Blessed Adventures

Here at last!! Holy capole what a crazy trip!! We arrived in L.A. (two obviously Mormon girls with 5 bags of luggage) and tried to figure out how to get to the international flights by the map my dad had showed me. We must have looked very lost as person after person asked us if we needed help. This nice older man saved our lives by helping us find the desk, but the desk people forgot to mention there was a nice, little shuttle we had to take before getting on the plane. We thought we had plenty of time so were just lolly-gagging around the airport. That same man found us again and asked us why we weren't waiting for our shuttle. Our what?! So we ran back to the gate, and luckily had a little time as they herded us like sheep onto the bus. Phew! Close call! As were sitting on the plane just about to take off, this lady ran over and asked for Ms. Stenquist, handing Rebecca her debit card. Apparently she had left it in the machine when she was getting her boarding pass two hours ago! Ahhh!! There were some very nice people in the L.A airport that night! A huge blessing! Next up, a 14 hour plane ride...wahoo. Tears began to swell in my eyes as they walked us past the business class, reclining on their "beds" and sipping their little champagne drinks. But come to find out, the economy seating was filled with adorable blue and purple seats and also with some surprising leg room. Flight actually wasn't too bad.....maybe due to the fact I could watch "Friends" or "Hannah Montana" when I couldn't sleep. Hong Kong! Beautiful Airport with an amazingly high ceiling! I was surrounded by people from all over the world and we even found some missionaries! Nothing like a missionary to make you feel at home ;) We had a lovely five hour layover and decided to try some HK Burger King breakfast. We received news of a plane crash in China and were slightly worried to fly again as it really hit home, but we were happy it was now daytime and it would be easier to see through the fog. We landed safely in China and couldn't believe we left on Monday and it was now Wednesday! If you ever want to feel like a celebrity, walk out to the waiting area at a Chinese airport and every eye will be on you. We met up with two boys and another girl from our group, so the plan was to have two taxis so girls didn't have to ride alone. Well apparently the Chinese do not like to squish luggage in their taxis and wouldn't let us take two, so Becca and I got pushed into our own! Ahh!! I was completely freaking out as this was what we were not supposed to do. I probably said a million prayers in 30 seconds and hopped into the taxi. I said I wanted to go to China to be forced to speak the language and lucky me had that experience in my first 10 minutes there! The taxi driver didn't speak any English other than "Bye Bye." I explained in the best Chinese I could where we wanted to go and just hoped he understood. Note to self, note to anyone.......NEVER DRIVE A CAR IN CHINA!! You see, there are no cops on the road so the dotted line dividing the lanes is just a pretty decoration which brings no need to use a blinker. We cut off every car, swerved left and right, didn't break until the last possible second......I was pushing my pretend break petal down many times as I wasn't sure we would make it. O! and pedestrians do not have the right away, well no rights at all in China. You kind of get to play "Frogger" every time you cross the street :P We tried to carry on a few random conversations with the driver, sometimes understanding and sometimes just nodding our heads. Come to find out, he didn't actually know where the hotel was. That was when I started to freak out a little. We drove around asking a couple people and some blessed person finally knew and told us where it was! One of the greatest reliefs of my life!! We wandered around town last night........blew out my converter(causing a little smoke in the hotel)......and enjoyed an eight course, spicy muslim meal. Hot tamale! Love it though....love the people, love the culture, love the country :)

Suffering from anxiety, excitement, nervouseness, thrilledness!

I am heading to the foreign land of China! O so crazy!  A whole new journey starts tomorrow :)