Monday The 13Th

It was all just wonderful tell my dad came in really early to say good-bye and interrupts my nice calm dream. I said goodbye to my dad and after I could not go back to sleep. I had that sick nervous feeling, like what the heck am I doing today. So I finally got up and showered and got dressed. I finished my last bit of packing and took my suitcases down stairs. I called Aaron and told him to come over so we could say our good-byes, now that was hard. He came over and I started to cry, I could see that coming from a mile away. It was so hard to see Aaron drive away from my house for the last time. I went in and had breakfast and we were off to the airport. We got my boarding pass and had my two bags checked. We got some family pictures then cried as we hugged and kissed good-bye. The line through security was nuts so I was waiting in line for a while then once I got through I waved good-bye to my family and I was on my own. It was hard as I was putting my shoes and belt back on holding back tears trying to be brave. I so badly wanted to run back to my mom but NO, I’m a big girl now I can do this!! That’s what I told myself at lest. So if anyone has flown internationally out of the Dulles airport the gates are a ways away. I found my gate and after waiting 20mins or so I boarded the plane, I though I was going to die waiting for the plane to take off, I knew I still could back out of this well I still had a chance. So we took off about 12:50pm on a 13hour flight to Beijing. The first part of the flight was not so bad. I listened to my ipod and then watched a movie on my laptop tell it ran out of battery. The meals on the plane totally sucked, I’m so glad I took some of my own food to eat. I was in a isle seat so I could not really look out the window much but I did get up and look out once when we were going over Siberia, it was cool I saw a little village. By the third meal I felt sick from the food, and I started to feel dehydrated. NOT A GOOD THING. The last 2hrs I kind sleep, I could not get comfortable, but who can on a plane. It was the weirdest feeling when I landed in Beijing; I was in china and couldn’t believe it. I got in at about 2:00 pm Tuesday. The airport was kind of confusing and I had to fill out different forms to get out of customs. So finally I got through everything and I got to ticketing. I waited there for about an hour just sitting up against to wall. Then I asked someone where my gate would be and she said gate 25. So I went through security and saw a sign for gate 25A-25-F, that through me off since I was looking for just gate 25, so I walked past it. Then realized that’s were I wanted to go so I turned around and headed down to gate 25. I walk in and it as a huge room with seats everywhere and doors that have big signs above them that have 25A through 25F. I looked on the screens and my gate was 25A so I walked over in the region my gate was since the gates were not separated like they are in the states and surprisingly I found a seat next to a nice old couple, and they were not Chinese. It was nice to see normal people, I started talking to the lady next to me, her and her husband have been touring the different places in china for the past 6 weeks and they were originally from New Zealand. That was pretty cool; she gave me some pointers for being in china.
1. Don’t scratch you eyes with your fingers use the back of your hand since your fingers have tons of germs on them.
2. Never drink the water out of the tap or faucet. The water in china has heavy metals in it so you don’t want to drink it.
3. Drivers are crazy and don’t follow the rules at all.

They left and got on their plane, so I was sitting alone very thirsty with no yuan (Chinese money) to buy water. Yeah at this point I just want this all to be over with, I was tired, feeling kind of sick from the plane food and feeling a little out of place being one of the only Americans or not Chinese person around and waiting in the airport for the past 4hrs. It started to get really crowed after awhile and I guess Chinese people don’t mind being really close to each other, but I did not like it, so I got up and checked the screen to make sure my gate was still the same. To my surprise it was changed to 25C just a little ways away, I was glad I checked. At 5:45pm a person yelling through a megaphone called my plane number to board the bus, then the bus took us out to the plane. OK SO THIS two hour plane right from Beijing to Chungdu was the worse plane ride in the history of Heidi Corbett’s life. I was next to a window, which was kind of nice but it was so hot and I was fatigued and the worse part is I dosed off right as they were bring the drinks around. I don’t know why I was so scared to ask for water but I finally did and they brought me some water, with no ice. This is the part were I broke down and got very emotional and just wished that plane would take me home to VA. I wont go on about that plane ride it was not much fun ill leave it at that. Once I got off the plane I walked down to baggage claim like everyone does, but my luggage did not ever come out like everyone else did. I was about to bust down in tears as I was trying to communicate my problem with some workers down my baggage claim. Finally I went to get Michelle and she translated, I came to find out I was suppose to pick up my luggage in Beijing and recheck it, but nobody told me that. I finally go to the Fowlers house and I took a shower and ended up crying myself to sleep.
The longest and hardest day of my life so far is now behind me!!