Today was the day that we’ve been dreading for the past three weeks. It’s the day we insisted would never arrive, the day that seemed so far away until we found ourselves at the Trevi Fountain. It was the day we said our final good byes to our CR family and went our separate ways journeying back to the US.
But for 4 CR members, the journey home had more difficulties than just saying good bye.
Katherine Goodnight, Lexi Peterson, Taylor White and I were all booked on the same flight from Rome to Washington DC departing at 11 am. We woke up this morning and made it to the airport and through security by 9, and when we arrived at the terminal they gave us the news.
Our flight had been delayed for two hours! So for those of us who aren’t math majors like Katherine, that is a four hour wait in the Rome terminal, which has extremely limited seating selections so we ended up on the floor by the smoking lounge. But they do have a Gucci store…we had to hold Taylor back from spending his waiting time shopping. We wasted time journalling, snacking, and staring blankly into space before they finally let us board.
So our new departure time was 1 pm, but because traffic was so backed up we didn’t end up taking off until 2:45, rounding out our total wait time to 5 hours and 45 minutes. Thus all hope for making our connecting flights in DC vanished, and we spent the long plane ride wondering when or if we would get home.
When we arrived in DC the airline had already booked us on new flights. Lexi was the lucky one who got to leave that same night on a 9:50 flight back to Houston, but Taylor, KG and I were exiled to spending the night in DC and heading out on early flights tomorrow morning.
At first this was devastating news. I was so ready to get back to Arizona, eat some Mexican food, and sleep for 16 hours straight. But then I realized something. While the rest of CR4 is probably arriving home, hugging their parents, crawling into an empty bed without a snuggle buddy and crying for those lost friends now spread out across the country, three members of the group still carry the CR4 tradition on. So even if it’s only for one night, the trip is not over yet!