I got way behind on posting my blog, therefore I'll be updating you slowly over the next week. This is the story about getting to China. It was intense. We were leaving early Friday morning.
On Thursday night at 10 we realized that our flights to Chicago were both canceled. Therefore we had to find an alternate route. We decided on a flight out of San Francisco. Anna took a direct flight from Dallas, which was on time. I on the other hand had to take an early flight from Lincoln to Denver and then Denver to San Francisco. When we booked the flight I was going to have an hour in San Fran, which was going to be tight to begin with, because in SF you have to go back through security to take an international flight. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
My flight from Lincoln to Denver was on time. Then when I got to Denver I checked my SF flight and it said that it was delayed. It was going to be too late for me to make my connection. So I went to the United customer service counter (humorously in line I met a dread-locked woman who was from St. Paul and taught in China 20 years earlier). United then booked me for the next flight out which was on Frontier. So I quickly found my way to the frontier flight only to find out that it was going to be delayed. The Frontier people said that the delayed flight that I was scheduled to be on was still the earliest out of Denver to SF. So at this point I just got on the plane. I was talking to the flight attendants and they talked to the captain. The got a message to United and told them that they had a runner. I knew that Anna was waiting at the gate for me and she was going to be worried. We landed in SF and the next twenty minutes were most intense twenty minutes I had in the US during the month of August.
The flight attendants made a couple of announcements about a young man who was sitting in the very last who had twenty minutes to catch a flight to Beijing. Everyone stayed seated so I could be the first one off the plane. I got to the front with my bags and everyone started clapping. In the front of the plane before the door opened, there was a woman who looked at my SJU sweatshirt and said “Collegeville?” I said yea. She said she was a Bennie and I said that I was going to meet a Bennie. Everyone was telling me good luck. I got off the plane and started running and asking people where the international gate was. I got there and they had to check my passport and then I had to go through security. The run was long and pretty miserable because I had two heavy bags. When I got to security, I saw that the line was long and I asked a girl in the front if I could go ahead of her because I had a flight to catch in ten minutes. She said yes and the guy in front of her let me go too. I was frantic and set off the metal detector the first time through because I was in such a hurry. I finally go through and picked everything out of the bin without even putting it in a bag. I found the notorious gate 96 and went down the stairs yelling “I’m here, I’m here.” Down by the gate I saw three United women behind the desk and a beautiful girl in a pink Bennies sweatshirt. Anna yelled “HE’S HERE!” We were the last ones to get on the plane. I had made it in twenty minutes to my international gate through security in an airport I had never been it. I was on my way to China.
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