the trip begins :)

This post is going to be kind of long so if you read nothing else here is what has gone through my mind over the last 24 hours:
1) 90% of female flight attendants are stuck in some horrific outdated hair decade. I can't decide what it is but it's frightening how many of them there are.
2) why is it everyone uses black suitcases? It makes luggage pickup entirely too dull if I'm the only one with bright colors.
3) airplane food is still lame
4) Europeans are way too into the skinny jeans thing which does not look flattering on ANYONE. And most CERTAINLY not on guys. Yet almost every guy that passed me in the airport (that wasn't in a suit) was in them. Ew.

To save myself time I'm not going to include photos in my posts but if you go to my Picasa page you can look at the pictures I've been taking (complete with captions).

Thanks to some heavy storms that moved through around 2 PM the airport traffic got backed up and our plane was late getting in and getting ready for us and subsequently late leaving. It was scheduled for 4:35 PM and we took off right at 6. Against my better judgement I took a tiny nap before dinner was served so it took the edge off my sleepyness (I only slept 4-5 hours the night before hoping that would help). After we had eaten dinner I met the man sitting in the row with me (nobody sat in the middle so we got a little extra space yay!). It turned into one of the most fascinating conversations I've ever had. He was originally from Slovakia and came to the US when he was 17. He married, had three boys, and takes frequent visits home. He was a Christian and you could tell by his opinions. :D It was a really cool time and he was super nice which was a comfort somehow. It was my first time to take such a long flight, and to do it alone so I was glad to have a nice person to talk to.

We finally made it into Frankfurt (a little late still despite the pilot's best efforts to catch up on our time). It was kind of weird because apparently they ran out of gates or maybe they do this with all the big planes but they parked out wherever and bussed us to the airport. The buses were packed like sardines. :P When we made it to the actual airport I looked multiple times at my boarding pass I'd printed from home and knew I needed to be at gate A24. I was pretty easily able to locate that gate with a good half hour or 40 minutes to spare and noticed the sign said "Prague". No worries I thought to myself, that's where the plane has just come from and those people getting off it. About 5 minutes to boarding time I hear the announcement to board but it's for the Prague flight. I run to the Lufthansa counter, show him my pass and he looks it up. Oh no he says I need A36 they must have changed it, but you better hurry! Ugh, I had to go another long ways down to get to A36 and just got there in the nick of time to start boarding with the rest of them. No sooner than I got settled on the plane and we started taxiing to the runway and my eyes began to close involuntarily. I seriously have never had this happen but I think I just completely passed out and didn't even notice the take off. I woke up right as they were making the rounds with drinks feeling only slightly better.

I got off the plane in Paris and headed for baggage claim to see the most bizarre looking set up I've ever seen in real life. I hope to get a picture of it on my way home as surely I will be slightly less stressed. They have all these moving walkways in little bubble tunnel enclosures that weave in and out of each other in this dome shape. It seriously reminded me of something out of a sci-fi movie. I didn't get lost, located my suitcases and found Bro. Charles with Sophie and Thomas. They took to me right away which makes me feel oh so good. :) Sophie has dragged me by the hand all day chattering about this and that and Thomas occasionally pops up with his two cents. They are way too cute. :)

Well I'm running on about 6 hours of sleep in the last two days and not sure how much for the whole weekend. Not nearly enough!! I'm going off to bed. Love to all of you, thanks so much for the prayers!! If you want a prayer card still ask my mom about them Sunday.