Philadelphia to Munich.

So much for a half hour into Philadelphia like the Captain had anticipated.

As soon as I turned off my computer, the Captain got back on the intercom and announced that due to severe thunderstorms, we were in a holding pattern until there was a break in the storm. Closing my eyes, the turbulence continued to worsen, and I was praying like crazy.

After what seemed like a lifetime, the Captain’s voice reappeared over the loud speaker. Thinking that he was going to tell us it was our time to land, he had the audacity to tell us that we had low fuel, and if need be, we would touch down somewhere else to reload.

As if I wasn’t having enough of a heart attack already.

I closed my eyes again, and I’m not sure if I fell asleep, or zoned out completely, but we soon hit the pavement and I was so thankful to be on solid ground again. As we were still taxing, I pulled out my ticket for our Philadelphia to Munich flight; I realized that they would be boarding in twenty minutes. Listening to a few conversations around me, multiple people’s flights were being delayed or completely cancelled, so for the sake of time, I was secretly hoping we would be delayed.

We weren’t.

Erica, another girl from camp that we met on our way off the plane, and I all took off RUNNING through the airport. Naturally, our gate was on the complete opposite side of where we had just arrived, so it was not easy getting all the way over there.  So imagine me, with two HEAVY carry on items, trying to run, while my shin splints were coming back in full force. Nightmare.

We finally made it to the gate, met up with about seven other people from Camp who were heading to Germany, had time to say our introductions, and then it was time for us to board.

The plane was pretty big. The row’s each had seven seats, and I thankfully got an aisle. The flight attendants made the announcement that we were missing over eighty passengers, but due to the desire to be on time, we left without them! I was able to sit next to my friend Darcey, which was great, in the beginning. By about hour 6, we were both crippled, and wishing we could spread out. I eventually moved to the ground, and was lying where our feet would normally go. Unfortunately, neither Darcey nor I got more than about a half hour of sleep. As you could guess, I’m exhausted.

I will say, that the first half of the plane ride went by pretty quickly. On each of the back of the seats, they have a built in DVD player, which provided you the option of watching roughly fifteen different movies. It also had games, online shopping, music, and a GPS so you could track how far we’ve come.

I watched three movies: Water for Elephants, Just Go With It, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I would have continued to watch them, but I moved in my seat and somehow my headphone cord snapped. (Which is super annoying because I just opened them on the beginning of this flight.)

Needless to say, I have been watching the GPS for the past hour or so. According to the screen, we have 41 minutes left until we touch down in Munich. It looks like we’re flying over Frankfurt right now, but the map is so little, who knows where we actually are. Oh. It looks like we’re somewhere over the Rheine River. That’s fun.

Well, the turbulence is starting up again so I’m going to pack up.

We have one flight left today, and thankfully it’s only forty minutes. I’ll write again on that flight, and if not, then once I get settled today.

PS. It’s not even 11:00 PM in Portland right now. According to the GPS, it is almost 8:00 AM.

Bring on the jet lag.