On September 12th, my squad and I departed the Hilton Atlanta Airport around 6:50 am to begin our first travel day! Now, please note that “travel day” is more of a concept rather than an actual “day” considering it could actually last about 3 days. Our first flight departed from Atlanta around 11:00 am the morning of the 12th. We landed in New York at 1:00 pm and settled in for a 12 HOUR LAYOVER!! Dear future racers, please take the airport simulation at training camp seriously – it’s no joke. After a lovely 12 hours of naps, exploring, and celebrity encounters in New York, we boarded our plane and departed at 1:45 am for a 14 hour and 10 minute (yes those extra 10 minutes are important) to Shanghai, China. We arrived in China around 4:00 am – yikes. As we prepared for a 5 hour layover in Shanghai, one of my teammates realized she had misplaced her passport. After frantically searching bags to try to find the passport, she came to the conclusion that it had fallen out of her pocket while she was exiting the plane – DUN DUN DUN. No worries though! She was only separated from our group for a couple hours before they were able to find the passport and send her back our way (praise the Lord!). After our 5 hours in Shanghai we boarded a plane to Bangkok. I am currently sitting in the airport in Bangkok, where we will have on more layover before we head to Chiang Mai! Although travel day has been exiting and quite an adventure, Im definitely excited to be settled somewhere.
Things I have learned from these past two days:
– Starbucks is SO much better in China than in the states.
– Water is expensive in airports.
– You may or may not want to know what exactly it is that they feed you on Asian airlines – I had some wonky stuff, not gonna lie.
– China is very beautiful to fly over.
– Thai airports are way more exciting that American airports
