<lj-cut text="Miami and flying entries">15 February 2008, 8:00 am
 

First leg of the trip and I can’t even get off the ground.  My 6:30 am flight out of Lincoln is delayed due to mechanical concerns.  I empathize with the one woman who seems to be taking care of everything at this time that the world forgot.  I’m on about four hours of sleep, with a nap in the concourse since I’ve gotten off, and am having difficulty keeping all the details in my head straight; not tremendous difficulty, just that extra effort like waking up tired after a night of fitful sleep when you have a cold.
 

Friends.  I am thinking almost exclusively of friends while I wait here, unsure if I’ll make my connection to Miami, where I’ll stay with my mother’s friend, Marta until the next morning when they will drop me off at the airport.  “Every journey begins with the first step” comes to mind, but the steps for this journey began four years ago when I started looking for schools and these more corporeal ones are sadly convoluted and uncertain.  This is a poor way to do things.  All the time, I think about the people I have already left behind at school.  I return the day of graduation (sometime between midnight and six back in Miami, I believe) of a few dear friends, people I have the echo of a concern I won’t ever see again.  That is less true than what happened last year with graduation.

The trip has changed, now.  Later I will fly out of Omaha, through Houston, to Miami.  Dissonance, the way that everything was just out of sync, somehow in conflict without wanting to be; like disagreements between passionate people, they cover so much unfamiliar ground you leave without knowing where to go or from where you came.  Hopefully those sorts of details are figured out by the end of the day.  For now, I wait for my luggage, my mother (who will provide a ride), and a meal.

About midnight

And thus ends the first day of the expedition, my great, lone excursion into the world ends late in the evening with a stressful side quest through Houston, Texas.  Here I am, in Miami and fed before going to bed and waking for the first time in years next to an ocean.  On the taxicab ride from the airport I almost began to laugh, considering that I am here, prepared to leave for Belém, Brasil.  I laughed knowing that I have made it this far, that I have not spent any time learning any Portuguese, that a wonderful Spanish family friend made me a dinner at eleven o’clock in the evening (though I did not know that at the time), and that my day had started at before God woke in another time zone.  (His absence is my reasoning for the plane not functioning in the first place, that and Lincoln being ill-prepared to see me go.)  Friends and family have heard bits and pieces of the trek thus far, but I am happy that no one else had to undergo it.  My mother, though, likely suffered as much anxiety about my misadventure than I did, though she did not have to cramp herself into airplane seats.

Brief overview:

4:30 – Designated time of required waking to prepare for drive to airport, all luggage is packed and waiting in my mother’s new Jeep

5:30 – Arrival and checked luggage at airport

6:00 – Loading of airplane

6:10 – Explanation of mechanical problems (wing spoiler is fixed on, creating drag that would prevent liftoff), exodus of plane for terminal

7:00 – The mention of wait for mechanics to fix plane

8:00 – Rescheduling of flight from Omaha, to Miami, via Houston

9:15 – Nap

12:00 – Drive to Omaha, includes mother-son sing along to “Across the Universe” soundtrack

14:25 – Flight out of Omaha to Houston

16:30 – Landing in Houston, followed by taxiing and mild freak-out that I would miss my connection

17:05 – Scheduled boarding of flight to Miami

17:30 – Actual time of boarding

21:00 (about) – Arrival in Miami

22:30 – Luggage pickup and drive to Marta’s, friend of my mother, to sleep

23:00 – Discussion with Marta, dinner, and realization that I made it to Miami

I am still lacking an internet connection.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Powered by ScribeFire.