Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
My first flight!
Auckland Central, New Zealand
It was a crazy feeling to wake up today and realize that in less than 24 hours, I will have flown in an airplane for the first time, crossed the country, flew over the ocean, and practically circled the globe! This morning Mom and I put the finishing touches on packing my luggage and then drove to the Smiths for our trip to the Harrisburg airport (Nate Smith and went to high school together and are now both at Juniata). Luckily, check-in and security were less strict than I'd expected, and all my bags passed inspection without any hitches. I bid my farewells to Mom with lots of hugs, kisses, and waves, then made my way into the waiting area for the first flight of my life!
To me, taking off felt a little like a rollercoaster at Hershey Park - only we just kept going up and up! I'm sure Nate got a kick out of how excited I was at each new thing…the ramp onto the plane, the start of the engine, turning around, starting to move, scenery flying by, up and up, then all of a sudden we were ABOVE the clouds! They look so different from up there - it was like a sea of cotton popcorn and underneath it a tiny train set of organized houses and roads. I couldn't get over how beautiful the clouds looked from above! And after we changed flights in Chicago, the scenery opened up and blew me away completely. Snow-covered mountains, rolling hills, endless plains, plateaus, canyons, rivers and lakes…everything imaginable passed beneath us. And as if the view from the window wasn't enough, an adorable little girl in the seat in front of us kept us entertained with enough imaginary ice cream, strawberries, and pizza to feed an army.
We had a bit of a layover in Los Angeles before we loaded into our flight with Air New Zealand, and this airplane was even bigger than I could have imagined. I sat next to a man from Australia who really got a kick out of the fact that my first day of flying would take me halfway around the world. We chatted a little about my study abroad, and before I knew it, we were off!
- comments