At a horrifying hour, we arise and stumble downstairs to get our shuttle van. The elevator is still tiny. Katie barely fits inside with our two bags. We're sad to be leaving.
The van ride is about 40 minutes long. We drive through a France that doesn’t match the France we’ve been experiencing at all. Instead of rolling green hills dotted with old shacks, now we’re on a dirty highway passing industrial parks and public housing skyscrapers. Maybe these are the neighborhoods that rioted last summer. Crappy cars drive in the next lane. There are no classic stone buildings here, no proud monuments to military triumphs. Just the grind of normal, everyday life. Here’s what we all have in common. Nobody wants to live here. We all want to live in Paris, emotionally and physically.
Our bags manage to get through the Iceland baggage people without having to move much into the carry-ons to get the weight down. On board, we watch TV on screens mounted on the backs of the seats in front of us. You can choose what you want to watch, but it costs. One movie is about $12. We watched THE BUCKET LIST. It’s not great but it’s not as horrible as Jordan expected. Jack Nicholson remains a mystery. He’s a ham who rarely shows truth in his work. Why is he such an icon?
Iceland’s the same as when we left it… Ikea in the wastes. Somehow Jordan lost his boarding pass for the Iceland-to-Boston flight, so they printed us a new one.On the way to Boston, we finally watched our iTunes copy of THE OTHER BOYLEAN GIRL on the laptop. Not a bad movie, but crowding around a laptop screen is not as comfy as sitting on the couch back home watching a big HD screen. Nonetheless, it helps the flight go by faster. Afterwards, Jordan watched a bunch of SIMPSONS episodes on the seatback TV Finally we arrive back home. We clear customs with no problem. We’re back in the USA. The airport signs are in English. The cops have Boston accents. It’s good. For a brief while, we have energy and are considering a trip into the North End for an authentic Italian dinner, but once we realize we have to be on the hotel shuttle van at 4 AM, we resolve to eat dinner at the hotel bar as fast as possible and get to sleep immediately thereafter.
This is us the next morning, having the perfect breakfast. There is no better note on which to end our honeymoon.
