so here i am, sitting in an airplane somewhere over europe, listening to nevershoutnever and taking webcam pictures. i have a row to myself, im all spread out just enjoying the anticipation of being in croatia. im content right here.
but maybe i should start at the beginning.
here we go:
i woke up saturday morning with no feelings, no nothing. i slept great the night before, and well, nothing seemed real. it was ‘the day’. the day ive been counting down to, the day i try to imagine every spare minute that i have. here it was, and but yet it didnt feel like it. i got out of bed, i finished my last minute packing, i got ready, and before i knew it, i was in the car headed to dubois.
wait, dubois?
yes dubois. my luggage broke, remember? so my mom, my dad and i went to ross to pick up a new suitcase. i switched all my stuff into the new suitcase and off we went! when we arrived in state college i decided that i was going to have sheetz as my last meal in the us. i needed to have those wonderful delicious french fries one last time, and if you live somewhere with a sheetz you would understand.
so after we ate and i checked in at the airport my parents and i just kinda sat there for an hour saying goodbyes and whatnot.
then it was time for me to go. i cried, yeah, i did. but i dont think it was a “im so sad to leave” kind of crying, more just of a “im so stressed and overwhelmed and have no control of my emotions” kind of crying. although i was sad, i was way more excited.
the flight to DC was fast and boring. it took 40 minutes but it seriously felt like it took ten. when i got to DC i found out what gate my next flight was in and walked like seven miles to the other end of the airport to get there. after about an hour of waiting, the other exchange student who i was meeting there, emma, came! we sat there and waited for our flight to frankfurt. there was a “smoking room” at our gate, like a glass room where you can smoke. emma and i sat there and made fun of the people we saw go in. we went and bought some snacks then it was time to get in out flight. on my flight the seats went like window seat seat isle seat seat seat seat seat isle seat seat window. with my luck i figured id be sitting in the exact middle of the middle 5 seats. but! i got lucky and sat in an isle seat next to a window seat. however, unless im in a window seat i cannot sleep on planes. so there i was, miserable, tired, and oh yeah, my ipod was in the bag i put in the overhead bin so i didnt even have my music. it was going to be an awesome 8 hours flight, yeah?
so anyways i sat next to this man who didnt talk to me, didnt even acknowledge i was there unless he was asking to get out since he was in the window seat next to me. when he came back for the third time he finally said “i’m sorry. i asked my travel agent to get me a window seat.” to which i quickly said “OH! well do you wanna switch me, i like the window seat!” he hesitated and replied “yeah, i mean if you really dont mind”
trust me, i did not mind.
so we switched and i ended up sleeping for a few hours. it was wonderful. except my neck, yeah my neck was not to happy when i woke up.
hold on, were about to land in zagreb! ill finish this later!
oh hey.. IM HERE!
but back to where i left off..
so finally, finallllly we land in frankfurt. its 7:10 am there, but to me its only 1:10 am. emma and i walk into the airport from the plane and whats the first thing we see? gorgeous boys all with argentina soccer jerseys on. hellllo and welcome to europe. [: yes.
now its early in the morning, we have jet lag, were in a foreign country alone, were hungry and we have five and a half hours of nothing but anticipation until we get on the flight to zagreb. so what do we do? we do what any american would do of course, go to mcdonalds. we both got bagels with cream cheese and sat down to see if we could get free internet. we couldnt. i barely remember the rest of the five hours, other than we took funny webcam pictures, laughed at dumb things because we were so tired and delirious and i spilled the gummiworms everywhere, but we ate them anyways. when we were sitting at our gate we saw this man get in a huge fight with someone who worked at the airport. they were arguing because the mans carry on was to big, so he was going to have to leave it behind or not get on his flight. it ended with the man telling the worker to f off and they worker try to ban him from the flight or something. they were grabbing at eachother and swearing and making a big old scene. it was pretty funny.
then our flight was called! well, we thought so, but thankfully we asked a man standing in line to get on the plane and it was not going to zagreb. so we sat back down.
then our flight was called for real. and we were in the air on out way to croatia! :D (this is where i started this post, now i sitting on my bed.)
the view the whole way there was so beautiful.
i was a little nervous when we landed because i dont have my visa yet. so as im standing in line for what i thought was immigration or whatever i had no idea what i was going to have to do. turns out i handed the lady my passport she looked at it for like a minute, stamped it and handed it back and that was all. no forms to fill out, no nothing. i was good to go.
so i walk out to baggage claim and i see a mass of people standing on the other side of a glass wall waiting for people to arrive. then i see this beautiful woman with a huge smile and she waves at me and blows me a kiss, my host mother!
