This has been the longest travel day of my WR so far and the more exciting one J
APRIL 2nd:
*wake up at about 2:15am in Guatemala
*bags out front by 2:30am
*vans arrive to take our squad to the airport at 3amish
*sleep in the van once noticing that the driver is not a crazy one and is driving kinda slow. Arrive at the airport about 7:15am
*by 9am I have checked my bag (underweight with a team member’s tent!), had breakfast (granola, and Oreos – breakfast of champions), made it though all check points without a problem, and waited in a HOT terminal. No AC but plenty of fans – btw you can spot an American because they are the ones standing in front of the fan and talking into it b/c it makes their voices sounds funny.
*take off at 12:08pm.
*arrive in Miami at 4:25 local time
*go through customs in less than 5 minutes (no lie), waited for an hour or more for our bags because they had to be x-rayed again, had an awesome reunion with M Squad (felt like Training camp), bags finally arrived, power walked to the place where we had to drop off our bags (no running with those heavy things), made it though security, and most of the squad managed to get food before boarding our next flight. All by 6:30pm – all that in 2 hours!
*Arrive in NYC at about 9:35. Met up with my mom and other parents, waited for our bags – PTL not one bag was lost! – and head to a hotel with my mom, Andi, and Karilyn.
*11pm – Mom amused by our remarks of being back in America:
“Hola…wait you speak English?!”
“Carpet! AC and Heat! Hot water! Real Toilets! BED!!! Free hot breakfast?! Am I in heaven?”
APRIL 3rd:
*8:15am – free breakfast – Had lots of food because I could and because I hadn’t had those kinds in 3 months. Talked on a phone for the first time in 3 months also. Also insert more exclamations of the strangeness of being back in America. After breakfast off to see NYC! BTW people in NYC need to learn the concept of Feedback lol.
*Back at JFK at 7:25pm. Being back in America was nice but I was happy o rejoin everyone at the airport and get back to the WR. The crazy life of the WR is strangely comforting while my time in America I kept wondering what was going on and it felt so strange. So if that is how I felt after 3 months of being gone and I have 8 more months to go…
*check bags in at 8:40ish
*board flight at 10:45ish. Turkish Airway is NICE! Best flight I’ve been on yet! Though it was such a nice flight I couldn’t sleep so I watched 4 movies, talked to the Russian guy next to me, played card games, and somehow fell asleep while the plane was landing. I remember them saying that we needed to put our seats forward and all that jazz, then the next thing I know we are on the ground. Yay for 10-15 minutes of sleep!
*Arrived at Istanbul Turkey at 5 or 6pm local time. Made it though security no problem. Waited at one gate then discovered that our flight was changed to another. Made it to our new gate and I fell asleep for another 5 minutes waiting for our flight to board. One thing I am learning to do on the WR is how to fall asleep anytime and anywhere is seems.
*boarded our flight to Albania at 6 or 7 pm. As soon as I sat down in my seat I was out. Woke up when food was being served, then the next thing I know we have landed.
*arrived in Albania at some point in the night, sorry I was too tired to check the time…and apparently there was a time change from Turkey to Albania so my watch wouldn’t have been right anyway. It took no time to get though security for most of the squad. Only Daniel had a hard time. Apparently if you have a Mexican passport you have to get a special visa in advance to come to Albania. So after being deported from Albania back to Turkey, he had joined N squad for the month in Romania – Right where God wants him. O squad will see him in Bulgaria!
Our contact met O squad (we are together this month) at the airport and took us to our ministry site. The place is a camp in the summer and we are helping prepare the property for this year’s camp. The place where we are living has a 3 story house. The first two floors are just bedrooms and the top floor is the kitchen/hangout place. This month we get real beds! Hot showers! Toilets that flush! And we can flush toilet paper! Water that is safe to drink from the tap! We also have the best view in the world! Mountains, river, castle, sheep, pigs, cows, the town, and a beach nearby. The Lord is spoiling O Squad this month!
Anywho, after a brief introduction and figuring out rooming stuff, I hit the bed for the night at 1:30am on April 5th.
