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I woke up at a semi-decent time today, right before i went to breakfast I stopped at Liat's room. Why? Because she is a really thoughtful person and bought thank you cards for everyone to sign to give to the alumi's who presented and the IEarn-USA coordinators. breakfast was pretty much the same from yesterday. Instead of french toast, there were waffles. We had a few hours of free time because our flight ended up delayed, but we still had to be in the lobby at 11 because check out time was around then.
I decided to head to my room to pack up my things, and thats when things started to go wrong. First, i couldnt find my lock for my checked bag, i looked everywhere, in the floor, in my bed, in the bathroom, I still have no idea where it is, and I'm hoping it's at the bottom of one of my bags somewhere. Thankfully, Aaliyah let me borrow one of her extra locks, NSLIY friends are the best.
Secondly, one of the zippers on my carry-on duffel bag broke. I used this bag during my middle school softball years, and that was it. It's still usable for now, but if I can find a low-priced carry-on acceptable bag I may come back with something new when we return.
I was kind of in a bad mood for a while, but I quickly got over it and headed downstairs to wait for the shuttles. Each group had to wait a little while, and it was during this time I realized that one of the guys, Billy, went to the same elementary school as me. It's so weird how things like that happen.
But anyway, soon enough we were at the Detroit airport checking in at the small machines they have.
OF COURSE, my passport is unable to be scanned at the machines, so I had to see an attendant at the desk. Once again, I was really grateful to have the IEarn coordinators with us because Will stayed next to me the entire time and helped me figure the situation out.
It was really funny as some of us had TSA pre check, which means we could just go through a metal detector without taking our shoes off, while others didnt have it, but we still all passed through quickly
I would definitely say a delayed airplane is the worst. Waiting over five hours is so tiring. We were allowed to explore the airport to get lunch and meet up at the gate later on. I grouped up with Dulce and Jacob and we had a great time wasting the hours away.
I was so mad at myself because I forgot to bring my cards. I literally looked at them before I left for PDO, and just didn't grab them. But conversation is also a great pastime.
The airline continuously apologized for the delay, and they even gave us drinks, snacks, and food around 5. It was delicious, I ate and drank way too much.
When we finally got to board the plane, I was kind of amazed at the size. The plane to Detroit was really tiny in comparison. This plane was huge, it has three seats on one side, 4 seats in the middle, and then three seats again. I also liked how everything was translated into Korean or English, even though we were on our way to Korea, it still didnt feel like it.
Every seat already had a pillow and blanket, and later the flight attendants came around with eye masks + ear plugs and headphones. We stayed sitting on the plane, waiting, because the departure time was changed again (our orginal departure time was 3:42pm and endied up leaving around 8:15pm). The plane was having some kind of cargo issue, that took a while to fix.
I had a middle seat, which wasn't bad at first.I definitely would've appreciated the window though, i'm still cringing at the missed opportunity for Instagram worthy pictures. After a few hours the middle seat started getting uncomfortable, there was no possible way from me to fall asleep.
And it wasn't for lack of trying, i tried several different positions but none of them worked. The plane had a really good movie/tv/song selection, so I spent most of my time watching and listening to it.
For movies I watched, Cinderella, Unbroken, Begin Again, and a Filipino movie called Bride For Hire. I also watched an episode of a show called Black-ish. And listened to the Billboard Hits radio that the Delta airlines offered for about two hours?
At about 11 pm EST, the flight attendants made eeveryone closed the windows. Since we were flying west, if you opened the window light would come pouring through, blinding everyone.
Theres only so much you can do on a plane without internet, so I was getting really annoyed with how long the flight took. At 12:08am EST we were somewhere over Canada, but still had 9 hours and 36 mins left.
We experienced turbulence a few times, it wasn't really scary at all, but still the thought "this is it, I'm going to die" came into into my mind.
At 5:57am EST, I finished the movie Unbroken, which I highly recommend even though it was really sad and scary at times. This movie was so long, but we still had 3 hours and 48 mins left.
I decided to skip the second meal Delta airlines provides, at this point, I really just wanted to get off the plane and find a nice place to lay down at.
I started watching the movie mentioned earlier, Bride For Hire, I didnt finish it because the plane ride was almost at the time for landing.
It was almost 12 am in Korea so looking out the window we could see a few lights, but not much. Everyone was super excited as we walked towards customs and the baggage claim. Since it was so late, the airport was basically empty and we flew through the lines.
Some supporters and staff were waiting for us once we got to the lobby of the airport. We took a huge group NSLIY picture at this point. Everyone had recieved numbers back in America, and we found out that these numbers indicated which bus we would ride to the hostel.
Looking out the window was really dissapointing, it was just after 12am Korea time so everything was dark. The bus we were on looked like a party bus, it had a large flat screen and everything.
Geun, a supporter, introduced himself and told us which rooms we would be in. Later on, he went to everyone individually to get to know us better.
Once we were at the hostel, everyone was grouped into rooms, and the nightly routines began. We were surprised yet again with a welcome package, a NSLIY T-shirt, name badge, selfie stick, water bottle and pencil case. (It was around this time I found out that I left my pencil case on the plane, i packed that pencil case with extra lead, lead pencils, and erasers. Just thinking of it makes me want to cry).
Anyway, There were about eight people per each room, and there could've been more because we had bunk beds and trundle beds. We also had chips and sodas in our rooms, so some people were enjoying those. Over time people were starting to head to bed, and we discovered the showers. There was a bathroom in our physical room with one shower but with eight people it would've taken forever. The hostel had communal showers outside the rooms, with walls in between each shower head, no curtains. Many people used them, I decided not to, but I heard some pretty hilarious stories from people who did.
Even though I didnt get any sleep on the plane ride, I didnt fall off until around 2 am Korean time. Everyone was pretty excited, because after a long application process and months of waiting, we finally made it to Korea