3-2-1 Blast Off!!

Today is the day! A whole school year has led up to this day 
and when I woke up this morning it still didn't seem real! You can bet that I didn't get much sleep last night as the nerves and excitement kept me awake. "Did I pack everything I needed? What time do I need to set my alarm for again? Which bag did I pack my chargers in? I did pack my passport right?" These questions still circled even after verifying all of this with Mom and Dad earlier that evening. 7 o'clock came rolling around quite fast and it was time to get up and get going! The group met at 8 and took off in the minibus for Minneapolis. This was just the start to a long day of traveling! So while this post is titled "3-2-1 Blast Off" it's more like "1,000,000-999,999-999,998........ Blast Off!"
When we got to Minneapolis we got our boarding passes and checked our bag. This led to two giggly girls rearranging the items from their checked bag to their carryons when they were told their shared checked bag was only 2lbs too heavy! I'll leave it to your good guessing skills to figure out who those girls were ;) Made it through security and had a couple hours to kill, which obviously led to wandering around the airport looking at all the things to see in the Minneapolis airport. Erika convinced me to try Caribou Coffee for the first time in preparation for the long day of travel still ahead!




Once our small little plane made it to Chicago we got to go through security AGAIN!!! (I was just thrilled ;) ) With 4 hours to kill at our gate we walked around and stretched preparing for the big 11 hour doozy! Being my first experience doing international travel I pretty much looked like Dorothy from Kansas, taking it all in! This plane had two aisles, complimentary blankets and pillows, lots of food, and little TV's for entertainment. It was on this flight where it all began to sink in. When the pilots began announcing everything in Arabic it kind of hit me. Silly, I know, but the whole trip hadn't felt like I was actually going out of the country because the travel so far had all been in state. Luckily we flew overnight so I was able to sleep for most of the flight which made it go decently fast. 


Yummy yummy dinner that they served us at 11:30 at night


We're almost there!!! Flying over Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and headed to Amman! 


Finally, after feeling tired and gross from traveling for "two days" we made it off our short 45 minute flight from Amman to Tel Aviv! Now to go to bed and soak it all in tomorrow!! 

Good night all!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bethlehem: The Other Side

Image
Today was a difficult day with lots of information to absorb and hard material to think about and hear. But it was definitely a learning opportunity and such a great experience to hear from many different native people. When most people think about Bethlehem their thoughts immediately go to Jesus' birth and the Christmas story. While we did focus and sight see around that area, most of our time today we focused in on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. It's something that can be displayed one sided and growing up in the United States I realized I am very naive to the hardship that these people face on a daily basis. And to hear this conflict presented from real people rather than the media was a heart wrenching experience. So we woke up and went to Bethlehem which is about 5-10 minutes from Tantur where we are staying. Now to get into Palestine it requires a passport because it is a Palestinian region. Israel is currently in the process of building a wall around this whole...
Read more

Home Sweet Home: Reflections

I'm HOME!! Flying into Seattle I was absolutely giddy with excitement; to see family, friends, the mountains, and be back in my little nook of the PNW that I call home. The first few days I was running on pure adrenaline. Then jetlag kicked in as the week went on but I never felt it as bad as I thought I would. The hardest part of coming back wasn't the jetlag but adjusting back to the culture. It's hard to return back to normal after seeing some of the things that I saw in Israel. Seeing all the pain and hearing the stories of Israeli's and Palestinians who long for peace but just can't seem to get it. Having conversations with these people as they beg for us to not forget them in our prayers. And then going to places in the Holy Land that are recognized as places that our Savior could have walked! All of this happening in the same place: tension in a land that should be peaceful. And then returning to the United States, where I feel so removed from it all, and lif...
Read more

Belegan: Total Chaos

Image
We had a new tour guide today, Hannah, as we made our way back to Jerusalem! As I'm sure you've noticed, we tend to visit Jerusalem a lot and that's mostly because there's so much to see there. Monday we focused on the temple and the ancient history (Old Testament), Thursday we visited the Dome of the Rock and were on the Temple Mount, and today we focused on Jesus' life (mostly leading up to his death). It's Not About The Location, It's About Connecting With The Story One thing to remember throughout this blog post and when attending the Holy Land in general is to not get caught up in the logistics. Many holy sites act as memorials to recognize certain people or events. It can't be certain that these events happened directly in the spot that they are today. The guides have been doing a good job reminding us that this is so much more than the concrete images we see. Our faith has the opportunity to grow as we relate what we know in the Bible to diffe...
Read more