Saturday, November 6, 2010

Travel Update: I’m finally here!

Wow, now THAT was a long time traveling. I spotted my first eMi-er at the JFK airport. Aaron was wearing a Phila. Univ. sweatshirt, so I figured he was the intern I had been told to keep my eyes open for. I was right, but WAY off in my logic actually… I knew it was him because I thought he was wearing a PBU shirt = Christian, which makes NO sense because PBU doesn't have an architecture program, and Philadelphia University isn’t a Christian school. So-ya, I got it right on my hunch though.

Once to the terminal, I hastily wrote up a prayer update to email to all my contacts, after failing to find my staple TCBY treat pre- flight, sad day! Aaron and I spotted a couple fitting the profile for one of our father & son duo eMi-ers at JFK as well. Aaron snuck up behind them in the check in line and ruled them out due to their native French conversation. Man, I REALLY thought it was them (5’10” with 13yr old son).

We got in WAY early to Amsterdam… not that it did us any good in getting us to Africa any sooner, but I was able to spread out along the hallway on a bed of travel towels, stacks of paper, my trip binder, bible and scarf used to separate the cold floor from my body. The four of us met up with the rest of the group, one flight arrived slightly before us, and we walked right by them AND our gate while wandering and chatting, which made for an interesting spectacle as we travelled both directions “touring” the terminal on the moving walkways, though no one was at the gate to watch. It took a long while before I legitimately fell asleep amongst the hustle and bustle of the terminal, but I got two good solid naps in to substitute for my Friday night’s sleep before lining up at the gate at 10am. At this point, I needed to move around a bit and spoke to the eager-to-be-challenged 17yr old on our trip, Kyle, err, Nate and got a good power walking race out of him. He had the moving walkway in his favor, and I was on the ground beside. And man, I TOTALLY almost won! It was a tie ;) as I just barely squeezed a final step up as he was stepping off the walkway.

It’s interesting meeting the eMi teams. Due to the nature of having a diversity of engineers/architects to meet the needs of the project, we get most of the sterotypes covered. We have Jim, the quiet and polished looking architect, and Shannon, the single, I’ll pick apart anything I see architect as well. Then there is Kent, the surveyor, blunt, bold, starting “trouble” as means of making friends. Let’s not forget the electrical engineer Dennis, who is very black and white, calculated, and predictable. Then there is the structural engineer Robert, our dad of 13yr old Ben, who is a good wholesome Midwestern style guy, where nothing is spontaneous or out of the box, but a casual and calm personality. Last but not least there is our civil engineer/roads guy Ross, who is … young, so I’m not sure he fits a type yet!

The accommodations here are great… and I am falling asleep in bed with A.C. Breakfast is tomorrow at 7am… and it’s almost 3am… It’s good to be stretched out horizontal. Caio for nowzzzZZZZ!

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