Sadly,
today was the day that we had to leave Washington, DC. As sad as I was, I felt
pretty pumped up for my first day at Vanderbilt. Last night before I wrote my
nightly blog, I had already packed. I was nervous about the weight of my things
and I was sure it was too heavy. But I did the best I could to make sure the
checked baggage is as light as possible. We arrived at the airport at around 9
AM, since our flight is scheduled for 11 AM. As we attempted to check in our
things Mr. Mannix found out that our flight was delayed. Since it was a
connected flight, it wouldn’t make it and we may have ended up stranded. So
they booked us a new flight that was a direct flight.
So
the new flight was at the most horrible time: 3:24 PM. That was the time that
we were supposed to arrive at Vanderbilt, so we had to call in late. We then
decided to go for breakfast since obviously we weren’t going to be in any rush.
After breakfast we went to our waiting area and claimed some territories. I took
a little nap since I was up pretty late with packing and blogging. Spending
five hours at an airport is really something that you do not want to ever have
to do. If I weren’t napping then I would have been ripping my hair out.
When
our flight was announced we were more than ready to get out of there. Once we
were in the plane all ready to go, the crewmember said that we had to go back
since there was at least one hour of weather delay. We made the best of the
situation and gathered to have lunch. We had lunch and chilled for a bit before
our flight was ready for us again. Of course we weren’t in the all clear yet so
we had to wait some more on the plane.
We
finally took off at 7:30 PM. So all in all, we were stuck at the airport for a
total of ten and a half hours. Another ILC cohort with a record of 25 hours has only
beaten this number. Let's try our best to not break it for all soon to be
traveling ILCers. The only good that came from all this was that we got to ride
in a jet rather than a regular plane. It carried around 40 people. And I got to
walk out near the runway, which is pretty awesome.
We
got to Vanderbilt at almost 11:00 PM. It had been a long day and everyone,
including Mr. Mannix, was close to hitting rock bottom. I was disappointed
because I wanted to get to VSA on time and meet everyone. Our proctor group was
meeting when I got there and I joined in. I didn’t know some of the stuff they
were talking about because it was from earlier. I meet my roommate Anni, who is
from Arizona. We talked for a bit before going to sleep. I so nervous about
tomorrow because I wasn’t here for all of today.
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| Goodbye Photo |
You had this wonderful opportunity, Loan, to explore Reagan International Airport and you all chose to eat and sleep instead. What a wasted opportunity.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I can write this knowing that you’re 2,302 miles away and you won’t be back home to smack me one for another several weeks. :-)
I feel so bad for you all having to while away your time at an airport and also for missing out on the orientations you all had anticipated at Vanderbilt. That sucks on so many different levels.
I worry, Loan, that by the time you’re ready to leave for the plane trip home, that your luggage is going to be seriously overweight. You had a major problem at ECHS and you’re going to have so much more to bring home. You’ll have souvenirs, books, a hoody and maybe even some bedding.
On the bright side, though, you’ll have some great stories to write about as you decide what ti leave behind, how many clothing items you can wear on the plane and how full you’re backpack can be before the zipper splits. Take lots of photos. :-)
It actually went down by one pound!
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