30 May - 19 June: Virginia, USA
I had three weeks to balance seeing people, dropping winter stuff at home, gathering English camp necessities, and progressing on the dissertation. I really enjoyed getting to see many of you again! It was really difficult to balance getting work done though. I kind of wished I had gone for a shorter amount of time and just purely focused on visiting. I couldn't do that for three weeks though. A few highlights in chronological order:
- Seeing my cousin Sharmayne who is a missionary in Mexico for the first time in three years. Seeing family and friends in general that I hadn't seen in 6 months to a year.
- The look on Kenny's face when I crashed WBC, getting to meet the girls that would soon come over for a UK visit, paying £1 for two cupcakes rather than $1.50, and being introduced as 'from England' - HA.
- Longwood Archaeology Field School Alumni Weekend
- Finding out that I didn't need a new visa for English Camp even though it would expire before I would exit the country. Apparently you just have to enter the country before the expiry date and then you have your 30 days max stay as usual. So since camp was earlier than usual I was able to use the year-long multiple entry visa I got last year.
- Seeing the Messersmiths on Facetime from their mother/grandmother's house. Jake's comment, "Grandma, just so you know... WE WANT HER BACK!"
- Orioles game at Camden Yards with my sister Becky, her friend Emma, my friend Alexa and her nephew Isaiah. Isaiah is a huge baseball fan and it was his first professional game. He was super excited and it made it that much more exciting for the rest of us I think. Oh and the O's won like 7-1.
- Hertzler Pig Roast. Enough said.
19-20 June: Washington-Dulles International Airport
This deserves its own section. It's seriously the most ridiculous airport experience ever. Instead of the usual overnight flight to Europe, I booked an early morning flight that would have me arriving in London around 11pm because I really dislike trying to get a night's sleep sitting up. This meant getting up super early to plow through the DC rush-hour traffic. When I got there I went to the self check-in and scanned my passport. A large exclamation point came up on the screen, so an airline assistant came over to look at it. She said it was because my middle name was on my passport and not my booking, so she just had to confirm that it was me. Fine. She did her thing, punched a bunch of buttons, checked my bag, and handed me my boarding pass. I head to security.
I get to security, hand the guy my passport and boarding pass. He says, "Um, this isn't your name." I say, "If it's the middle name thing we've already been through that." He says, "No, it's not your name. Look." I look and it says Alison something. While I'm staring blankly at it he's like "I can't let you through with that. You'll have to go back to checking." I go back to the check-in counter.
At the check-in counter I hand my passport and boarding pass to the airline guy and ask for my boarding pass because this one isn't mine. He's confused as to why I have this one. I tell him one of his co-workers checked me in and I don't know what she did. He looks me up in the system, prints a new boarding pass, I check the name (it's mine), and I head back to security.
As I approach, the same security guy is there and jokingly he and the others are laughing like "We were expecting you! Did you get it sorted out?" I'm like "Yeah" as I look down and start saying "It's the correct name..." Then I notice the destination. It says Frankfurt. WHAT?? So security dude says, "I could let you through with that, but you might want to get that fixed..." Back to check-in.
Long story short: Airline people are confused because in their system my booking is for Frankfurt even though I'm adamant that I'm going to London. I explain that I go to school there and that this is the second leg of a round-trip from London Heathrow to Dulles and back. I have my confirmation e-mail. They still say I'm booked for Frankfurt. Eventually, they are finally convinced that I have no intention of getting on that plane so then they have to go rescue my checked bag from it (because even though I was given a London boarding pass with the wrong name the first time, my bag was checked under my name for Frankfurt).
They say I was on a waiting list, so I must have gotten bumped. That was when I pulled out the confirmation e-mail... which says CONFIRMED in big letters. Then they say I was initially confirmed, then cancelled, and then tried to rebook twice and that's when I got on the waiting list. I'm like "Um no, I never tried to rebook because I was never cancelled that anyone told me about. And I certainly didn't book myself for Frankfurt. I have never booked a flight for there. I have no reason to be there."
They play with the computer some more. They tell me that I'm booked to fly to Frankfurt that morning and then fly from Frankfurt to Paris five days after that. I'm just baffled at this point. I wasn't even routed to London through Paris on this schedule. It just ended there, so I'm like that makes absolutely no sense with the waiting-list-I-got-bumped-to-a-different-flight theory. My line at this point is, "As much as I would love to visit those cities, it just doesn't work for me right now."
By the time they're convinced I'm supposed to be going to London, it's too late to make the flight. And that Alison girl whose boarding pass I originally had had the last seat... whatever happened to her, I have no idea. So then I'm told that I'm being put on the 6pm flight (so much for no red-eye flight). I waited all day and then that flight was delayed three hours. Facepalm. Basically I didn't get to London until lunchtime the next day. RI-DI-CU-LOUS.
20-30 June: London, UK
Dissertation. Oh, and I may or may not have assisted the visiting Marylanders in filling all four of the up-stairs bedrooms with balloons before the Messersmiths got back from Spain.
1-26 July: China
This post has gotten really long... I think I'll make a separate post for this one.
27 July - Present: London, UK
I got to see the last leg of the Olympic torch relay on my first day back. It was being rowed down the Thames under Tower Bridge. Attempts to get into Olympic events failed. Had to work on the dissertation anyway. Did see Lebron James, Yohan Blake, and a variety of athletes/coaches walking around and riding the tube though.
And... dissertation, dissertation, dissertation...
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