Today was the day I was leaving for the study abroad trip to Finland. Last night was when I got most of my stuff packed, and I got all my homework and everything done. And I went to bed at like 2:30 because it took me a while to fall asleep. But this morning my alarm went off at 6 AM and then my mom also came in and got me up of course, like right after my alarm went off. So I got ready and everything and then we left. I didn't get to say bye to Janell or anything because Addie spent the night last night so they were probably still sleeping downstairs. But that's okay, I got to say bye to my dad and the dogs. Then my mom and I left.
We went to Jennifer's first because we were picking her up because she was coming to St. Louis with us for some reason. I guess so her and my mom could shop after they dropped me off at the airport. When Jennifer first got into the car she commented that I was listening to Brain Damage and I was like, "Oh, do you know this song?" And she was like, "No, that just sounds like a weird song name." So anyways, we picked up Jennifer and then went to Chick-fil-A because my mom had placed a to-go order for there before we left. So I got some hashbrowns, chicken minis, and a sweet tea.
Not much happened on the ride up to St. Louis, just chitchatting and the usual. Jennifer didn't talk much. Not as much as I was expecting. So then we eventually got to the airport and my mom kinda drove in loops for a bit because apparently she wasn't just going to drop me off, she was going to go into the airport with me. So then she parked in this parking garage at Terminal 1 after asking a guy what to do, and we walked inside.
Inside, I first went up to one of those little kiosks where you can get your boarding pass. And that all went well, I scanned my passport, put in my flight number, and that was done. My mom was going a bit crazy making sure I did everything right and Jennifer kinda noticed, because I think mom's a bit more nit-picky than Jenny. Then we went down the escalator towards Gate 2, and they STILL came with me, because apparently they had to "use the bathroom." like, okay. Then they took pictures of me about to go through TSA and a SEMO student, one of the ones in this class, saw them doing all that. Like, so embarrassing. But yup, once I went through TSA, that was when we actually went our separate ways. And I ended up talking to that girl in line for that. She's the one who's like 31 and has kids that are basically grown. We talked about Cape Central and musical theater. At the actual TSA thing I got patted down, OF COURSE. I knew that was going to happen. Because it happened when we flew to and from California last summer. Every time I go through the metal detector thing, a red square shows up on my crotch and they have to caress me down.
Once I got through that gay scene, I kinda followed the other girl to our gate, but when we got there, I sat in a different spot than her because she went to talk to another student from our thing who was also there. And at least my mom wasn't this bad, because the other girl's mom was at the gate with her. But that was because this would be her first flight ever. Then a different dude eventually showed up at the gate, and he was from our class. Either Brett or Rhett is his name. And he's kinda weird, he started talking to me about how he's not going to smoke any pot on this trip. Like, okay? Then we all eventually gathered up and sat together, the four of us. I guess I should also keep track of times. This was at like 9-10 AM. Apparently the Brett Rhett guy used to be in Phi Delt, but got kicked out because he was selling weed or something. So I told them I am in TKE. Then another girl named Elisabeth showed up and sat with us and then some more students eventually. Then at a little after 11 AM we boarded.
I was in Group 6, so kinda the middle group. They encouraged anyone after Group 6 to have their bags checked on because this was going to be a full flight and there wasn't going to be enough room. So I get on the plane and I'm supposed to sit at Seat 7B, which is towards the front of the plane. But there was no room overhead because the compartments above those seats were somehow out of order? So I started stressing and it was like my old kind of stress that I used to have at Red Lobster. Like, these people walked in and every server's section is full. So I made the decision to keep walking and I ended up at Seat 18, and I was like, why don't I just stay here? But then I remembered every seat was going to be filled, so what was I thinking? So then I ended up putting my carry-on above Seat 18 and then I kinda had to push my way back to my original seat, Seat 7. So that was really fun. And I wasn't really alone, apparently that also happened to the Elisabeth girl, but someone up front had taken her carry-on but she somehow ended up in the back with me. Don't know what she was doing. But yeah, I got back to my seat, squeezed over the older lady who had the aisle seat, and sat in the middle. The guy in the window seat slept most of the way I think, and then the lady in the aisle seat read her Kindle the entire time. I kinda wanted to be a matchmaker and try and get them to fall in love with each other. Just a thought I had at the time. That flight wasn't too bad. I got apple juice because they were out of Dr. Pepper I guess, and they gave me some of those Bischoff graham cracker things. I listened to the album, Wish You Were Here for the takeoff, and that is like the perfect album for being on an airplane, I don't know, something about it. After about an hour on that flight though, it was getting really stuffy, and I was stiff and sweaty. Not fun. But after not too long, we landed in Dallas. We had to sit for a while because it took them a while to connect the tunnel thing to the door. And then I had to sit extra long because I had to wait for a ton of people to get off so that I could go to the back of the plane and get my suitcase. But I got it eventually and then I got off of that plane.
