Getting there

You’re always strong until you see someone else cry. Leaving Columbus was not particularly easy, though boarding the plane was not hard to do. I waived goodbye to my family an obnoxious amount of times, and felt anxious when I ever I turned around to look back. I can’t really describe my feelings when I boarded the plane, I just felt calm, or at least tried to appear that way, though when the plane began its descent into Minneapolis, an overwhelming sense of excitement took over, and I felt that my adventure had truly begun. My layover was brief, and I soon boarded the plane to Paris. 

I sat next to a very nice middle-aged couple from India heading to Bangalore. The flight was longer than expected, 9 hours. I did not sleep for a moment, I never do on planes. I arrived to Charles DeGaul at 12 am our time, and 7 am their time. I had a six hour layover. Paris is grey and raining, not really the weather I pictured for my journey, and looking at the rain was making me all the more tired. 

My Parisian breakfast 

After exploring the airport for a few hours, it was time to board the plane to Jordan. Queen Alia Airport was not as grand as I expected it to be. When I was in line to exchange my currency in JD a woman, who I thought worked for the airport said she could just do it all for me, which at first sounded great, but then I got scared that they were trying to scam me. However after waiting 30 minutes for them to get my visa, I ended up only paying them 20 extra for getting my visa, bags and passport stamped. When I got out of security I met Omar, the driver that was sent from the Kings Academy to pick me up at the airport. Although he spoke little english, and as of right now I speak no Arabic, we still managed to communicate. 

The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the airport and into the street was the smell, and how I felt like I was in Europe. The drive to the academy wasn’t too long. What struck me, was that we would drive on a highway, and you would see a city in the distance, however, between the highway and the city was just barren land, with some mansions randomly places along the highway.

We finally reached the gates of the academy, and the guard let us in. We drove up a large road lined with palm trees, and I was dropped off in front of one of the buildings to wait for Chriss to take me to the dorms. The campus is beautiful. You can definitely tell that it was modeled after a New England boarding school, however the  buildings have many elements of Middle Eastern architecture, which surprisingly mix very well. 

So, I have reached my destination, I finally have internet, and I am waiting for the adventure to begin.