a sign for Chicago, and when we told the guy directing people we were going to Chicago, he had us cut in line to go straight to checking in. We were all the way to the point of checking our bags in before someone noticed we actually had a Luthansa, not United flight! Luckily we'd gotten through United lines so fast that it was no problem to go through Luthansa's and security, and still have more than an hour to kill!

In Munich we had to go through a couple passport checks and thought it might be tough to make our flight, but we got to the gate right before the start of boarding! Even had time to shop for about 5 minutes! :) I took a couple pictures while we were at the airport as proof that we were in Germany. And waved to my friends there! :) Then we got on our awesome plane. We had individual tv's with lots of movie options. It was a lot nicer than our United flight actually, so I'm glad we were wrong about the airline!

We had a fun couple days up in Hobart with Taylor's family for the 4th of July. They had an awesome fireworks show! :) But it's nice to be home now. It feels a bit weird actually! I told my mom I had no idea what I wanted for dinner because it's been so long since I had all these options that we have here, so nothing particular was standing out to me! I'm looking forward to catching up on laundry and sleep these next couple days. And uploading a LOT of pictures! (Working on that now!)

While on the plane, a song came on my iPod and this one line from it stood out to me.. "This was the very first page, not where the story line ends." Maybe it's a bit of a stretch, but to me this quote means that this was my very first trip out of the States, but it's definitely not the last. Now that I've seen some more parts of the world, I can't wait to explore more. It's a tad cheesy, but it made me feel better when I was a bit sad about the trip being over. I have been planning and talking about this trip with our families for well over a year now, and it is hard to believe it's over! But, I'll just have to start planning the next EuroTrip I think! :)) (Oh and just in case anyone was curious, the song is a Taylor Swift song... don't tell Keegan! Ha)

Thanks again everyone involved with this trip. And special thanks to my parents for letting me go! :) I know it was tough haha. Sending love to all of you who are reading this and who I'm thinking about while writing this!! :)

Much love,

Kaitlyn