flying and lessons

Hello from Seattle!
God was looking out for me today. He made me wait, but things turned out okay.

First flight: Charlotte to Memphis. I’d forgotten how friendly people in the US actually are, after doing all my flying in Europe. People TALK to one another on plane rides?! This was kind of a foreign concept to me until today. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. So, this flight had little (to no) Air Conditioning. It was HOT, and it smelled kind of gross. It was weird too, because it was the smallest plane I’ve been on. Ryanair and Easyjet both had bigger planes than this, more space AND more seats. The aisle was just big enough for me, as were the four seats in each row (two on each side of the plane). We were almost delayed because one seat had a broken seatbelt! Talk about a crazy start to the day!

Memphis: an hour behind, an hour and a half layover. Well, about half an hour of that was walking from one gate (the furthest one in A) to another (near the end of B!). I’m exaggerating; it was probably only 10 minutes. I was focused. Well, by the time I got to my gate, I was tired from all that walking (at least it was cool. Yes Dad, I just said that!), so I didn’t want to go far to eat. Let’s see, around my gate there were two bars and a BBQ place; it wasn’t worth it to go anywhere. Suddenly, I noticed that my flight was showing up on the monitors, and it said something about clearing seats. I didn’t know what that meant, so I just continued reading my book. I noticed a lot of people going up to the counter, everyone actually who was on the flight. So, I did too. Turns out, they’d overbooked the flight by 5 people. Guess who was one of the five? Yep, me. They kept asking for volunteers, offering A LOT of stuff to anyone who could give up their seat and stay the night. After 30 minutes, the flight was boarding, and I did not have a seat. Naturally, I couldn’t help but start crying as I was next to the desk and other people were being helped and I was kind of being ignored. I didn’t know what to do, so I just prayed. Turns out that the people being helped were giving up their seats. I got the last seat on that plane. One woman ended up having to stay in Memphis. Stressful.

The plane ride was fine, I sat next to a mother and daughter who were with the dad and 2 sons, going to visit family and see the area. They were really nice, and the mother, father and daughter all looked familiar (I didn’t see the sons). The daughter had a pizza and after eating a slice, wanted to share her mothers salad. The mother and I had been talking (about Seattle, why I was going, why they were going, etc), and she offered me the rest of the pizza if I wanted it. God really does look after me! :) I just read on my Kindle most of that flight, looked out the window a lot and listened to music, and talked to the mother and daughter. Sometime during the flight, a flight attendant made an announcement asking if anyone was a doctor and could help, and I found out through the father that someone on the plane had gotten sick. When we got to the airport, they had paramedics get on and take the person off.

So, Seattle airport. I made it to the baggage claim just fine, one of the first to get there actually. And I waited, and waited, and waited. No more bags came. I asked someone and she directed me to the questions area. I showed her my slip and she looked it up. Turns out, my bag made a side trip! It was coming in. So, I waited some more, another flight came in, my bag wasn’t there. Finally, a third plane came in and I found my bag (about 30 minutes later!) My bag had made a pit stop in Atlanta instead of coming straight to Seattle from Memphis. Interesting.
Anyway, I got to the shuttle area and mine finally came. Two other people were on it, turns out that they’re on the cruise too! They left their 4-year-old with family though, haha. It’s nice to actually see someone else here that’s on the same ship as I am!

Okay, I’ve written enough for now.

Thank you all for the prayers, I really could feel them working today. Now I just need to review what God taught me through all this today! :)
Tomorrow's my first day of a real job! I've decided to call it professional camp counselor, haha! We all know how much I love camp and working at camp! And my job is generally the same idea: camp counselor, for less time of the day of course, but still it's the perfect job for me!