Departure day

Couldn't get onto the internet in Dulles, so I'm loading a couple of posts at once. Hi Mom and Dad! :)

4:40 pm. Waiting outside Gate C2 at Dulles. Maybe I’m just paranoid about international air travel, but checking in was surprisingly easy. Then again, after we spent most of the past two days carefully weighting and reweighing my suitcases to make sure even Lufthansa won’t have a problem with them (weight OR volume), I checked the bigger suitcase and brought the smaller one (which I’ve named Vladimir) and the messenger bag with me with no trouble at all. Heck, nobody even asked to check the liquids. There’s something to be said for flying on a Tuesday afternoon…or maybe for looking like a slightly confused college student. Being female probably didn’t hurt either.

Oddly, Gate C2 has the smallest waiting area of any I passed (and was all the way at the bloody other end of the airport from the check-in terminal; they had us take a train across the airport), even though it’s a 250-person flight. (I think most of the passengers are in the C1 waiting area. I’m sitting on the floor with my friend the netbook—part of this complete study abroad experience. :D) We’re supposed to start boarding in fifteen minutes, so I really have nothing else to do except blog. Pardon my rambling, please.

I’ve lived at home for most of my college experience, so leaving home and my parents to head five thousand miles away is a really, really weird experience. Mom and Dad aren’t going to know what to do with themselves now; I hear rumors of remodeling the kitchen (though Dad denies everything). For myself…I’m trying to figure out if it’s possible to be homesick before you even leave the gate. I talked to all of my grandparents this morning, as well as my sister. Nobody’s quite sure what to make of this trip; that includes me. The furthest away from home I’ve ever been previously was Mexico, and that was for…what, a week?...in eighth grade, with fourteen other middle schoolers and two teachers. An eight-hour flight to Germany, followed by a three-hour flight into St. Petersburg, by myself is a little mind-warping.

And I left my cell at home, so I can’t call my parents and tell them I made it through all right. Oh well. Guess that’ll wait until tomorrow in Russia.

There’ll be another post soon, from the airport in Munich. Farewell for now, my friends! :)