Today my day began at 2:00 AM (West Coast time) dragging myself out of my cozy bed in Vallejo, CA. After I got myself together, my mom and I made our way to El Cerrito High School where Don scheduled the Vanderbilt group to meet at for our bag check and ride to the airport. The time for the event was originally scheduled for 4:40 AM, but it was moved up by thirty minutes due to the BART strike. This caused me to come across a family of deer in front of the school. I had always thought it was a joke about deer roaming the El Cerrito campus late at night, but I guess all of the stories of deer chasing kids, who are picked up late are true.
After our early morning deer encounter my mom and I saw Don pulling up to the school so we had a discussion about the deer and how they sometimes roam the streets of Richmond, CA, too. After the thirty minute discussion, at around 3:40 AM the El Cerrito police cruised by slowly curious to what we were doing at their city's brand new school at this time of day. The police's curiosity led them to come check things out with us at the school, so the officer and Don had a twenty minute conversation. By the time the conversation ended it was about four in the morning and everyone had arrived.
The first thing we got done was some permission forms saying that our parents give full authority of their kids (us) to the ILC. Then we all discussed the items that Don would be loaning out to each person individually. Then the most important part, weighing of our luggage happened. We were all instructed not to go over our weight limit of forty-two pounds. Before the weighing began I had thought I had over packed, even though my scale at home said twenty-six pounds. After everyone weighed in at a good weight Don came over to my bag and lifted it (Not weighing it) with one hand and started to laugh, and said, " I don't really need to way this bag." Then he hooked it up to the scale and the scale read twenty-six pounds.
After we all weighed in, Don took some pictures of us. After about a half hour to a hour the shuttle bus came to carry us off from our parents to the San Francisco Airport. We all said our sad, tired good-byes then the shuttle took us off to the airport as we saw the waves drift to a far in the rear view window.
On the drive to the airport I couldn't help, but wonder what my first airplane ride would be like. I thought of numerous things to compare it to, but for some reason I kept the idea of a roller coaster in my mind. Probably because a roller coaster gives you that feeling of floating in your stomach. My mind wondering off into space was awaken by the fact that we had arrived at the airport. We all got out the car and were handed tickets from Mr. Mannix, that would be checked numerous times by airport security. I always thought it was a one and done check at airports, but I was mistaken. After checking in our luggage, we went through security and ended up in a gigantic lobby for passengers. I mean this lobby was so huge it could almost be considered a mall with all the restaurants and stores everywhere.
In the lobby we all ate bacon, eggs, and cheese breakfast sandwiches on an English muffin with home fries on the side. This breakfast combo from BJ's had my mouth watering like a sprinkler, because I was so hungry. I mean the cheddar cheese was perfectly melted on the scrambled egg with crunch bacon on top of a toasted, buttered English muffin. After breakfast and waiting for another flight to before ours, our flight was called, so we all looked at our tickets and Thomas noticed we were all spread out for our seating. So we thought it had to be the work of the ILC. Once we boarded the plane I realized that my seat 6F was a window seat which was great in my eyes, because I love to look out the window especially on something like a road trip.
When the plane took off I noticed that California had little to no green areas looking down, but we did have some gorgeous clouds that looked as soft as cotton candy. After dozing on and off for five minutes at a time over a period of six hours I realized our plane was getting to land already. Then when I looked out the window I noticed a big difference between California and Washington D.C, and it was the amount of green I saw. DC looked like a forest all the way around town.
We all got off the plane, grabbed our luggage and walked outside, waiting for our shuttle bus were greeted by some of the strangest weather. I would say it was 85 degrees outside, humid, foggy grey skies, and a chance of rain. I didn't know whether to put on shorts or put on a rain coat. As soon as the shuttle bus picked us up I started to notice that D.C is a older town when it comes to buildings, seeing that the majority of them are made of brick including Georgetown. After looking over my new environment we arrived at the Georgetown Holiday Inn. We were greeted with some free ice cream, checked in and made ourselves comfortable until 7:00 PM when we went out to dinner at a Chinese food restaurant.
