I finally Made it!

Wow what a trip!

It took a very long time to get down here, much longer than it was suppose to! It was ok though because it gave our Calvin group time to get to know each other before the sometimes overwhelming changes and before we all had to speak in Spanish. Well let me just tell you guys the story of our trip. We met at the Grand Rapids Airport in Michigan at 4:15 am on Wednesday. Everything was going well and everybody had made it to the airport just fine. But within 10 minutes of arriving stuff started going wrong. First one of my good friends, Betsy, was told quite rudely by the check-in guy that her passport had to be good for at least 6 months for her to travel to Honduras even though it didn't expire until after we got back. And he said in front of everybody that she was not going to Honduras today. I just couldn't believe, it was awful! So she had to go to the passport place in Chicago that day to get a new passport so she could possibly fly out the next day! She was so upset and I felt so bad (but she is here now and made it in no time at all! yay!) So after that we got up to the desk and the same guy was checking us in and he weighed one of my bags (which I knew was way more than 50 lbs) and he was just like "you need to get rid of 12.5 pounds now before you can check it" but I was like o I can just pay for the extra to bring it, but he was like no the maximum is 50! So I had to magically take out over 12 pounds, he wouldn't let it be even one pound over. So I put 12 pounds of clothes into my carry-on (bad idea) So I checked the bags at the right weight and went on to security. I was waiting in line at Security when all of a sudden I realized I didn't have my phone with me! And I needed it when we had a lay over in Houston to call my family. So I started freaking out and told Julienne that I lost my cell somewhere. So she stayed with my stuff in line and I sprinted all the way back to the car with Julienne's dad and found my cell in their car! Of course it was sitting right on the seat, so then I sprinted back and luckily got in line again with Julienne before she got to security. So I made it in and then we realized it was already 5:15am and our plane left at 5:30 am! so we went through security as fast as we could and were running to the gate as they were making the last call for the flight and we are going down the stairs after giving our boarding passes and I realized that I forgot my backpack at Security! I was so mad at myself, so I ran out of there and asked if I could get it and they said they would wait, so I ran over there and of course security figured I would come back and had it sitting there waiting for me, haha. So I ran back to Julienne who again was waiting with my bags and we went out to the plane. We actually went outside and then up stairs to the plane like you would see in the movies for the private jets. it was sweet! but the plane was tiny! so my carry-on that had the extra 12 lbs in it, didn't fit so I had to hand it off to one of the crew to stow underneath till we got there. But I made it on the plane and in my seat in time and made it to Houston as scheduled. However, they had to go try to find my carry-on bag because they thought it was suppose to be checked, but didn't know that I had a connecting flight to Honduras. But luckily they found it and gave it back!
I wish that was the end of my story, haha but o there is more. We landed at terminal A and had to get to terminal E for our next flight. My carry-on was so heavy that it made a huge bruise on my leg from walking so far with it hitting my leg as I walked. So we had about a 2 hour lay-over in Houston, so I called my mom and Grant to let them know I made it ok. Then they called us aboard and this plane was much larger so I could fit my bag this time :) So I sat down and the plane was not as full so I had some empty seats next to me which was really nice. We were just about to be taxi'd out to the runway, but some bad weather rolled in and our captain said we should wait it out. So we waited for a little over an hour and then the storm cleared. so we headed for the runway, but we had to wait in line because there were countless planes in front of us. So we sat for another hour. Then a girl a couple rows back from Calvin was not feeling good at all and had thrown up at least 6 times while we were just sitting there. So the stewardesses decided we needed to head back to the airport for a medical emergency. So we went back and an ambulance was called for her and she went off to the hospital (don't worry she is fine now but back in Grand Rapids). This took a while and so the plane had to be refueled again before we could take off. But once that was done another hour had passed and by that time the time allowed for the pilots had passed so they needed a new crew. They tried to get one real quick, but could not find a crew. so they told us that we had to deboard the plane while they attempt to find another crew. So we grabbed all of our stuff and luckily got food vouchers and had lunch in the airport. At this point in time we should have been in Honduras for a 1/2 hour already! haha, then they called us back an hour later with a new crew and re-entered and took off a little while later. We finally got to Honduras 3 hours later around 5 pm, which is almost 6 hours later than we should have been. We were exhausted but so excited to be here! We first went to our university that we'll be studying at for the semester to regroup. We had a quick dinner at the school before meeting our families. Then we found our host families and went home with them for the night! It was an incredible day, but I felt like I already know more than half of our group very well and have almost everybody's names down! Everybody is so great in this group, and I have a feeling we are going to have so much fun on all our excursions together! Also my family is so great, they are very nice and the little boy named Luis is hilarious! I'll tell you more later about everything, but I think this is enough for one post! Hasta Luego!