Travel

I am in Jakarta. Sorry this has taken so long to post. The internet isn’t set up in my apartment and probably won’t be for the near future. This post will be about the 51-hour trek from Wichita to Jakarta.

The time leading up to my departure from America was not as stressful as I had imagined it would be. Packing was easily the worst part of the preparation for my trip to Indonesia—probably the only time where I was even a little frustrated. Saying goodbye to friends and family was not as hard as I had imagined it would be. I kept thinking all along that reality would strike when I said goodbye to my parents or when I got to the airport. My flight from Wichita to Chicago was delayed by 2 hours and gave my dad and I plenty of time to just sit and enjoy each other’s company one last time (mom recently had knee surgery and didn’t make it to the airport). Once I got to Chicago, I was the 2^ndperson in our traveling group of 10 to arrive. I met my new friend, Aaron, at the ticketing window for Qatar Airways just before 3:00. The window didn’t even open until 5:00, so we had plenty of time to get to know each other and get a feel for what each of us was thinking about this experience. I met Aaron a little bit after he had said goodbye to his dad and brother. It was evident that he comes from a great family and cares deeply about his family members. I didn’t show much emotion when saying goodbye to my family and I hope that they realize that doesn’t mean I am excited to not see them for a year. I am so lucky to have my family in my life. From the time I got to Wichita on Saturday until I left Monday morning, everyone in my family was extremely supportive of my upcoming adventure. How do I describe the love that my parents have always shown me? Embarrassed? No. Ashamed? No. I think the right term would be “not worthy.” I cannot imagine a set of parents being so consistently supportive and loving of a child as they have been to me. My parents always say that the way I pay them back for everything is by doing the same to my children. A) I hope I get the chance to be a great husband/father and B) I have a really high bar to live up to from what my parents have done for me. Long story short, I am overly blessed to have the people in my life that I do.

On to the travel! The first big flight was from Chicago to Doha, Qatar. Qatar Airways does it right. If you ever have a chance to use their product, I highly recommend it. The plane was a 3-3-3 seating arrangement and each seat had a personal entertainment system placed in the headrest directly in front of them (below: image of the personal entertainment system of the plane on a compass with an arrow pointing towards Mecca).

The personal entertainment system was a touch screen and had a lot of different features. You could watch movies (over 200 to choose from), watch TV shows (a very good selection), listen to music (didn’t even get around to checking this out), read up on Qatar, and see the flight’s progress on rotating maps. I watched “Silver Linings Playbook,” and an episode of “How I Met Your Mother,” and read up on the airline and the country where I would be spending the night. The food was pretty good: very good for airplane standards. And there was always more coming our way. On the 13.5 hour flight to Doha, we got two meals (dinner and breakfast) and stewardesses kept coming around with drinks and snacks throughout the flight. We landed around 6:30pm local time but didn’t get settled in our hotel room until around 9:30. On the drive to the hotel, we were able to see the beautiful architecture that painted the Doha skyline (below: my favorite skyscraper).

The hotel was very nice and came with a free dinner and breakfast. The meals were both buffets and had incredible spreads. We did not leave Movenpick Tower & Suites hungry. Each of us got our own room, so we felt like we were living as kings and queens. We had to be in the lobby for our shuttle to the airport the following morning at 7:00am, but we all figured that we probably weren’t going to be spending many more nights of our life in Doha so we went exploring. The few people we saw out at night (granted, it was from 12-1) was surprising. After walking around downtown Doha, we went back to the hotel to grab a few zzzs before our flight the next morning.

The flight to Jakarta was a little over 8 hours. I don’t know if it is typical for long international flights to be delayed, but both of ours got in around 45 minutes after they were supposed to. I’m sure that has to do with loading 40+ rows of 9 people. I got lucky on this flight and got to sit next to Brad, the one person I had met at the fair at UNI that I knew was going to Indonesia, in an exit row. The extra leg room on an 8 hour flight cannot be understated. The only (not negative…) different thing about being in an exit row was that when it was time for Muslims to do their daily prayers, they came to the exit row to face Mecca. I tried to keep my feet out of their way while they were kneeling, but multiple times contact was made. No one made any note of it, but I wanted to be as respectful as possible. I can tell that Muslims are a very faithful group and I am excited to see what my interactions are with them in the near future. Once we landed, there was someone there to greet the 10 of us traveling together to help us go through customs and get our visas inspected. After making it out of the airport, Jane, our HR director, greeted us with a goody bag that included a converter, bottle of water, and (wait for it…) KFC!! My first meal in Indonesia was a thigh and a lot of steamed rice. Traveling with 9 other people in the same boat as me was awesome. It really helped me stay calm the whole way. I kept waiting for me to freak out that I was somewhere between Africa and Australia, but it hadn’t come…yet.

I have my next post typed up already. It will detail getting dropped off at my apartment and the 30ish hours before the school picked us up for our first of 5 orientation days. I could post it now, but what fun would that be? I gotta make sure you keep checking the site! Check back in a short bit for the story of when I really felt lonely for the first time in my life.