Jó Reggelt (Good Morning)

Hello from the UK! I am currently sitting in the “lounge” at Heathrow airport in London.  In approximately 7 hours I’ll be en route to Budapest!  Hopefully I will also be more awake at that point, though that really seems unlikely.

Let me share with you a little bit about the last few days.  I’ve had every intention of updating this thing for a few weeks, but there’s been so much else going on. 

Last Friday, April and Sarah threw me a wonderful going away party.  It was so great because I got to spend so much time with people I love.  We celebrated my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve since I will miss all of those during the next few months.  I think my favorite was singing the Aggie War Hymn for Thanksgiving.  Not only was it awesome, but I got to see a lot of my non-Aggie friends either attempt it or flat out refuse to do it.

The rest of the week was a bit of a blur.  On Sunday, my church said goodbye.  It was really good, but really hard too.  But what a blessing to be prayed over by my pastor, my home fellowship, the youth, and my friends!  I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so loved in my whole life.

Monday and Tuesday were full of more goodbyes and running around trying to finish last minute errands.  Tiffany came home Tuesday night and then the rest of the family came over to pray over me.  Again, it made me feel so blessed to have the family that I have and it was such an encouragement, but it was really difficult.  Sacrificing that closeness with my family and friends has without a doubt been one of the more difficult things I’ve ever done in my life. 

Wednesday, the day I left, was hectic.  The combination of feeling like I had a million things to do with no time, wanting to sit back and enjoy my last few hours, the fact that I hadn’t slept well all week, and the realization that in a few short hours I would really be saying goodbye to everyone and everything I know meant that my anxiety/freak out level was maxed out.  Probably the most disappointing thing about the day was that I’d been telling myself all week that my “last meal” would include a Chick-fil-A cookies ‘n cream milkshake, but I was so anxious that I couldn’t eat it.  I really couldn’t eat anything the whole day.

Airport goodbyes were miserable but having those last few precious moments with my family was worth the tears. 

Then came the worst part of the day – easily the worst airport experience I’ve ever had.  There are a few facts you should know: 1) my connection in Dallas was already the one that I was the most concerned about making, 2) I’m not an overly huge fan of flying in general, 3) I was already at a record level of stress.   When I got to my gate, the flight was already delayed 25 minutes.  Not a big deal, right?  I kept my eye on it and it looked like I’d still have a ton of time once I arrived to make my connection.  Well, as I’m sitting in the gate (feeling hungry for the first time in days and chowing down on a Salt Lick pulled pork sandwich – yum!) I notice a little cluster of TSA workers and policemen gathering around the check in desk.   I was a little curious but not too worried.  The plane arrived and everyone got off.  Then the check in guy announces that TSA will be checking the flight.  Immediately, I start flipping out a bit not only because the flight will now surely be delayed even longer but because I am now envisioning TSA finding horrible things on my plane.  But I calmed down after a bit.  Then, they come off the plane, have a huddle session, and announce that they will be doing random searches of passengers.  That’s when I lost it.  We are talking full on freak out.  I was hyperventilating and crying and ended up calling my dad because I needed someone to talk me down.  I know that part of it was my fear, but I think a bit of it was some spiritual warfare because the first thought running through my head was, “I want to go home.”  Eventually (after a lot of talking to my dad and praying frantically), I just bit the bullet and got on the plane.  About the time I was starting to calm down, the captain comes on over the PA and informs us that the turbulence would make it too dangerous for anyone, including the Flight Attendants to get up.  That didn’t help. (There also was hardly any turbulence.  Also, apparently when it's too turbulent for the FA's to serve coach, it's not too turbulent for them to serve 1st class...)

Anyway, obviously nothing happened as I’m sitting here in London.  I was fortunate enough to have a very chatty seat mate who didn’t mind talking to me the whole time.  The next concern was that I only had 30ish minutes to make my flight to Heathrow.  I wasn’t too worried, but I knew I’d probably have to book it.  As it turns out, we arrived at D31 and my flight took off from D30!  I got off my plane just as they were calling my group to board.  And even better, there wasn’t a team of TSA agents standing outside the plane!

The flight to London was great.  Dinner was yummy!  I was on the second to last row, but the seat next to me was empty so I had a little more room to stretch out.  Those international planes are huge anyway and the Flight Attendants were super friendly.  Again, I was so tired anyway that when I combined that with some Tylenol PM, I was out!  I went to sleep maybe an hour after take off and woke up and hour before arrival.  It wasn’t the most sound sleep ever, but it was certainly more than I’ve slept on previous flights.

Now I’m in London.  I have decided against going out to the city.  I’m not sure if that decision is because I’m utterly exhausted, because I don’t feel like going through customs, or because I don’t think my body could handle any more stress, but I decided just to sit here in the waiting lounge for the next six hours. I’ve got my Kindle and my iPhone so I should be set. 

UPDATE: From my classroom in Diosd now!  My flat is cute and not as small as I thought.  My classroom has a ton of stuff that I need to go through, but I'm excited about that.

The flight to Budapest was cool.  I ended up sitting in the lounge next to the Hungarian Olympic team - one of which won the gold medal on the pommel horse, Kristian Berki.  

Gold Medal

It was a big deal!  Everyone was taking pictures with him and the whole plane applauded whenever he got on and then there was a HUGE welcoming crew with TV cameras and chanting and people wearing scarves with his face on it at the airport.  It was basically the coolest way to be introduced to Budapest. :)  I took a video of the madness on my phone and will upload it later.

Please be praying for a smooth transition into life here.  Now that all of the goodbyes are over, I’m really excited to get started at the school and in Budapest.

I miss you all!