June 8, 2007 : Fasten your seat belts !!

Friday morning we arose early to receive our first round of shots. All went well – not too painful – and only a few people felt nauseous of dizzy. So far I felt great – pumped, confident, and ready to go !! The east coast has these great sandwich shops called Cosi’s. They make the best sandwiches and salads, so I headed there for my last USA meal for the next two years. We headed to the airport – all 39 of us, each with our two suitcases and a carry-on. We filled two large buses. The flight from Philadelphia to Paris took eight hours. They served us a delicious Air France meal, complete with a mini baguette and French cheese. I ate everything on the plate! (This will be important to remember later) I had napped before the food arrived so I watched a movie during the second half of the flight. The movie was ‘The Painted Veil’, it’s about a doctor who is pissed at his wife for cheating on him, so he takes her to cholera infested China at the turn of the century. As you can imagine - lots of people die a horrible death; groaning, vomiting and expiring exhausted - things did not end well.