Right after we got off the plane, Dr. Caldwell had everyone meet outside the gate we just got off at. Yeah I forgot to mention that, Dr. Caldwell was also on that flight. So now we were like a group, and I have to admit, I kind of would've rather been on my own. But whatever, it's fine. Some people went to the bathroom and after that, we went to get on the Skyline (I think that's what it's called) because we had to go from Terminal A to Terminal D. The Dallas airport is actually so crazy, and the Skyline trains were so cool. There's like a highway cutting the airport in half, too. Crazy stuff. Those little tram things were fast, I almost lost my balance every time they took off. And we were on it for a while because we were going to the opposite side of the airport. Once we got to D, we got off and looked at the screens that show all the flights. Then Dr. Caldwell was like, "Hey, the screen shows a different gate than our boarding passes show," so we went to the gate that the screen showed, and it turns out we had to exchange our boarding passes for new passes. So I was lucky the group was there with me for that, because I would not have known that we would've had to do that. So we did that, and then we ate. We started off as a bigger group but kinda split off when we went to eat. So I ended up with the two girls who were in my presentation group, Carolyne and I forgot the other one (Chloe, I now remember). But we went to Whataburger, and it took a while, not going to lie. It was pretty busy. But I just got a normal cheeseburger, no tomatoes, and I thought it was kinda pricy, being over 7 bucks for a single cheeseburger, but they were actually pretty big burgers, and it was pretty good, so maybe it was worth it. I walked around a bit with those girls before we sat down to eat, and we ended up sitting with Dr. Caldwell and this other girl that he was with, and they were at this Asian restaurant area where they apparently bought $25 bowls of food. Pricy, pricy. So we sat at a table with them, pulled up a few chairs, and ate our burgers. Then we walked around with them for a bit before going back with them towards our gate. Dr. Caldwell was trying to talk to me and it was a little awkward. He did tell me my last name meant "wind servant" which I actually didn't know, and I looked it up and he was right, 'wind' is wind and 'knect' is servant in German. Huh. On the way back to the gate, we found more people from our class so he talked to them, but then me and the other two girls kept walking. We ran into Brett Rhett and Chelsea (the mom), and Elisabeth, so we talked to them for a bit, then the others caught up, and we were all together for a bit. Not much else really happened, we just talked and stuff and made our way back to the gate. I met this girl from our group who had me quiz her on her name. I guessed Emily, but it was actually Haley, but I thought she said Kailey. So I accidentally called her Kailey for a bit. Then we just waited near the gate until like, 5, I think that's about when we boarded. I went back and forth several times from standing near the gate to going near the bathrooms to drink from the water fountain because I was not going to pay 4 dollars for a bottle of water, but I was pretty thirsty. Then it was basically time to board.
I was on Group 4 for this flight, but I don't think there were as many groups for this flight. But it did take a while to load. At least this time, it was easier to load. Especially because, I forgot to mention this, I didn't have my suitcase anymore, when we got the new boarding passes, they said we could only bring one bag on the plane, so my suitcase was put down for checked luggage. So it was easier because i didn't have that this time. This plane was a huge plane, there were 9 seats per row, three on one side, three in the middle, and three on the other side. My seat was 60H, so I was in the middle, but in an aisle seat. It also took forever to get going, because apparently there were problems with loading luggage, so we were just sitting in the plane not moving for like, 25 minutes. I ended up having to sit next to this woman who I think was Finnish, and her husband or someone was next to her. Eventually though, the flight did take off. I think I underestimated how long a 10 hour flight would take.
Once we took off, I kind of fell asleep pretty fast, but only for like, 30-45 minutes or something. I was listening to Pink Floyd again. And apparently I missed the dinner because I woke up and everyone was eating out of these little cardboard boxes, but I didn't have one. I did get offered a drink shortly after I woke up, so I got a Coke. The lady beside me had started knitting, that was a little crazy. So I didn't really do much, I just listened to music. I also realized a bit earlier on, but forgot to mention, I didn't bring a phone charger that connects to a USB, only to a type C. And the only outlets were for USB, and the battery box thing I brought also was only for USB. I kind of blame my mom, because she was like, "Type C is so much faster," but it's not her fault because I agreed. So yeah, I opened my Goldfish that my mom packed for me and ate some of those while listening to music. For like an hour or two, I was watching the screen of the guy in front of me, he was watching some crazy stuff. I think he was watching Ferrari first, and there was kind of a crazy sex scene. Then he eventually started watching this movie that I thought was Justice League or something, but it was more about the Flash. It was like, the Flash went back in time and then met himself from the past, and they had to stop Superman's enemy from coming to earth and killing everyone. At first I thought it was Elliot Page who played Barry, but it definitely wasn't. I was actually really into that movie. Then they dimmed the lights and I was going to try to go to sleep, but the lady next to me turned on her overhead light so that she could continue knitting, so that made it a bit harder to sleep. And I wasn't really that tired, so I decided to start a movie instead, Blade Runner 2049. I've always heard of this movie, but never watched it. It was a little weird watching in public, because there were some weird scenes and some nudeness. But it was a really good movie actually. I don't really think I did much else after watching that, just relaxed. I was kind of really uncomfortable on this plane. I guess cause I was on it for like, 9 hours. My legs hurt. Breakfast was served eventually and it was an omelet with tater tot hashbrowns and this red stuff and spinach. I actually ate it all because I was getting pretty hungry. I also got orange juice. Then probably an hour or so after we got breakfast, we had landed. I didn't do much after the breakfast, just played 2048 on the screen. And then I realized I actually did have a USB charger, it was that little greenish blue one. Hallelujah. It was in a different spot from my other cords. So I charged my phone a bit, and then we landed.
And that is what I am going to consider the end of this day. Because of the time change and everything, it's a little hard to determine the end, but by the time we got to Helsinki, it was like, 10:30 AM for their time. So today was just the ride over there. I hate plane rides now more than ever. I used to love planes, what happened? But today was like a 7/10.
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