Tour - Day 1 (August 15th)

Hey y’all (see what I have done there) lol
I have just finished my 1st day of my adventure and boy am I tired but, I thought id take this opportunity to write the first part of my blog, which has been named by Craig McKeown as ‘T-Dawg on Tour’

So here we go then:

It started at 4 45am whenever mum came into my room to tell me dad had phoned from Kenya to say cheerio. So, very bleary eyed and croaky voiced I took it (I cant remember how the call went though because I went straight back to sleep for another hour)
Next thing I remember was the familiar sound of my hideous alarm ringing in my ears wakening me, yet again, from a lovely deep sleep.

After my farewells to the family mum and I left for Dublin airport at about 6 39am or so (I thought id be accurate, lol). Everything went well for us and was running like clockwork up until the point where I arrived at the airport to find I had misread my ticket and was departing at 11 50am rather than 10 50am, like I had originally thought. Ok so that wasn’t really much of a problem, but it did cost me 23 euros because I treated myself and mum to a breakfast of bacon and tomato relish toasty, was very tasty I might add ☺

Check – in was next on the agenda and that was a very speedy transaction because i did it all on a computer rather than waiting in a queue. This was the part where I had to say farewell to mum, then after a long, emotionally charged goodbye hug we parted ways.

I got to customs and was thinking to myself, “this is going well,” but then disaster struck…
The customs officer spoke:
“Have you got your passport and visa there?”
I handed them over the desk after she had scanned my fingerprints. She then spoke again “Have you got an I-20 form?”
I thought to myself, “This cannot be happening, only me, why is it always me?”
I didn’t have a notion where the form was I didn’t even realise that I needed it after I had already got a valid visa and passport.
“You aren’t going to America today, son!”
My heart sank, was an awful feeling, here’s me stuck in Dublin, on my own being told I cant fly to America, what was I going to do, I didn’t know where the form was.
Then I remembered all of my forms for Moody and my visa etc. are in my suitcase (not much use to me there)
She called the baggage man to try and hunt my suitcase down. He came back and was very optimistic about being able to find my case quickly so I felt a little bit better but still felt as though I was just about to have a panic attack.

“Go and wait over there by the door and we will be with you as soon as possible, sir.”
I dandered over and after a few panicky prayers a man came out of the door and said,
“Arnold?” (I didn’t feel like correcting him at this stage so I held my tongue) “Come with me”
I followed him round to the doors, which lead out to the runway, and I saw the baggage lorry driving towards me. Finally a little light at the end of the tunnel. My bags were pretty much on the top so I was only outside for about 5minutes hoking for the forms. Went back in and showed the forms, passport and visa to the officer again.
Yes, you guessed it, the I-20 wasn’t there. That awful feeling sank down upon me again and I panicked a little more this time because I knew I had all of the forms packed and if it wasn’t there then it was lost. He sent me away to try and organise a flight for a different day.

At this point a man I know from Bible College, Johnny Pollock, showed up (he and his wife were flying to Mexico) He saw I wasn’t in the best of moods and was a little upset and asked what was wrong. And to cut a long story short he helped me out and we eventually found the form, folded up inside an envelope that I had received a few months ago so that I could order my bed linen for my room. We handed it over the desk again and I got approved for departure, PHEWWWWWW!!!!

Now, to the flight. I would say that it was pretty average; you get about the same amount of legroom as you would on an Easyjet flight to London for the day. Infact I had to sit by the emergency exit the day I was flying over to get my visa so I had more legroom. The food (beef lasagne) was ok, could have been better but it also could have been a whole lot worse.

Got to Chicago O’Hare airport in one piece so that was good I suppose. Went straight to baggage reclaim and yes my bad luck in airports had kicked in again, mine was the very last bag to arrive out of the chute (I think that may be because I had to hoke it out of all the rest just before take off though)

Went through customs on this side but this time, to my surprise and relief there ere no question asked. Finally I was in Chicago!!! Met three people at the airport who drove me to Moody where I could meet Josh, the guy whose house I’m staying in for the 1st three nights. He was running a little late and I had half an hour to punch in so the guys who drove me from the airport decided it would be a nice time to take me on a tour of the campus, its massive, I’m tired, and its like 25degrees so reluctantly I said “Yea that would be great” so off we went. The place is massive and its like right bang in the middle of the city. The building I am staying in is 19 floors high and I’m in the top floor, Culby 19.

Evening time now and I’m absolutely starving so Josh his mate, Nathan, and myself all went to an all you can eat buffet, man, there was a lot of food! There were about a million different types of prawns, crabs legs as long as my arm, chicken, steak, lamb, rice, potatoes, sushi (its quite nice actually), noodles, curry, chips (fries)…I could go on but cant be bothered! And best of all free refills on your drink as well as your food plate. About 4 helpings and 3 glasses of coke later I was about finished eating but then we spotted the dessert cart (the Americans know how to eat I can tell ya). We left the place about an hour later feeling like we had eaten our entire body weight haha.

That was pretty much the end of my day because we just went home and went to bed, thank goodness, jet lag is a pain!!!!