Travel Drama

Sitting in Dulles BEFORE 10 hours on the plane. . .

What would an international trip be for me without a little excitment, right?

Luckily my trip to DC was smooth. My trip home was a bit more eventful. . . I was supposed to fly from Washington Dulles (which is my new favorite airport - terminal 3 has a Chipotle AND Caramello candybars!) to Amsterdam and then from Amsterdam to Heathrow. I had a tight schedule to catch the shuttle back to base, so I didn't check any bags and carried everything on.

I woke up after about four or five hours of sleep as we were making an emergency landing at Heathrow because someone was life-or-death ill. It was driving me crazy being on the ground because I just wanted to be off. the. plane. Of course, even though I had no checked baggage I wouldn't be allowed off. This wouldn't have been so bad except after they FINALLY got the sick passenger of (it took over 30 minutes) we were still sitting there. And sitting there. And sitting there.

I was going crazy knowing that they were insisting that everyone needed to go to Amsterdam even though I would not make it into the airport on time to catch my connection BACK to Heathrow which would mean sitting in Amsterdam until sometime this evening. NO THANK YOU.

After about an hour the pilot got on the intercom and announced that after the passenger was offloaded they did a standard safety check and discovered a serious fuel leak (that's reassuring!) It took another hour before they determined that we would be allowed to offboard and that everyone would be re-routed out of Heathrow.

YAY! It was so good to get off of that plane! I was even able to catch an earlier shuttle back to base!

My time in DC was really nice. I had a very fun Saturday night going out with Lt. Col. Whatley, his wif and their two daughters. It was like I got to be an extra daughter in the family - so much fun. We went to P.F. Changs (though when asked where I wanted to go I was so overwhelmed by choices I didn't know where to choose!) and had a delish meal after a very long two hour wait. Lucky that we had good company. It was so sweet at the end of the night when we were opening our fortune cookies and Lt. Col. Whatley "read" his and said "You will be spending a lot of time with four beautiful women." :)

Yesterday I was able to spend the day with Matt Allen. Jana was TDY which was a big dissapointment for both of us, but Matt & I were able to talk to Philip on Skype and Jana on the phone, so it was kind of like we all got to connect yesterday. Matt picked me up at Whatley's at church. We were putting my bags in the jeep and I stood at the driver's side door and Matt said, "we're going to drive to church the American way" (I figured he must mean "fast" or "wreckless" - DC drivers are a bit crazy). I stood there about two more minutes before I realized I was standing at the driver's side of the car. We burst out laughing. We went to church, had lunch w/ Matt's parents, I got to see the Allen's new house and then it was back to the airport. It was a great day after what had been a somewhat draining Saturday.

I continue to replay the interview in my mind. I've been able to do some verbal processing about it which has been helpful. Now it's just waiting until the end of the month. Maybe this experience will be like the plane this morning --- waiting in anguish but getting a result that was better than I could have originally asked for. . . God tends to work that way, I just don't know how long the anguish will persist or what will all be included in that waiting period. . .