and England to America...

Well, this is it: the final post about our year away. The last leg home.

We struggled to find an economical way back to the US after our year away. With a specific window to travel between vacating the French rental house and getting into our own home after the tenants moved out, we couldn't follow our usual rule of flexibly traveling when the price was right. Airfare from Europe to the US during the height of summer is steep. After a few months of searching, we began to wonder if there were any other options out there. Could we get home by...boat?

Turns out the answer was yes. With an unbelievable sale (and the encouragement and assistance of my most wonderful in-laws), we ended up booking passage home on the historic ocean liner Queen Mary 2 for a price not much different than most of the available airfare. Jesse and I had never stepped foot on a cruise-type ship before, and let me tell you, eight days of all-inclusive travel at sea beats eight hours stuffed back by the toilets in coach on an airplane!

We wondered if eight days would feel interminable. Um, no. Given our usual self-catering, totally low budget travel, I hadn't before experienced what it's like to have someone else making my family's beds, preparing all of the food, and caring for our every need. Within hours of boarding I told Jesse that he'd better start strategizing for how he'd drag me off of the ship when we eventually arrived in NYC!

And it's not just that we were cared for. The experience really was over the top. We enjoyed white gloved tea service every afternoon; there were harpists and string quartets just, you know, playing in random spots; there was a team of British-trained nannies running activities and care for the kids; there were movies and lectures and plays and concerts and talks; there was a planetarium; the meals were amazing and served impeccably on bespoke Wedgewood china and real silver; there were thousands (yes) of works of art and museum-type displays in the corridors and rooms; there was an enormous, beautiful, burled wood library; and basically we'd never seen anything like it. Of course at nights the four of us were tucked into the smallest interior room available (four bunk type berths -- it was like camp!), but it swallowed all of our luggage, and frankly, I've never slept better in my often sleepless life. No stress, no internet, a pitch black room, and the tiniest sense of rocking movement? Yes please. We also arrived to the US without jetlag since we crossed timezones one by one, with several 25 hour days en route.

The median passenger age was 70, we were told, and all of us had to step up our maturity game a little. Indeed, many evening meals were black tie, and even the informal nights required jackets! Fortunately Jesse bought a used tux about a decade ago, and he managed to get that to France on his trip back to the U.S. last May. I bought used three-piece suits for the boys off of UK ebay. Look at those men of mine! Be still my heart!

In the dining room one evening, we decided that William may have been the first passenger ever to follow his starter of a beautiful, chilled, blueberry yogurt soup with....a hot dog.  :)  

It had been "pirate day" in the kids zone, and we decided to let him keep the face paint.

It was often really windy with crazy high seas. The first few days you could hardly even go out on deck given the gusts and cold. I suppose we were traveling across the North Atlantic...   But on board we could hardly feel movement, even when cutting through 15-foot crashing waves. The ship is an ocean liner, not a usual cruise boat, so I guess it was made for it!

The icing on the cake was slipping into New York harbor at dawn on Thursday, 30 August. We got up before 4:30 a.m. with hundreds of other passengers to watch from the decks as the ship made its daybreak journey into NYC.

Jim was ready and waiting when we got off. A joyful reunion! And back on US soil!  Wow. 

We began the drive home to Lancaster and the boys caught a few quick z's en route.

As we turned onto our street, Josiah and William weren't just excited, they were screaming (literally) with joy and recognition and emotions. 

Home...at...last...