Day 19: They All Fly Home!

They fly American from Paris.

"It's everything I expected and more," Katie said today clearly enchanted with Paris. 

I have to say, after all the saving and planning and drama, I can't image anything she could say that would have sounded any better. With those few words, I knew is was all worth it.

She saw the Mona Lisa and other artwork that captured her imagination. She and Mariah ended up having an adventure of their very own when they accidentally got separated from the group. A few minutes fantasy for two school girls on their own in Paris.

Katie's text at 11:35pm our time.

Awesome.

They head for the airport tomorrow morning. They have a long ride home in two shifts. Part one from Paris to Chicago and then a layover and part two Chicago to San Francisco. I can hardly wait! More when I see her. May time past swiftly and safely.

Here are a few interesting stats from their trip:

• To fly from San Francisco to Rome: it took 12:31 minutes (but really longer because of the bad weather and their emergency stop in Peoria).
• Once they made it "across the pond", they traveled 2454 KM or 1,525 miles by coach. That's about 25 hours of driving.
• They went to six countries: Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France and then they just drove through the corners of Lichtenstein and Germany.
• They stayed in nine different hotels (and four nights with their Italian families).
• They ate at least 57 meals that we did not have to prepare!
• The hottest day was 97 degrees in Vatican City and the coldest was 61 degrees in Salzburg, Austria.
• The flight home from Paris to San Francisco is about 12:40 minutes (with a five hour layover in Chicago).

American Airlines	041	Paris	Chicago	7/17/12    12:15:00 PM (Paris Time)	7/17/12    2:25:00 PM (Chicago Time)	8 hrs, 10mins
American Airlines	2427	Chicago	San Francisco	7/17/12    7:00:00 PM (Chicago Time)	7/17/12    9:30:00 PM (San Francisco Time)	4 hrs, 30mins

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People to People Itinerary: TUESDAY, JULY 17 Depart from Paris for the United States

• Say goodbye to Europe! Have a nice flight back home!

From Italy to Austria to Switzerland to France. Booyah!