Blessings and Frustrations

Over the last few weeks it has surprised me to learn that it is possible for me to feel so many different emotions at once. With the excitement, fear, anxiety, joy, worry, etc., I kept thinking that the only thing holding me together has been my skin!

Three weeks ago, I wasn't sure if if I would actually make it to Geneva because I didn't know how I was going to raise the last few thousand dollars that I needed, and then I found out that my host family forgot about some of their obligations, so they wouldn't be able to house me. What could I do? I went into crisis mode and started working through a problem solving plan and said A LOT of prayers!

Things slowly (or so it seemed to me) started coming together, and now I have been in Geneva for three days. Thank you Mom and Digicert.com! Since beginning my trip on Sunday, I have already had a few adventures.

Jess (www.asummerofintellectualdiscovery.blogspot.com) and I made it all the way to London without a hiccup, and we relaxed in Terminal 3 for several hours while we waited for our connecting flight. For some reason we never saw it on the board, so about an hour before departure we asked the ticket agent why we weren't seeing our flight information and she let us know that the airline used two terminals and we happened to be in the wrong one. We rushed out of Terminal 3, had to take a 15 bus ride to Terminal 5, and was stopped at check-in because the flight closed right after I was scanned into the system, so Jess wasn't going to be given clearance to board. After several phone calls, that was cleared up, and the ticket agent told us we would have to ask for priority passage through security (for the third time in this airport) and we would have to run for the plane because they were doing last call for boarding. And that is exactly what we did!

 But wait, that's not all! When we arrived at the gate, I was stopped because they said Nicole Johnson had already checked into the flight. That, of course, wasn't true because Nicolle Johnson was standing in front of her. They pulled Nicole Johnson out of her 6F seat and compared the boarding information with Nicolle Johnson from 16F and found that in fact there were two of us-both American and both sitting in a row with a 6 in it. Unfortunately, by this time, my luggage had already been removed from the belly of the plane and was in some security office.  Thankfully they found it, put it back on, and thirty minutes after our scheduled departure we were on our way. Yippee!


For those of you who haven't flown in a while, here's a video and some pics of our landing in London:

I'm still shocked that I'm here. When Jess and I walked up to the gate of the United Nations on Tuesday we had to pinch each other because it seems so unreal. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity and have already learned so much.

Come back soon because you won't want to miss the "Adventures in the Lift" and "Bill Gates and WHO."