Travel Days.

Yes days, the plural. We left North Carolina at 1045. Got to the airport a couple hours early- traveling the Monday after Thanksgiving, was crowded but not that bad. Only a few tears were shed as I said goodbye to mom, which I should say was MUCH better than the nightmares that I had been dreaming in my head. It also helped that mom proceeded to take pictures of us in the security line… definitely not allowed to do that at an airport.

Our final goodbyes came at the Atlanta airport. BaaBee, DanDan, and Vivian came to eat with us and say goodbye. It was more than we could ask for. The 2 hours that we had before we could check back in flew by, we got to catch up on life, and I was definitely distracted from getting onto the next airplane. It was the best.

So we checked in with ease. Literally easier than checking in to fly to Atlanta. Go figure. Went and got a cup of coffee. Sat down and watched a movie. Boarded the plane. I expected the 5hours in Atlanta to drag by, but I ended up panicking thinking that I hadn’t gotten to talk to enough people during the wait. Time went by in the blink of an eye. On the plane we sat by a really nice man, who didn’t laugh at me while I was  crying on the phone saying goodbye to my brother. This leg of the trip was a little rougher. We watched 2 movies, at dinner, and then it felt like the plane was literally going to fall out of the sky. It was awful. So I forced myself to sleep, in hopes that if the plane really did crash I’d sleep right to my death. Thank goodness we landed.

The Amsterdam airport. This is going to sound stupid, because I have no idea what I expected it to look like, but it looked just like any other airport in America, with really uncreative store names- The Jacket Store. This is when we encountered our first language barrier. After we found our departing gate, that had had changed 2 times, this lady came up to us frantically trying to seek our help. My eyes just got really big and I shrugged my shoulders. James was trying really hard to tell her that we only speak English- she clearly didn’t understand. So he quickly reverted into big hand gestures and body movements to try communicate to her where her gate was… we have gotten really good at getting what we want via ridiculous hand gestures.

The final leg of the trip! Got on a TINY plane for the 2 hour trip to Italy. Luckily, our bodies thought it was 3am so we fell asleep immediately and woke up in Italy. We made it. Safe and sound, and extremely out of place. 

 Luckily, Kaitlin- the Company Commander's wife, was able to come pick us up. Even though we have never met in person, it was such a relief to see a familiar face (thank you Facebook)! 

More on the first few days to come.