Home Sweet Home

I made it all the way home. The adventure of getting back to Billings is quite elaborate. On Friday, I went to the Larnaca airport to attempt to either change my tickets or to see about the chartered flights offered by the State Department. Changing my ticket would have required staying in Cyprus over the weekend, and as hotels were full and more evacuees were pouring in, I decided to take my chances with the State Department. I tried calling them from the airport, but they informed me that they still had not determined where the planes were going to be taking off from. This was at 8 am. After calling two more times, the Embassy told me to go to Pafos, a two-hour taxi ride away from Larnaca. By this time I didn't care how far away it was or how much money the taxi cost (about $100), I only felt relieved to have a definite route out of Cyprus.

I arrived at the Pafos airport a little before noon, and began waiting in line to get on the planes. They had arranged 4 flights out of Cyprus, and told us numerous times that there was enough room for everyone to get out that day. Regardless, several fights broke out in line between grown men and women because someone "cut the line". Did I also mention that most of the people in line had bags from the duty free shop on the cruise ship they sailed on from Beirut to Cyprus? When I saw that these people were able to shop on board a passenger ship, I actually brokedown. Here are a few pictures from the ship I was on:

The women in line with me were very nice, and we chatted quite a bit, talking about everything from our experiences getting out of Lebanon (they had waited in front of the Embassy for 11 hours one day, and then had to return the next day to be helicoptered out) to how disgusted we were at the people fighting in line. They were travelling with small children, something I cannot image doing under these circumstances. I was tired and crabby, but I only had myself to worry about and not an entire family. Here's a picture from the Pafos airport:
After making it through the line and checking my bag, I waited a little over an hour to board the plane to Baltimore. Boarding the plane was another mess: the assigned us seats, but used a seating arrangement different from the actual plane. This means that all those great people who had previously getten into fist fights in front of their children started screaming at each other and at the flight attendants (I was just happy there were flight attendants!) because their families were sitting separately. I gave up my seat and moved further back in the plane to alleviate some of the problems. However, because of the seat confusion, the plane was late leaving Cyprus. We stopped in Rome to refuel and to change crews, and were informed that we were no longer going to Baltimore, but rather were heading to Philadelpia. We could not get off the plane in Rome as they were trying to get us out of there as quickly as possible, which I would have appreciated had I not wanted to call my family and tell them that the cousins who were going to meet me in Baltimore should not go there!

Eight and a half hours later we arrived in Philadelphia. The Red Cross had set up an area where we could use the telephone, arrange for hotels and onward travel, see doctors and nurses, and eat better food than what had been available in Cyprus. After arranging for flights home to Billings, I went to my hotel and was in bed by 4:30 am. My flight for Denver was scheduled to leave at 6 pm on Saturday, but we departed three hours late due to bad weather and a shortage of ground crew. Consequently, I missed my onward flight from Denver to Billings and had to wait until the next morning to fly to Billings. Fortunately, I was able to get a hold of my parents before they got to the airport and managed to cry over the phone one more time. Sunday morning my flight to Billings was blessedly uneventful, and I am now at my parents house trying to decide on my next move. This is not an easy decision for me. I've come out of this with a different world view and I am having a hard time picturing myself going back to the same routine that I had been in before I left. I probably just need some time to adjust and to fully come to terms with what just happened - it only really started to hit me when I was in Philly watching the news - but I really wonder if something hasn't changed permanently.