I Made It Across the Pond!

What a marathon!

I woke up at 5:30 am eastern time, finished packing and left my house at 6:30 am. I then drove two hours to Nashville to make it to the airport by 8 am central time (9 am eastern).

Once I parked, shuttled and hustled into the airport...I couldn't find the correct CCSA group. The Facebook group about this trip posted a couple days ago, asked Nashville travelers to meet my a poinsettia tree at the Delta entrance at 8 am central. When I found the group by the tree and went to check in, I wasn't on their list. The coordinator called someone to figure it out and proceeded to tell me I was in a different group...long story short I found that group and checked in. Once I checked in with them, checked my bag, went through TSA, I then grabbed a seat at my gate and waited about two hours.

My Nashville flight left around 11 am central time (noon eastern time) and about two hours later I touched down in Houston, Texas (around 1:30 pm central time). We got off the flight and my travel group mobbed over to the international terminal. On the way there I spotted my roommate Amelia, and friend Erin and popped up behind them. We proceeded to move down to our terminal, grab some food, neck-pillows and foreign currency.

A long, long, long wait later (about 4:30 pm) we finally got on the huge international plane. We walked through a very fancy first class, then business class...then us. I was a couple rows from the back of this huge plane at the window seat! Next to me was a lady coming on the trip as a student with us, and next to her was one of the professors on the trip.

I will save y'all the lovely details of the extremely long, very uncomfortable flight, but I managed about an hour or so of sleep. I watched Wonder Woman for the first time, had some "great" plane food, read, and tried to sleep for the duration of the flight.

Once we landed at about 6:30 am London time, about 12:30 am eastern time, we were off again. We jetted through the first part of the airport until...Customs.

I have never been more tired, irritated and claustrophobic in my life. This line for customs was depressingly long. The line was SO long that it took us THREE HOURS to get to the lady that stamped my passport and handed it back in less than a minute.

Once we passed through that gate of hell...we got our checked bags, moved out to the buses, and rode another hour to the hotel. Once we finally arrived at the hotel, we waited in line for our keys, waited on the lifts and finally found my room.

We had a few hours to break before we had to do anything, but were heavily advised to not sleep to try and get on the right time schedule. Amelia and I couldn't do it. She started a nap as I took a shower (in the dark because the lights in the bathroom wouldn't turn on) and then I started my hour and a half nap as well. We then forced ourselves awake, got dressed, grabbed a bite at the coffee shop across the street, went to the convenience store called "Boots" to grab some things and came back.

Next on the docket was an hour CCSA orientation, followed by an hour class orientation and then dinner. We did a quick social media post for homework...and now ladies and gentlemen..

GOODNIGHT!

P.S. Here is the post!