Leaving home...again.

Well, tonight I leave for Buenos Aires....for the second time. Apparently the next 5 months really will be an adventure.

I went out to dinner Friday night with my parents, brother, and Jeff before heading to the airport and saying goodbye. Saying goodbye was harder than I thought it would be. At the gate I met up with Kelly and Whitney from Elon and we found about 5 other students participating in our program as well.

The first part of the flight went well. I sat next to Stefan, who will be studying abroad in B.A. for a year, though not through the same program. We got along well, which made the flight much more entertaining.

Around 4:00 am, the pilot came on, said good morning, and informed us that we would be landing in the Dulles airport again in about 20 minutes. Apparently communication was down in Brazil, so any flights going over Brazil had to turn back. I had wondered why the flight map wasn't working when I woke up in the middle of the night--they had turned it off so we wouldn't see we were flying the wrong direction. When my dad checked later, the power was apparently only out for about 3 hours--bad timing. It made for a very long day, but I'd rather be safe.

Once back at the airport (landed around 4:45), there were a few hours of logistics--getting baggage, calling for a new flight, letting CIEE know we wouldn't be there for the first day of orientation, etc. When we all found each other, there was a total of 13 of us from the program on the flight, and we bonded through the chaos. It seems like some really fun people, so I'm excited to get to know them better.

Coming home had its advantages as well. Jeff was not far from the airport this weekend and he was able to pick me up and I went to the surprise party for his parents' 25th wedding anniversary. I was able to spend more time with him, his family, and my family.

Soon I'll be heading to the airport again. Hopefully saying goodbye again today won't be as bad since I've done it already and, if all goes well, I'll be in Buenos Aires tomorrow morning.