My journey started Friday September 5th at 7:30 am when my parents and I drove to Albuquerque so I could make it for my flight at 1:30 pm (had to make sure I was there a few hours early). It was hard to say goodbye for the next four months. It was even harder realizing, once I sat down at my gate, I had just said goodbye to everyone and everything I was familiar with for the next four months. Everything would change and be different.
The first flight was from Albuquerque to Denver and it wasn't very long, about an hour and a half, I had an older woman in the seat next to me who was a teacher and wanted to know all about the program and what I was doing. She was very nice and helped calm some anxieties I was feeling about flying.
After I got off of the first flight I went and found my way to my next gate, sat down and called my Gammy to talk to her before I left the country. We apparently talked through my whole layover because by the time I was off the phone we were boarding for my 5:30 pm flight out. From Denver to Frankfurt was about 9 1/2 hours long and was a really fun experience. The plane had two levels and each side had 3 seats and the middle column had 4 seats. There was a pillow, headphones and a blanket in the seat when we boarded. I was not only lucky enough to have an aisle seat but the flight was actually pretty empty, there was one other person in my row and he was on the other aisle so we had two seats of empty space, which made stretching and everything else much easier.
One of the first things I did was get a tomato juice because my dad said once upon a time a doctor he met on a flight told him it immediately ups your immune system and keeps you from getting sick, so that's what he does every time he flies and he has yet to get sick when he does that. So, even though tomato juice is gross, I ordered it and drank it and washed it down with our weird pretzel and cracker snack.
We were also fed 2 meals during that flight, which made me feel fancy and rich.
Dinner was some pasta dish, bread, salad and some sort of coffee flavored dessert.
Breakfast was an egg omelet, fruit and a roll.
Even though my flight took place "overnight" I decided to stay awake during the flight so I wouldn't have a hard time sleeping when I got to St. Petersburg. Most of the time during that flight I was watching movies because they had an awesome selection of Marvel movies: Captain America 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and X-Men Days of Futures Past. I also kept busy with a word search I had bought in Albuquerque.
I got into Frankfurt about 11 am their time which was about 3 am back home. Let me just say this, Frankfurt's airport was super confusing for me to navigate. There were signs every where, but it's set up really strange. I walked forever and had to go downstairs and then upstairs and tote my suitcase up 6 flights of stairs. Plus it's more humid in Germany than back home. But I made it to my terminal and then I had to wait to see which gate I would be leaving from because they still didn't have a gate on the scrolling board. I asked someone and he told me the gate even though it wasn't on the board, I was glad because then I could just sit and wait for the rest of the time. I was exhausted by this point and I still had a 3 hour flight till I got to St. Petersburg. We had to get on a bus and walk up to the plane from there, I had a window seat, which is nice to be able to see, but it's no good if you need to get up. Luckily I was a zombie and so I just zombie word searched and stared out the window till food came and then did the same after the food was gone.
Water for days and then BAM land
St. Peterburg
Once I finally got to St. Petersburg it was about 6:30 pm which is 8:30 am back home. I stood for what seemed like an hour in line at passport control, but I finally got through that and then went to find my suitcases, I found them quickly and mentally prepared myself for customs checks but the girl just waived me by and I didn't even have to stop or anything.
Then I met up with the head teacher Jess and we came back to the apartment and I met some of the other volunteers I'm living with, I actually stayed up for quite awhile despite feeling like a zombie, I think I ended up crashing around 10 pm (here) which means I was up for over 30 hours during the whole journey. But I made it and I'm here finally!
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