Europe Trip -The Beginning

 We just returned for 10 days in Europe and are still in the grip of jetlag. It was amazing though! Totally worth it! It might take awhile, but I'll be working on posting about our travels here on my blog in the coming days. 

A little back story- we were planning to go to Israel in connection with this trip, but that got canceled. A terrorist attack the day before we left put the kibosh on that portion of the trip. I could still shed a few tears over my loss- I was so excited about visiting the Garden Tomb on my birthday! ...but God is good that we're not stuck in Israel right now.

A back story to the back story- so it has been my dream to travel to the Holy Lands for as long as I can remember. I just think it would be amazing to walk where Jesus walked and have Bible locations come alive. Ultimately I was hoping to travel with some of our Hillcrest friends or family, but that was not working out. I finally decided if we keep waiting around on others to go with us, it may never happen. So back in February, we made the decision to book the trip with Troyer Tours (both sets of parents went to Israel with them in the past) without any friends or siblings as our travel companions. If you know us, you know that's a stretch for me to make friends with a big group of strangers; Richard not so much.    

And originally we booked the Israel tour only. Anabaptist History in Europe didn't really appeal to us that much. (Oh my, in hindsight that was just our ignorance showing!) At some point though, we discovered we were the only couple in the tour group that was not going to Europe. Right away we realized that's a problem; everyone will be bonded and then we fly in and try to join them like a 5th wheel. How awkward would that be?! Richard right away said we need to go to Europe, too. Literally everyone [that knew about it] told us we won't regret it. 

So I've been researching and preparing for months. To start with, I looked into my ancestry and what tour locations would be close to where my people came from, but I still had 0 interest in going to places where the Amish originated from. Until it dawned on me that Richard has Amish background, even if I don't. So I had fun researching his ancestors, too. Glad I did! More on that later. 

Sunday, October 8 was departure day! We had special meetings at church that we didn't want to miss Sunday morning, so we booked a late afternoon flight to Chicago. The plan was to get a good night's sleep in Chicago before we headed across the ocean, since the time difference meant we were flying overnight and arriving in Zurich Switzerland in the morning with a full day of touring on the docket. A. I do not sleep on airplanes. And B. I get nauseous when I'm overly tired. A 'red eye' Monday morning would not have been a good idea. So anyway, Israel had just declared war and we left home not knowing if we were going to Israel or not. Did we need all this luggage or not? If we go, will we be safe? A weird balance between hope vs mentally preparing to return home in a week. When we sang this song at church Sunday morning, I had to fight tears on verse 3 -Within thy circling power I stand, on every side I find Thy hand. Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God.  God's got this! 

Jeremy drove us to the airport. Chicago, here we come! 

(We're smiling, but inside I'm resenting the dude that stole my window seat. 😞 Out of spite, we waited extra long to deplane, keeping him blocked in that stolen seat.) 😆

At baggage claim, we got 1 checked bag but the 2nd didn't show up. We went to Lost Baggage, where the fella scanned our receipt then went out back somewhere and returned with our missing suitcase. PTL. Next we found our way outside to the hotel shuttles. Right away we bumped into another couple from our tour group. Chicago traffic was crazy but we eventually made it to our hotel and got our good night of sleep. 

Monday, October 10- We ate breakfast at the hotel, then shuttled back to the airport. As soon as we walked into the terminal, there was our tour group! Time to match 44 names from a sheet of paper to faces. Richard immediately started playing the "Mennonite game" and finding all kinds of connections with people. I believe we hailed from 12 states and 1 province. 

We had 2 hours at the gate to get acquainted

before boarding this plane.

Good-bye USA! 

International flights always include extra goodies like pillows & blankets, and hot meals 

(this roast beef exceeded our expectations. And Tillamook cheese 👏)

And this one had Swiss chocolate, too. I'm here for that! 

Thanks to my SIL's recommendation of an inflatable pillow, I was able to rest even if I didn't actually sleep. I don't know that anyone slept -our bodies were saying it's not night time yet, even though we flew into the sunset/dark. At 11pm Chicago time, we were served breakfast but it didn't exactly trick our brains into believing it was 5am. 

Maybe it was the motion sickness patches, or maybe it was the inflatable pillow, but I felt a lot better and the 8.5 hours in the air went faster than our trip to Africa in 2016. Thank you, Jesus. 

To be continued...