Saying Goodbye (Day 17)

January 26, 2013 (Day 17)

And in the end….cue The Beatles.

This vacation was short than most at 2 weeks instead of 3 and it feels to have gone by fast.  It feels strange saying goodbye in Paris instead of Marseille, too.  Also, strange is that Mark’s flight leaves a full 1.5 hours before mine at 9am.   We opted to leave for the airport together at 7am and the Hilton CDG airport hotel was happy to shuttle us right to Terminal 2B where Mark’s Algerian flight will leave from.  He checked his back in quickly and it was time to say goodbye.  We have no idea for how long this next rotation will last, either, so it’s a hard goodbye.  The future remains unknown.

Mark had no problems getting through passport control and security.  I left him and moved on to Terminal 2E where my flight to Houston will leave at 10:30am.  I had an easy time checking in my luggage and then had plenty of time to be productive and work on blogging.  Then it was relatively easy to get through my passport control and security check.  I was ready at the gate at boarding time and then got to sit on my plane for over an hour while the dealt with some technical issues and we finally had wheels in the air at 11:22am. 

Thanks for keeping up with the blog and commenting along the way.  We had a great vacation and determined that we can indeed stay warm in a snowy environment.  Perhaps us Texans might even try another cold winter vacation one day.

I arrived in Houston just fine.  Saturday is a bigger travel day than I’m used to as I  normally get in on a Thursday.  As a result, I was super glad to have my global entry into the US today as I bypassed many long lines.  Also, it took the longest its ever taken to get my luggage, but all arrived just fine.

Mark arrived back at camp just fine with all his luggage as well.  He even had a whole row on the plane to himself.  He can tell that they’ve beefed up the security, but other than that, all is as normal.

Since today is a boring travel day with no photos, here are some more photos from other days that I don’t think I’ve posted yet.

A ski-bike on the slopes

Snow covered Stephensdom in Vienna