I started the journey home to Louisiana by unwillingly waking up bright and early at 2:45 a.m. Central European Time in the morning on Saturday March 18, 2023. We proceeded to get dressed and finish packing our suitcases and headed down the stairs of the hostel at 3:10 a.m. The group of students met outside the Hostel Downtown at 3:15 a.m., followed shortly after by Mr. Henry Hebert and Mrs. Ashley Grant, to catch our ride to Prague Airport.
The city of Prague was very quiet at this time of the morning as we made our way to the airport in two large passenger vans. I enjoyed observing the beautiful architecture of the buildings of Prague as we drove to Prague Airport that morning. This drive was bittersweet as I was thinking this might be the last time I see this unique and beautiful city in person. We then grabbed our luggage from the vans when we arrived at the airport and checked our bags at around 4:00 a.m. As a group we proceeded to scan our passports and walk through Prague security and customs. I attempted to purchase breakfast at a nearby food cart, but they were closed. The group waited in the Prague Airport at our terminal until we boarded the plane at around 5:35 a.m. We took off from Prague Airport at around 6:05 a.m. and began our one-hour flight to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I sat next to Josie Purvis on this short flight.
Our group landed in Amsterdam at around 7:15 a.m. and walked through customs and security lines. We then began waiting in our terminal for our flight to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. I found a sandwich shop near our terminal and ordered a delicious egg, bacon, and cheese sandwich. Zachary Bonser, Ashton Dalton, Josie Purvis, and I played a game where we went through the alphabet and had to find words in the airport that had our certain letter in them, but each word can only be used once. The group boarded our flight in New Amsterdam at around 10:30 a.m. and took off to JFK airport at around 11:10 a.m. Central European Time. This flight to the John F. Kennedy Airport was around 8 hours and 10 minutes over the Atlantic Ocean. I also sat next to Josie Purvis on this long and uneventful flight. Our meals on this long flight consisted of a choice between chicken and vegan enchiladas, along with Bischoff cookies, Coca-Cola, and water. The initial view of the Atlantic Ocean was beautiful, and the view of the white clouds once the plane reached 35,000 feet of elevation was mesmerizing. On this flight I watched movies such as Jurassic Park and Devotion. I highly recommend these movies. They were entertaining and helped to pass time on the flight. I was eagerly awaiting landing in the United States the entire flight.
We landed at JFK at around 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Our group exited the plane and waited in the very long lines to scan our passports, re-checked our bags, and then proceeded through the United States customs and security. We boarded our flight to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at around 4:15 p.m. and took off to New Orleans around 5:00 p.m. This flight to New Orleans was around 3 hours and 30 minutes long, and we landed at MSY at 7:10 p.m. Central Time. We encountered slight turbulence for a period on this flight, but nothing too serious. It felt amazing to be back home in the great state of Louisiana and to see my mother who had driven two hours to pick me up. I immediately began telling her about all the wonderful experiences I had on the trip.
I learned many important takeaways from our group’s journey home to Louisiana. The first key takeaway of the trip was to make sure to drink plenty of water the night before and the morning of a long trip such as this one. I am glad that I drank plenty of water the night before we began our journey because once the group passed through customs, they threw away all our water. Then, the vending machine for water in our terminal broke, and we had to walk all around the airport to find a water source. The second key takeaway from this trip was to pack some larger items that I originally brought in my carry on in my checked bag. By doing this, I would have had a lighter carry on to carry on and off planes and through airports on the trip back home, and less to lug around through the long customs lines. The third key takeaway from this trip would be to force myself to sleep on any future long flights I may take. I felt as if I couldn’t fall asleep on the flights, so I stayed awake the entire trip back to Louisiana from Prague, and my sleep schedule suffered greatly for the following two weeks.
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