JAX to ATL

I am so, so, so excited to finally be sharing Europe with you.  And just so you know, the house is unpacked, my husband has been fed (notice the new button on my blog--though I've never left him hungry, he saw it--thought was hilarious--and insisted that I upload it), and now I can just sit back and reminisce. 

Once Jamie and I decided that we were truly going to Europe (!!!), I went into plan mode.  I had about 3 weeks from the end of my student teaching until the date that Jamie was free to take leave.  I spent 2 of those weeks reading, scouring the Internet, talking to our travel agent, and calling my well-traveled aunts to ask them countless questions.  One evening, as I was planning in my office nook, Jamie came in to inform me of what he had apparently been mulling over all day....he wanted to make it clear that this would in fact be our last honeymoon (though we didn't take a honeymoon immediately after our "wedding," I had--in my excitement--labeled this European trip as our third honeymoon).  I took offense for a moment, and wondered how in the world our marriage could survive such a poor attitude.  But then the realization hit me: new verbiage. 

We flew out of JAX on 26May2011 at 3:27PM.  We were scheduled to arrive in ATL at 4:46PM and then fly to BRU at 5:40PM.  We thought it would be the perfect amount of a layover...until our flight from Jacksonville was delayed an hour.  When we on the runway in Atlanta, we were able to see that our connecting flight was on time.   And thanks to the Delta App, we could also see which gate our plane was departing from.  We figured that the odds of making it from Gate B-something to Gate E-1 in 6 minutes weren't great, but we had so much built-up-European-excitement that we decided to give it our best shot.  Enter moment when I wished I had been training for a marathon, but thankfully my Army strong husband could continue running when I literally felt that I had seen the end and would never live to see my dream of making it across the ocean.  He made it, just as the airline agent claimed that she was closing the door...and I wasn't far behind.  As we walked to our seats on the twelve-rows-across international aircraft, people were murmuring, "oh yeah, they ran...he's sweating...whew, they look tired."  Yes, we just wanted water...a bed...and a dry set of clothes.  The bilingual flight attendants did grant us one wish--water.  And two hours later, they offered us many more expensive beverages, free of charge, when our plane still hadn't left the Atlanta airport due to inclement weather.  Jamie and I complained a little...but then we laughed at least twice for every time we complained.   We talked about how thankful we were that we hadn't already booked a non-refundable train from Brussels to Paris.  And ultimately, we were just glad to be tired and sweaty together...on our third, and final, honeymoon ;).