The Diaries

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May 22, 2009

First Thoughts

Posted by Nick Hanson

June 1- The fact that I am going to China is finally starting to hit me, but I do not think I realize what a trip this could be. My bags are ready and packed sitting on the floor, and every time I look at them I am thinking about what I could be forgetting. This will be the first time that I have really been out of the country, let alone halfway across the world. I am looking forward to an experience of a lifetime, and really don’t know what to expect.

June 3- The day that I thought would never come is finally here. It is 6:30 am and the bags are packed, sitting by the door and waiting. The group arrives at my house and we get the truck packed and ready to go. I did not realize how much stuff five people could have. We had the back of the truck stuffed so full that we have to tie the truck lid shut. We got to Cedar Rapids with no bags falling out of the truck, and got all checked in. Next thing I knew, it was 9:30 and we were on the plane and heading to Chicago. When we got to Chicago, we had a couple hour layover, so we ate a little, and played Monopoly to pass the time. At about noon we began boarding the plane for Beijing. I had never been in any vehicle for 13 hours and not been able to get out, so I was a little nervous on how this would work. As I got on the plane I noticed that the seats I was walking by were fairly big, so I was thinking this might not be that bad after all. As I got about 3 rows from my seat, the seats got drastically smaller. I looked at it, and thought I was going to have claustrophobia before I even sat down. I sat down and the sweat began to fall from my forehead as I thought there was no way I could sit in a seat, no larger than a domestic flight, for 13 hours. I took a couple deep breathes, put my headphones in and decided I didn’t really have a choice at this point, I had to find a way to make it. About 5 minutes after we got off the ground, my head hit the window and I was asleep for a couple hours. I slept most all of the flight except to eat and watch one movie, Mall Cop. They served us three meals on the plane, which was more than enough, but I kept eating them because I was not sure when the next time we could eat was. Right after then got all of the trays taken from the last meal, they told us to buckle up and prepare for landing. At this point, I knew I could be in trouble after eating right before landing. As I was opening my window to watch as we landed I realized that I had not stood up once from my seat the WHOLE flight. Yes, that means I did not go to the restroom or anything in 13 hours. At the same time I realized that I had not moved, I realized how dehydrated I must be to not have used the restroom yet, and how this landing could be very bad. As we began to approach Beijing the turbulence on the plane made it feel like a roller coaster. I began to feel like I was going to throw up and it took all the concentration and deep breathes in my body to keep it down. We finally made the landing at about 2:30 pm Beijing time (1:30 am Iowa time), but not without making it the roughest landing I have ever experienced in a plane. We then had to have people come on the plane to take our temperatures to make sure that no one on the plane had the swine flu.

We got through all of the customs things, met our tour guide in Beijing for the next two days and now we were ready to head to the hotel. We got all checked in, got our bags in, and then laid down for a nap. What I thought would be a couple hour nap turned into 13 hours of sleep.