Bon voyage

In August 2007, my dear sister Gloria was off to spend her junior year of high school in Belgium, thanks to a wonderful student exchange program sponsored by Rotary International. I had spent my junior year in France through this program, and my other sister Claire had spent her junior year in Poland, so my parents had experience sending their daughters off -- not that it made things any easier on them!

My parents, my brother Joe, and I accompanied Gloria on her send-off. Here we are, waiting for the bus to take us to the train that will give us access to the terminal:
And, on the train:
We got there a bit early, so we had some time to kill. Her flight went to Brussels through Amsterdam.
We stopped in the food court and had some ice cream.
Then we had some nice conversation, our last in person with Gloria for quite some time!
So excited and happy to embark on an adventure!

Joe and Dad posed next to a few signs that were appropriate to them in some way:

We wanted to make sure that Gloria got through security and to her gate on time, so the time came for final goodbyes. Here are pictures of Gloria hugging all of the family members that came to see her off:


Gloria didn't want us to stand with her in the security line, so this was our last glimpse of her.
Of course, Mom and Dad had to wait until she was completely out of sight: We made it back too our car and pulled up to the window to pay for our parking.It's hard to see from this picture, but we were one minute into the next level of parking payments, so we had to pay an extra dollar. Had the parking lot been appropriately signed, we would have made it out in time. No one was too upset about this since it was only $1; we thought it was kind of funny!And then, one member short, we returned home.

Gloria had a wonderful time during her year, and Brian, Claire, and I went to visit her in May.