Leaving Charlotte
The day has finally arrived - I've left home, I'm sitting in the Charlotte, NC airport waiting for the first leg of my flight. In about 24 hours I'll be in New Zealand.
It's been a crazy week. I had two days of school meetings and only about 1 day with students. My students gave me a great sendoff (especially my 1st block!) and I did talk to my substitute this morning before I left home. It sounds like everything is moving ahead as it should at school - The students hadn't tied Ms. Prince to her chair or revolted. I also confirmed what I think I knew anyway - that you can alsways find things to do that will fill all the available time when your are trying to leave home.
This morning it was the final downloads of files to take with me, stuffing a few more things into the bags, then taking a few out to compensate. There was the cleaning (sorry I didn't get as much done as I planned Cindy), seeing the dog looking very worried, and . . . a trip to the bank to get some traveling cash. In spite of off the odds and ends, I did manage to head for the airport about when I had planned.
I have a traveling companion who will be in some pictures soon. Ms. Pattersons 2nd grade class sent a Flat Stanley with me and he's been enjoying the trip so far, although he's a little tired of being kept in my backpack. I took him out for a look around in the airport and he decided that maybe the backpack wasn't so bad after all. It was warm and cozy and didn't have all those people and electric carts darting around. He's already flat, but he doesn't want to get any flatter!
My traveling companion, Flat Stanley, waiting to start the adventure.
That's about all of the excitement for now. I fly from Charlotte to Dallas to Los Angeles to Sydney,Australia, and then Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand. Get out a map and trace my route! If you want a real challenge, see if you can figure out how far it is in miles (or better yet, kilometers).
I will miss all my students, friends, and family, but I figure I'm a lot safer surrounded by penguins than teenagers (just kidding guys). Keep watching and reading as my journey continues.
And 8 hours later. . .
I'm in Los Angeles waiting to board my flight to Sydney, Australia. This is exciting - I've never been to Australia! I'm not sure if walking through the airport counts, but since it's all I'll end up doing, I'm going to count it as a new country. As I type this it's 10:00 P.M. Pacfic time, which means it's 2:00 A.M. in Charlotte. I've napped a little, but this next leg is 15 hours in an airplane - I'd better do some serious sleeping or I'll be really tired and grumpy when I finally get to New Zealand. By the way, my next plane is a 747 and I'm in row 53. It's a BIG plane - if you haven't seen one, look for a picture of one and see what they look like.
Flat Stanley came out of my backpack to help with this journal entry, but he's really not very good at typing - he keeps getting distracted by all the people around. As I sit here I can hear people with Australian accents, some French, Spanish, and Chinese. This is truly an international city - people from all over the world come here and end up flying home through LAX.
I hope everyone has their world maps out and is plotting where I am and where I'm headed. Geography is really important - if you are going to be a good world citizen, you need to know where different places are around the globe
Flat Stanley tried typing, but I'm afraid he's not very good at it. Maybe with some practice he can learn.