Fin

I am done. Two papers, eight exams, and one heck of a week later, I find myself bumming on my bed with a couple of warm shock blankets, the heater luxuriously turned to ON, and dreams of chocolate fudge brownies swimming through my head (not going to happen). I've had a major test every school day for the past week and a half and I am exhausted. This means that I am officially done with four of my seven courses. The other three have finals in May...minor details....

This also means that the month of April is essentially free for travel (and studying on the train). In trying to organize it all, I have a newfound appreciation for the wondrous magic that travel agents work. My friends and I spent a lot of time researching our trip. This is the first occasion that I've ever planned a trip (or trip segment) like this on my own and it was a huge learning curve.

Essentially I made every dumb mistake in the book. A Common Sense Guide to Traveling for Dummies? Yeah, didn't read it. Here are a few lessons I learned:

1. Large cities ACTUALLY have multiple airports...which really aren't that close to each other. The cheap flight from Paris to Milan flies out of Paris you say? It flies out of Paris-Beauvais, which is actually 1.5 hours away from Paris by bus, about a quarter of the way up the country. Better rethink that connecting train--and pay closer attention to which Paris airport you're actually flying out of.

2. Sometimes no connecting train on your travel day will get you in before your flight. As in, no train that day leaves before 6 am. Which is why it's kind of important to check this out before you book your flight.

3. Putting in your travel date to a transportation search engine does not necessarily bring up flights/ferries/trains on that travel day. Small print, big importance.

4. It's a lot less sketchy to book directly through an airline rather than booking through the third-party website that found you the cheapest price.

And thus it was. At the time, I was actually quite upset with myself for the sheer number of planning hiccups I made on my segment of the trip. I felt guilty because I thought I was holding my friends back and didn't know what to do. We needed to trim costs down and I was frustrated because I couldn't find cheaper accommodation in St Malo. Train ticket prices kept rising. Every airline's booking process was pretty sure that I also needed to book a hotel...and a rental car...and travel insurance...and an actual seat. The aisle, or the cargo hold, or the wing for that matter, are NOT IN FACT acceptable methods of traveling on a plane. That said, we got all of our flights booked and our ferry and it was an excellent learning experience.

We are going to be backpacking starting April 1st. Backpacking as in, everything I need is going in my purple backpack. Which means we have the finals week scenario all over again: same outfit for a week? I've been wearing this dress for two.

That said, computer access will be dubious and this may be my last post for the next 3 weeks or so.