The Beginning

For those of you who know me personally, you know that I have been gone for about a month now.  So I'm about to do a little back tracking to get all of you caught up on the last month month and a half of my life.  Let's start from the beginning, but for most teachers, the end of the summer.  Ready, set, ...go!

• July 20th: Shocker!

I had gone out of town for the weekend and forgotten my phone on the couch.  I thought I would die without it, but somehow survived the traumatic experience.  When I returned, a fellow teacher asked if I had received an email with my flight information.  I quickly responded telling her no, but realized I hadn't even checked.  When I checked my email I was in shock.  I had received the email that told me I was leaving for Abu Dhabi on July 30th.  I had a little over a week to get everything together (and if you ask my sister she would tell you that I had gotten nothing together at this point).  I was never told an exact date of departure before this moment but in my head I thought I would be leaving in mid August.

• July 25th: Going Away Weekend

My mom always tells me that I have such a great group of friends and she is totally right about that.  My friends had already planned my going away festivities for this weekend (talk about good timing) and my sisters came to to town to join me as well.  I had so much fun and really appreciated the time and effort my friends and family had put into planning the weekend events.  I have spent many moments here in Abu Dhabi thinking about how I always have a great time with my people regardless of what we do. (If you haven't noticed I'm having a moment while writing this reminiscing and missing them)  I love my sisters and friends.  Thanks again guys for an awesome send off!

• July 28th-29th:  Packing

I don't ever want to do this again!  Stressful, don't even want to talk about it.  Leaving it in the past!

• July 30th:  D. Day aka Departure Day

Reality has hit!  My phone is blowing up with everyone wanting to say good bye.  I feel a little sick because the nerves have seriously kicked in.  I wake up to have time to do last minute task but there still isn't enough time.  My eyes are beginning to water and don't stop until I get on the plane.  I took a flight from Atlanta to Chicago where I had a six hour layover.  Luckily my dad met me there (we were going to originally meet in Atlanta the next week but due to my travel plans we had to rearrange our visit).  He was just coming back to the states from Rwanda and wanted to spend some time with me before I left the states.  We went into the city and had dinner, but I couldn't eat much because the nerves were still cutting up.

I said my good byes to my dad and then got on my next flight from Chicago to Abu Dhabi.  This flight was thirteen hours.  I slept for ten of them!  Yes, I was that tired.  I woke up for meals and at the end of the flight (about the last hour and a half) I stayed up because we were landing at night and I didn't want to be up all night due to jet lag (this plan didn't help much with the jet lag).

• July 31st:  I have Arrived!

I landed in Abu Dhabi!!  To be continued...