Get on a bus for 23 minutes to the Bogota airport.
What will I have for my last meal in Colombia? Ice cream of course. I’m really gonna miss Crepes and Waffles.
Get on a plane for 5 hours and 57 minutes.
Hello USA! I’ve never been to Texas; too bad i didn’t have time to step out of the airport.
Me and Shannon get called through a special other door at security; guy yells at us for having both our bags on one cart, because “If one of you has drugs and the other doesn’t, y’all both be goin’ to jail!” Thanks for the tip; I’m so sure Shannon’s bag is loaded.
There is no Chick-fil-A in the Dallas airport, if you wondered.
But there is a Starbucks. First caramel frapuccino in four months.
Get on another plane for 2 hours and 52 minutes.
Hop off the plane at LAX!
Pick up my package from my angel of a mother; I’m now wearing my Toms and eating peanut butter AND I have a fresh pack of my favorite pens.
Me and Dooley camp out with F squad’s mountain of packs and make instant friends with the lady judging everybody’s carry-on bags. Within an hour of watching her we we’re confident we could do her job if necessary.
Starbucks is the only place to eat before security, so I have a white peppermint mocha because I can.
Me and Danielle venture to In ‘n Out burger; hijack a free shuttle to a parking garage next door, try to take the same shuttle back to the airport…driver quickly figures out we do not have a car parked there and kicks us out.
Thankfully taxis in LA are not as crazy as new York, so we didn’t have to walk back to the airport(which we started to try until we thought to ask about a cab).
Come back to sit by our mountain; security lady comes over and asks if we see Nick Jonas across the way. We look and see this super hot guy talking on the phone with sunglasses on, and we insist it can’t be him…until we look up pictures of him, find that awkward baby Jonas is now super hot Jonas and yes that is indeed him. We wait for him to get off the phone so we can go talk to him, until a guy in a suit comes and pulls him over FIVE FEET AWAY FROM US, walks right past snippy security lady and just says “He’s with me.” WHAT IS OUR LIFE.
Everyone finds their way back on time and makes it through security.
I hit up Starbucks for the third time because I’m just not ready to let go yet.
We get on another plane for 13 hours and 47 minutes. I’m in a row with the sweetest Filipino couple who offer me the window seat without my even asking for it. I SLEPT for the first travel day in my life! Not the whole time of course because there were so many free movies to watch, but 3 hours straight is a miracle for me.
This is the night that never endddddds…we live through 17 hours of darkness. Going back in time is effectively running from the sun.
Eat fish and scrambled eggs for breakfast; Philippine airlines has interesting choices.
Get off the plane around 3am local time…from now on I will always “remember remember the 5th of November” because of that one time that i skipped November 4th. I still don’t understand how the international date line works.
Because nothing makes me happier than a stamp in my passport, and because I’ve just been sitting for half a day and don’t feel like sitting for 7 more hours, me, Jake, Wes, Alicia, Amy, Shelby and Molly Bell peace out of the airport to go exploring. Possibly the best quote of the whole Race so far? “Bye guys, we’re going to the Philippines!”
I love Manila and am almost sad this isn’t where we’re spending our whole month.
Make it back with plenty of time to take a nap; if you know me and my dysfunctional extroversion and my inability to sleep when I have people around to talk to, this shows you just how tired I am when I can pass out for 2 hours on a bench in the middle of 44 of my friends.
I don’t understand jet lag; I have no idea what time it’s supposed to feel like. Give me a bed and I could sleep for 24 hours.
Get on a fourth and final plane and just over 3 hours later we’re in Japan.
All 45 of our bags make it here!
Customs takes like two minutes a person. Ironically, Japan is one of the safest countries in the world.
Japanese bathrooms are so fun; the toilet seats are heated, you can have it play music so no one can hear you peeing, and you flush it by waving your hand in front of a sensor on the wall. I felt like a Jedi and flushed it three times just for fun.
And WE CAN FLUSH OUR TOILET PAPER! Toto, I don’t think we’re in South America anymore…
Hop on a bus with Willem Defoe’s New Zealand doppelganger to head to our home for the next 2 days. I was looking out the window at all the water and city lights everywhere and thinking, “How is everyone else sleeping when there’s a whole new country to see?” But by the time we stopped I was jealous that they were capable of sleeping sitting up.
Even when we were told we had to be up for breakfast at 8am(no grace for jet lag in this culture), and dinner confirmed my fears that I’ll lose 20 pounds in Asia, I was still happier than I’ve been the entire race. Last month a few of my old teammates gave me prophetic words about this coming month, and one said that God was about to show me a joy like I’d never known before. I can already tell they were right.
The first four months were all about grieving, and learning that God can still use me in the middle of my brokenness, and letting people love me at my worst.
Now I’m finally getting off the floor. I feel like I was dead for four months and now I’ve finally come back to life.
