Saturday, March 26, 2016

What up USA?????!!!!!! As I write this, I am sitting on our final flight of the day at the Frankfurt Airport on the way to Addis. I’m sure many people have heard of our adventurous 26 hours so far, but if not, I’m gonna give a quick recap.

We woke up at around 3:30ish to leave from school to the airport in a bus driven by the wonderful Ms. McGlohon at 4:15am. When we got to the airport, checking in and security all that went very smoothly. Our flight was originally supposed to leave at like 6:30am, but because of some technical issue on the plane, we didn’t end up leaving till a little before 10. Our dear, dear friend Michelle at the Jet Blue ticketing desk promised us that since there were about 23 passengers on our flight to Boston making the same connection to Dubai, we would not miss our flight. Literally the minute we landed in Boston the flight attendants let us go ahead of everyone else to make our flight and before we even got off of the plane, the pilot goes “yeah well if you were trying to make the Emirates flight to Dubai, it already left. Sorry.” We were distraught to say the least. To make that situation even better, once we got off of the plane, we got to watch the flight we were supposed to be on take off! Yay. If they would have just waited literally 45 seconds, we could already be in Ethiopia. J I’m not bitter, I promise.

While the rest of us spent about 3 hours playing catchphrase at a gate, the shining star that is Ms. Turlington worked with our guardian angel, Amy (if you’re reading this Amy, we still owe you a song) to figure out how the heck to reroute us to get to Ethiopia without losing too much time. Also, quick shout out to Ms. Floyd who had to stay the night in Boston, connect to Dubai, and then meet us in Addis tomorrow. Hope you’re having fun! We’re all kind of annoying so you probably got the better deal out of the two.

Although it has taken us a lot longer than we originally hoped, it is pretty cool that we got to spend 6 hours in Germany. The Frankfurt airport is one of the cleanest airports I’ve ever been in, so way to go Germany. Another cool thing about the flight that we are on now is that we get to (more like have to, but I’m thinking on the bright side) touch down in Saudi Arabia, another country most of us have never been to. We’re also really lucky because wonderful, beautiful Amy managed to get our seats together on both flights which has been fun, except right now Jane and Allie are already bickering and we haven’t even taken off yet… oh well.

Here are some highlights from today (I actually have no idea what day it is/how many days have passed. Ruthie wished me happy easter like an hour ago which I know is wrong but I’m even more confused now)

-The TSA lady in Raleigh (jokingly) told Andy that she wasn’t allowed to take her giant container of animal crackers on the plane. I was almost positive she was going to take them and run, but luckily the lady told her she was kidding before Andy cried/committed a crime.

-On our Boston flight, most of us were paired with varying members of this one huge, annoying family with like 3 babies. Jane even got to sit next to Uncle Travis!

-Originally, when we thought we might have to stay the night in Boston, we thought about going on the Freedom trail (a joke). But don’t worry! While we we’re weaving through the corridors in the bowels of the airport to get to our new concourse, there was a mock Freedom Trail going through the sketchy hallways! So even with a change of plans, we didn’t have to miss out on the freedom trail. J

-For some reason, on the flight to Frankfurt, my Zzzquil didn’t kick in until about 20 minutes before we landed so I really don’t even remember traversing through the airport or going through security again. I now know how zombies feel and I feel like I can connect with them on a more spiritual level.

-Ms. Turlington got us all Kinder Eggs in the Frankfurt airport and we all got a little animal inside of it that are now our spirit animals for the rest of the trip.

·      I got a seal

·      Jane and MP got dinosaurs

·      I think Ruthie got an otter

·      that’s all I can remember, except Allie, who actually got a baby game instead of an animal and has made it VERY clear that she’s bitter about it

-Here is a quick apology to anyone we have come in contact with during any leg of this journey: I am sorry that we seem to be continuously singing Legally Blonde the Musical. We seriously cannot help it. (I’m also sorry for the people that get the words to the songs wrong. Cough cough, Andy, cough…)

-When we boarded our flight to Frankfurt, the flight attendant read Allie’s ticket wrong and told her to sit in business class. When I called her and told her that her seat was definitely in the back with the rest of us scum, we got the joy of watching her have to walk all the way to the back of the plane with a mini champagne glass filled with orange juice & gold specks in her hand that they gave her when she was a business class guest for a total of 4 minutes… lololololol.

Well, the guy sitting behind me keeps touching my leg and I’m getting annoyed so I’m gonna go…

It is now 10:45pm in Ethiopia and I still cannot tell you what day it is. The rest of our flight to Ethiopia went great. Almost everyone slept the entire flight to Saudi Arabia and once we landed, all but about 20 people got off of the plane so we could all have full rows to ourselves which was so nice. We had to stay on the plane for the hour while we were in Saudi Arabia so, while we didn’t get to step on Saudi Arabian air, we did go really close to the exit door when it was open, so we technically breathed the air. The second leg of the flight was actually really fun because were pretty much all awake and moving around from row to row and the flight attendants didn’t really care. We originally thought that it was going to take 5-6 hours to get to Ethiopia from Saudi Arabia, but it was only about 2.5 which was beautiful. Once we landed in Ethiopia, we got through customs and baggage claim in a record amount of time, and met Amy and Bini (our hosts from Cherokee) to load our stuff up and drive to the house. The house is really cute. We are split up into rooms of 4 and 6, with the room of 6 looking like a penthouse with roof access and a Jacuzzi. Tomorrow we are going to go to church and then an orphanage so everyone is showering/getting ready for bed right now. While I have never felt grosser, I am going to miss the airport/plane lifestyle that now feels like home to me. Just kidding. It’s probably my bed time (even though I’m pretty sure it’s the afternoon back at home) so this is the end of this blog post.

4 continents.

A small amount of days (maybe 2????).

Bye.

mkb

-       Mary Katharine Barker, ‘16