Everyone got the food that they thought was most appetizing, I got orange chicken, that really wasn't orange or didn't really taste like orange. It kind of tasted like a generic sauce with orange peel that made it bitter. After everyone finished we all received fortune cookies and mine read, "It is now, and in this world, that we must live," and I felt this is the perfect fortune for the situation I am in, with me now going through a lot of first time experiences.
After our early morning deer encounter my mom and I saw Don pulling up to the school so we had a discussion about the deer and how they sometimes roam the streets of Richmond, CA, too. After the thirty minute discussion, at around 3:40 AM the El Cerrito police cruised by slowly curious to what we were doing at their city's brand new school at this time of day. The police's curiosity led them to come check things out with us at the school, so the officer and Don had a twenty minute conversation. By the time the conversation ended it was about four in the morning and everyone had arrived.
The first thing we got done was some permission forms saying that our parents give full authority of their kids (us) to the ILC. Then we all discussed the items that Don would be loaning out to each person individually. Then the most important part, weighing of our luggage happened. We were all instructed not to go over our weight limit of forty-two pounds. Before the weighing began I had thought I had over packed, even though my scale at home said twenty-six pounds. After everyone weighed in at a good weight Don came over to my bag and lifted it (Not weighing it) with one hand and started to laugh, and said, " I don't really need to way this bag." Then he hooked it up to the scale and the scale read twenty-six pounds.
After we all weighed in, Don took some pictures of us. After about a half hour to a hour the shuttle bus came to carry us off from our parents to the San Francisco Airport. We all said our sad, tired good-byes then the shuttle took us off to the airport as we saw the waves drift to a far in the rear view window.
On the drive to the airport I couldn't help, but wonder what my first airplane ride would be like. I thought of numerous things to compare it to, but for some reason I kept the idea of a roller coaster in my mind. Probably because a roller coaster gives you that feeling of floating in your stomach. My mind wondering off into space was awaken by the fact that we had arrived at the airport. We all got out the car and were handed tickets from Mr. Mannix, that would be checked numerous times by airport security. I always thought it was a one and done check at airports, but I was mistaken. After checking in our luggage, we went through security and ended up in a gigantic lobby for passengers. I mean this lobby was so huge it could almost be considered a mall with all the restaurants and stores everywhere.
In the lobby we all ate bacon, eggs, and cheese breakfast sandwiches on an English muffin with home fries on the side. This breakfast combo from BJ's had my mouth watering like a sprinkler, because I was so hungry. I mean the cheddar cheese was perfectly melted on the scrambled egg with crunch bacon on top of a toasted, buttered English muffin. After breakfast and waiting for another flight to before ours, our flight was called, so we all looked at our tickets and Thomas noticed we were all spread out for our seating. So we thought it had to be the work of the ILC. Once we boarded the plane I realized that my seat 6F was a window seat which was great in my eyes, because I love to look out the window especially on something like a road trip.
When the plane took off I noticed that California had little to no green areas looking down, but we did have some gorgeous clouds that looked as soft as cotton candy. After dozing on and off for five minutes at a time over a period of six hours I realized our plane was getting to land already. Then when I looked out the window I noticed a big difference between California and Washington D.C, and it was the amount of green I saw. DC looked like a forest all the way around town.
We all got off the plane, grabbed our luggage and walked outside, waiting for our shuttle bus were greeted by some of the strangest weather. I would say it was 85 degrees outside, humid, foggy grey skies, and a chance of rain. I didn't know whether to put on shorts or put on a rain coat. As soon as the shuttle bus picked us up I started to notice that D.C is a older town when it comes to buildings, seeing that the majority of them are made of brick including Georgetown. After looking over my new environment we arrived at the Georgetown Holiday Inn. We were greeted with some free ice cream, checked in and made ourselves comfortable until 7:00 PM when we went out to dinner at a Chinese food restaurant.
Everyone got the food that they thought was most appetizing, I got orange chicken, that really wasn't orange or didn't really taste like orange. It kind of tasted like a generic sauce with orange peel that made it bitter. After everyone finished we all received fortune cookies and mine read, "It is now, and in this world, that we must live," and I felt this is the perfect fortune for the situation I am in, with me now going through a lot of first time experiences.
You’ve got me curious about just what was in that orange chicken dish you ordered. Maybe it’s because I’m starving to death right now but even the way you described it I wouldn’t mind sitting down in front of a plate of it.
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