Made it

After a year plus of planning, emailing, cajoling, and many other gerunds, we made it. 25 strong. Well... eventually. Only 24 made it so far. A marine, I am not. More on that later.

The journey was rough, broken into five, three hour increments: LAX, flight to Houston, layover in Houston, flight to Iberia, bus ride to Samara. I tried to sleep during the flights, but was baby neck and kept jarring myself awake. My cabesa is mucho grande.

Flying in was a bit of a joy ride. You could see the white caps on the water from 20,000 feet, a pretty good indication of the adventure to come. Who needs Six Flags when you have landings like that?

I was a bit disappointed in the welcoming we received. Or lack of one.Believe me, I wasn't expecting marching bands but we got a Dutch student worker who unluckily got picked the Sunday shift. It was a bit of a cluster fuck arranging the Tico-families to come pick up the students. The students were a bit shell shocked, and some of the girls looked at me with utter confusion when I told them to get into these cars with these strangers. Even worse, we couldn't get a hold of some of the families, so some students had to wait. And wait.

We had a welcome dinner... but once again, there wasn't anyone from the school to welcome us. Apparently, Lucie came at 8:30 but many of the students were baby neck, falling asleep into their gallo pinto.

By this time it was pitch black, and I made sure everyone had a buddy so no one walked home alone. We lost most of the group when we passed the Internet cafe.

Speaking of which, as is my Modus operandi, I left a student behind. For those who don't remember, in 2006 as we were departing Barcelona, one of my students had her backpack stolen- due to her own stupidity and/or drunkenness. Of course the backpack had her wallet and passport, so with many tears I left her at the airport with $200 and a good luck. On Sat night, more of the same. We had a late entry participant. One girl signed on within the last week. But she had to book her own flight. I was surprised when she told me she would arrive within ten minutes of our plane's arrival. Serendipitous I thought. Too much so. She had read the itinerary incorrectly, and instead of departing at 11:30 Sat night, she was leaving 11:30 Sunday, coming in 24 hours later that we were. There wasn't much I could do at that point. She can take a bus or a taxi. We'll see if she arrives today.

I was in bed and asleep by 9:00. Arrival day- complete.