Up, Up, and Away

This is it. I cannot believe it. I'm sitting in the airport, my bag has been checked, I have my boarding pass, and now I just have to wait. My plane boards at 2:15, about 2 hours from now. When we pulled into the airport, there was a New Zealand Air plane sitting by the road at a terminal, and it had a sign for The Hobbit on it! It made me happy. When I was checking in, the attendant offered to check my second bag for free. I was happily surprised. Unfortunately, I have enough things in my second backpack that I need or don't was to risk disappearing that I had to turn her down. It certainly would be easier to check that backpack. It's a bit of a nuisance to have two backpacks to carry around.

So many months of preparation come to this. In the car on the way here I was in disbelief of myself that I'm actually doing this. It's not like it's a spontaneous decision; I have been planning and preparing for a long time. But I'm about to get on a plane and fly for 11 hours by myself to a country I have never been to. I guess I am becoming more independent than I had realized, which is kind of a scary thought. It's normal, obviously, but it's a bit unnerving.

Here I go, on the adventure of a lifetime. I can't wait to eat breakfast. I'm soooo hungry right now. Auf wiedersehen! My next post will be from Germany!

Grace and Peace,
Suzannah

All Packed and (Nearly) Ready

Everything (except last minute things, like my computer) is packed. My life is now consolidated to a suitcase and two backpacks. I am completely amazed. I can't even do that when I move in at school. I was telling my coworkers earlier that I was worried about going over my weight limit with my checked bag, but I packed it all up and weighed it on the scale in the bathroom, which, might I say, was quite a task. First I weighed myself. Then I picked up my bag and checked the weight again to see how much the bag weighs. Sounds simple enough, but the bag isn't a normal suitcase. Oh no. It's a had backed duffel with wheels, which is surprisingly difficult to pick up while balancing on a scale. Nonetheless, I picked up the bag, and discovered that even though it feels much heavier than it was when I tried this last week (which gave me a minor heart-attack), it weighs exactly the same as it did: 40 pounds. That's amazing to me. My bag is packed full, so I expected it to be 51 pounds at least. But it's not!! My carry-on was packed a little too tight for my comfort. It absolutely HAS to fit, so I moved a few things from that backpack to the suitcase, so that should fit fine, and my suitcase is still under my weight limit. I'm thrilled. I still can't believe I did it. Now I have about an hour-and-a-half until I leave town to meet my roommate in Victorville, so I have to make my German helper-book! 

Grace and Peace,

Suzannah

The Last Few Days

I meant to blog last night, but I never got to it. So here now is a recap of my last weekend in California.

My weekend was actually rather successful. The trend for break has been sleeping in super late each morning and getting almost nothing done. This past weekend, the one weekend when I actually needed to get things done, I did get things done! I got some final things from the store that I will be needing, like airplane food (a must!), and few other small things that add up. Sunday I played on the worship team at church. I wish I could have played more frequently during my time home, but it just didn't happen. I'm glad I finally got a chance on my final Sunday. Worship was amazing, the best I have experienced in the past six weeks, because the worship flowed well and the congregation engaged. The past few weeks it has been a struggle to get the congregation engaged in worship, but this week there was joy in the house that bubbled up and over. I was so grateful to be a part of it. Monday my wonderful friend Krystal threw me a farewell party at her house, and she, Zach and I spent the afternoon cooking food in preparation for it. I can't speak for them, but I had a blast. Krystal told me that she looked up a bunch of German recipes in hopes of fixing German food for the party, but she said they were confusing, and she figured I would be eating enough German food in the next few months, so I got a German-chocolate cake instead. It was a kinda complicated recipe, but between the three of us it didn't stand a chance. Zach read the recipe and directions off of the computer and Krystal and I mixed it up. It was delicious. And fun to make. About 15 people showed up that night, and we ate, laughed, and played Crazy Uno (if you have never played Crazy Uno, you should learn. It's so much fun). I had a wonderful time, thanks to Krystal. She had asked me last week if I was having a going away party, and when I told her I wasn't she said, "Lame. I'm throwing you one." I'm glad she did :)

Tomorrow is my last day of work, and then tomorrow evening Dad is driving me to Victorville, where my roommate Malia will pick me up and take me to APU so I can say some final goodbyes to friends. Today my coworkers took me to lunch (Chinese food - my choice) as a final farewell. My coworker Linda gave me a scarf, and Mary gave me handwarmers. In the card that was signed by the whole library, the common theme was "stay warm," and Linda and Mary's gifts kept right along with that theme. I'm super excited to use the hand warmers. I'll save those for really cold days.

So this is it. Soon will be my final farewell and then I will be winging my way to Deutschland. My bags are nearly packed, and I'm almost ready!

Grace and Peace,
Suz :)