Before 2 days ago, I had never been on a plane, or out of the country. At least, I think it's been 2 days. I'm a little turned around from the time change.
We had some difficulty finding the correct terminal at O'Hare, but once we found the right place, getting on the plane was fairly straight forward. Mom and Meg waited with me to check my bag, and then after some slightly damp goodbyes, I got in to the security line and disappeared in the the airport. I followed the signs to my platform, and checked in with the desk. They told me to sit and wait.
So I sat. And waited. And watched as they called up group after group of people to board the plane. Soon I was one of half a dozen people left waiting. They had overbooked the plane, and weren't sure where to put us. But they promised that it would all work out. It did, eventually. They had to bribe people with $1,000 rebates to switch flights, but eventually we all made it on. I was the last person to board, and had a bit of trouble finding space for my carry on, but it all worked out.
Takeoff felt a bit like a roller coaster, and then the flight settled in to feeling like a train. I slept through the whole flight, except for the part where they fed us. Airplane food is surprisingly good.
8 hours later, we disembarked in Heathrow, in London. This part was slightly more confusing. There weren't many signs that I saw, but I followed the crowds to get to a nice long line at the border. Here I experienced my first foreign anti-American sentiment. A man was very upset about the long line to get through the airport, and let loose a few loud curse words. A nearby parent explained to a child "that's the American response", leaving unsaid that "we don't behave that way here". Something to keep in mind. After getting my passport signed to say that I was allowed to be in England, I followed more signs to exit the terminal. Then I followed more signs to a shuttle bus, and on to another terminal.
I arrived at that terminal just in time for everything to close, and for most of the lights to turn off. I picked a spot on a bench to check for wifi (nope). Another girl sitting near me struck up a conversation. She was also an American student studying in Spain, although in the other direction from Madrid. We were on the same flight the next morning. I think she read all night; I spent the night dozing on the bench. I think I woke up every half hour, but still managed to get a solid 3 hours of sleep.
At around 4 the next morning we began to form a queue at the baggage check, to prepare for our 6:20 flight to Madrid. The baggage check opened a few minutes later with one lonely employee for a whole flight's worth of people. My new friend and I were near the front, and got through rather quickly. We also passed through security in no time, since there was no line, and no one behind us. We found our platform and sat for a half an hour, waiting for employees to arrive, and then another 20 minutes until they had us board the plane. Unlike the previous flight, we each had two seats to ourselves here. Not that it mattered much to me; I slept for the whole two hours.
We arrived in Madrid to a beautiful sun above the clouds, and a solid fog below. The plane couldn't land for a while because of the fog, and circled around in the air instead. Once we finally got off, we followed the crowds to get our passports stamped, and then had to take a shuttle bus to get luggage. The Madrid airport is bright and airy, with primary colors everywhere; but without my friend from the airport who had been there before, I never would have found the correct place. I had been worried about not being able to read signs in another language, but the problem is completely different when all the signs are pictures.
Once we collected our luggage, we took another shuttle bus ride to the next terminal where we were both meeting groups. I wandered around for a while before asking an employee for help. He directed me down a floor, where I found the spot where my group was to meet. There was a large group of students nearby, but they were with a different program. I was half an hour early, so I sat an waited. It made me really nervous that there wasn't anyone from my group there yet. Had I missed them? Where was everyone? My flight had been an hour late coming in because of the fog; had they left already? I had been off the plane for nearly two hours and still there was no sign of anyone. As it got closer to the meeting time I noticed a much smaller group of people my age waiting nearby, if you call two people a group. I asked them if they were another student group, and they were with AHA too! Relief!
Within 10 minutes of finding them, the director appeared and whisked us off to the bus. We settled in there to wait for more students to arrive. All the flights were being delayed because of the fog, so we ended up waiting on the bus for around 2 hours for everyone. By the time Marian returned with the final students, there were 7 of us on the bus, and we were all sleeping. Once the bus started moving I tried to stay awake, because my friend from the airport said that the scenery was beautiful But when have I ever managed to stay awake for anything? When I woke up it was to Marian telling us to hurry and line up to be introduced to our host families.
Our host families drove us to our homes, where they stuffed some food in to us and tossed us in to beds for a quick siesta before orientation.
I wouldn't say that I disliked flying. However, it's nice to be somewhere and not have to worry about getting to the next place on time for fear of being stranded. I'll be glad to let that worry go for a while!
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