Je suis de retour.

Warning: This is a post to satisfy my own memory.  It is very drab and dull but it might make the next post more satisfying.

I had the opportunity this last week to meet Clark's boat in port in the south of France.  With the exception of a weekend in San Diego years ago, this was the first real port call that I have been able to meet him in and really spend some time together during a deployment.  I never would have been able to do it without the help of my mother in law who has come to the sanity-rescue multiple times during this deployment.  She graciously accepted and spent a week caring for my house and kids, cooking, cleaning, breaking up fights and keeping them all entertained and loved.  She is an absolute angel for allowing me the opportunity to see Clark for a much needed bucket fill.

I have tried three times now to write this next bit about my trip.  I had such an incredible week with Clark but the trip there was so filled with stress and worry that I can't bring myself to have both experiences in the same post.  So I'm afraid that I have to document the nitty gritty before getting to the amazing and wonderful.  The nitty gritty is not only less fun, it has fewer pictures.  But I promise to have the amazing and wonderful very soon.  So if you so desire, just wait for the next installment.  You'll know it's here when you see pictures of the Eiffel Tower and chocolate crepes.  Also, there will be someone very handsome in the pictures.

I left Thursday afternoon from Hartford.  I was supposed to meet up in Chicago with two other wives from the boat and from there we were flying to Paris and then taking a four hour train ride to the port town.  I sat in the Hartford airport watching the dark clouds roll in and anxiously watching my flight delay by 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, 2 hours....I missed my connecting flight in Chicago by 10 minutes.  So I had to wait in Chicago.  Then they rerouted me through London where I had a three hour layover.  I listened to a girl empty the contents of her stomach in the Heathrow airport.  Good times.

I window shopped at Harrods and all but memorized the contents of all the duty free shops in the airport.  I could also tell you where all the "lifts" are.  I made it to Paris only to discover a tragic "lack of luggage" and I had missed another train. They assured me that my suitcase was on the next flight from London arriving in 30 minutes.  It was not.  So I missed another train and tried not to cry as they told me I would have it by Monday (three days away.) Then I ran to make the last train to my location.  The girls I was supposed to travel with had somehow convinced the train ticket office to set my original (and already paid for ticket) aside and transfer it to another ride.  They had not.  And I'm pretty sure I got laughed at for asking for the manager who had supposedly been the one to do that.  So I bought another ticket that took me to Marsailles where I would catch a bus at midnight and arrive in Toulon at 1am.  I was less than thrilled but bought (another) ticket and went to wait on the platform.  While waiting for my train I heard from Clark for the first time.  When he heard my travel arrangement (and the desperation/frustration in my lumpy throat) he ordered me to stay put, that he was coming to me.  I took myself to the hotel airport where I checked in as quickly as humanly possible, got to my room and tried to cry the day out of my system.  I did and moved on.  Clark was still hours and hours away.  Most of my day had been anxious...anxiously watching as I missed my first connection, and my trains, and my luggage...
and now I was waiting anxiously for my husband to somehow make his way to me, five hours away in the middle of the night.
I was very stinky after much traveling.
I had no change of clothes, or make up, or hair product.
I had only one bar of battery left on my phone which I was saving because it was the only way for Clark to get a hold of me.
Naturally I couldn't operate the phone/international dialing in the hotel room so I exhausted the hotel concierge by making him connect me to the Toulon hotel to cancel our reservations for the next couple of nights, several calls to British Airways to tell them where I was and locate my luggage, and AT&T to reactivate Clark's cell phone so he could call me.  Then I showered and washed all my clothes with the hotel shampoo in the bathtub...I may have had to use the blow dryer to expidite the drying process.  Luckily the hotel was fancy and comfortable and had a bathrobe.
By this time is was well after midnight, I hadn't heard from Clark, I didn't know where he was or how he was getting there.
I couldn't sleep.
I had been up for almost 24 hours.
I couldn't remember the last thing I had eaten.
I was worried about him and anxious about him traveling, and obviously overly excited to see him.
So I waited and waited and waited.
And finally at 3am I got a call from  him that he was downstairs in the train station.  I was so excited I was nearly shaking as I put back on my now fresher smelling but still slightly damp clothes and walked/ran to the elevator to see my husband.  I can't explain the butterflies in my stomach when I saw him through the hotel doors.  And when I got the door open and flew into his arms I may have just burst into tears a little bit.  I was relieved he was there, and we were together, and I was exhausted and so happy all at the same time.  Besides having to put that outfit back on the next day, the same outfit that I had worn for nearly 48 hours, and wear it our entire first day in Paris, it was amazing and surreal to be with Clark again.  His story of making it to Paris was amazing...it started with missing the last train in Toulon, paying 150 euros for a 60 minute taxi ride in 45 minutes (thank you Kiki the taxi driver!) to make the last train out of Marseilles, subways, a midnight bus and another taxi.  For every plane and train that I had missed that day, he had miraculously made one connection after another.  It may have been quite the feat for him to get there, but he made it.  And our week began.

So very soon I will write about the happy happy of it all....and the incredible things that I got to see and do...and there will be pictures and it will be happy.