DAY ONE:May 17

***disclaimer: this was written on the 12 hour plane ride while undoubtedly very tired. please withhold any anxiety over bad grammar and/or poorly fo rmed sentences and enjoy***

Beebe to Memphis

I woke up thinking about not waking up in my bed for a while, not being able to walk into the kitchen and start a French press, or take a shower in my bathroom. Yes, these are the thoughts that I have. Totally normal. I made myself a large French press, and went about my morning getting ready to leave. Mom and Dad drove me to meet everyone in Memphis. On the way, Dad pulled up information on his phone about Zambia---what streets to NOT walk on, what weapons to stay away from, and etc. We stopped off at Walmart to obtain a few last minute things, and made our way to the Memphis airport.

Memphis to Chicago

Upon entering the airport, I saw a few of the girls going with us and some of their family members. Mom and I joined them while waiting on dad to park the car. Meanwhile, temporary(?) bonding occurred between various parental groups.  Once the rest of the crew arrived, we got in line to check in for leg one of the journey. When I got up to the counter and handed the checker my tickets, I noticed very quickly a slight change in his brow. UH OH, I thought. I knew something was wrong. He quickly told me that my tickets were not my tickets and that it appeared I had already checked in with two bags. He then told me they were Dr. Weaver’s.  She happened to still be close by, so she came to the counter to see what was going on. We told the guy we were together and he ended up just checking my bags under her name. It was crazy! After we got through security, it wasn’t long before we boarded the plane to Chicago.  We had to go outside and board the plane on a ramp as opposed to going through the tunnel thing (excuse my terrible noun-age). Feeling like a celebrity, I decided to wave off of it. I felt myself smug. After we boarded, we noticed that Dr. Weaver was walking up and down the aisle only to discover she had NO SEAT! At first we were thinking that maybe they booked us for the same seat, but apparently that was not the case. Pretty soon, the same checker I had encountered before was on the plane checking MY boarding pass! Soon after, they reminded everyone that the flight was going to Chicago, etc., etc. To wrap things up, they had overbooked the flight by one person and ended up kicking the last person to check in off the plane. So, about twenty minutes after we were supposed to take off, we were Chicago-bound. The flight was pretty uneventful with the exception of inside-joke stories involving Ben and his seatback pocket, not to mention the Skymall magazine exploration among Tessa, Cari, Ben, and myself.

Chicago to Dulles

Upon arriving in Chicago, Liz and I—as well as the rest of the group—were ready for some F O O D. We didn’t have a lot of time between our landing and our next departure. Liz and I hit up sandwich place and had wraps and three dollar water. Yep. Three dollars. Next time, I will carry my own instead of stowing it under the plane. Anyhow, soon after D E V O U R I N G my wrap, it was time to board. As I made my way onto the plane, I thought to myself “wow, this plane is super huge and super nice”, but soon I realized that I was walking through first-class. The next thing I know, I am still in a huge airplane, but the seats are closer together. Luckily, my seat was in the very back on the aisle in the middle. I found it to be pretty comfortable. Several minutes after boarding the plane, they announced they had to fix the weather radar on the plane before we took off. About an hour later, we were off to DC. When we got to DC, we gathered our bags and went on an adventure to find our hotel shuttles. Tessa, Ben, Cari, and I—sensing a trend here—embarked on that journey apart from the others. It was quite interesting. Eventually everyone met up with us outside, and we waited a while to be taken to our hotel. Tessa and I ended up on one by ourselves with a couple of other people and a lot of baggage (not of the emotional sort). I sat by a young woman from Burundi who immediately spoke to me and asked what we were up to. She seemed to be about my age, and was also working on a master’s degree. Her name means “Joy” in Swahili. I liked that. I found it very interesting to be in the same place as her almost. We are all more alike than we are different. When we got to the hotel, Cari and I got into our room and were totally impressed. It was F A B U L O U S. We went to sleep feeling good and very comfy in our giant beds, only dreaming of the adventure to come.

Stay tuned for Day TWO and the rest of the journey leading here :)