Bang.
So every good adventure begins. It's that unmistakable flush of adrenaline and cold sweat that comes from realizing you've slept through your alarm(s)--two in my case. Or it (they) didn't go off. I'm not sure which one actually happened, but I am quite certain that at 4:00 AM on the morning of July 6th, the intended time of waking from aforementioned alarm(s), I was sound asleep. At 5:00 I snapped to, nearly threw my alarm against the wall (not the first time I've contemplated it) and ran to wake up my parents. Conveniently enough, my third alarm clock, the shuttle that was supposed to come pick me up and drive me at that ungodly hour, hadn't shown up. Well, after 10 minutes of frantic dressing interspersed with profanities, I had gotten myself and my luggage into my dad's car and we were blazing a trail for the airport. Now, at this point the chance of me actually making my flight was extremely slim, being optimistic, but nonetheless we tore rubber all the way there. It helped that there isn't much traffic that time of day, but we made it to the airport in a unprecedented 28 minutes flat, a record that may never be broken.
I ran up to the check-in desk, baggage trail trailing, with movie-worthy desperation. But, as expected, I was too late to make the flight. My heart sank. More profanities. Feigned sympathy from desk lady. Reluctantly, I asked the one question that might close off my last hope for an on-time arrival: Anything available on another airline? Unbelievably, there was a Delta flight scheduled to leave just 45 minutes after mine! Victory!.....Sort of. "That flight is $450 dollars sir." I sputtered out a few comments about my driver, his being a huge asshole, and my noble aspirations to save Guatemala, and all of Central America. No feigned sympathy from desk lady. I handed her my credit card with a cold glare.
Ah well, I hopped on the plane, and put my mind to ease. Or did I. Having been in such a rush I hadn't really had a chance to consider that I was about to walk into the third world for six months. I now had plenty of time to think about it. The jets on the airplane started to roar. Well, here we go.
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3 comments:
Hi Bemjamin,
We are anxiously awaiting news of tu familia, escuela y amigos. That may be the extent of my spanish, hopefully your recall is better than mine. I hope everything is has gone smoothly, since your arrival. We all miss you! love, Mom
Hi, yes its me again. I have a suggestion that you put the web site for Los Hermanos on your web site. It will give the folks that you may not have been in close contact with an idea of what you are doing.
We will be in Delaware over the weekend. If you can, try my cell phone Friday or Saturday during the day, It will be the only chance Noah will have to talk to you until Sept. love, Mom
Hope Guatemala is giving you the Internet access necessary to read/update and all that good stuff, not to mention hopefully not too much of the eating sickness. Happy upcoming birthday, make people buy you a few cheap drinks!!
I recently got business cards from Target, unfortunately they are nowhere near as cool and I could NOT talk them into ordering 250 cards saying "Slave to the freaky-ass booty." Such a shame. Peace to you.
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