Welcome to Hawaii!

I´m in a small room with 9 other girls. I´ve just slept (or tried to sleep) on a top bunker that none of the other girls want because of the hard matress and no latter up, - along with dirty socks, a sleeping bag, some clothes, a hair dryer and a bunch of other knickknack I didn´t get out of the bed before I fell asleep. I had spent 15 minutes, half in my own world after staying up almost the entire 26 hour trip from Norway to Kona, Hawaii, cleaning out everything else laying on that bunkbed, which was packed with stuff...

I woke up 7 this morning and had left over potato chips and a lukewarm Coke with no fuzz for breakfast before I gathered in line and hoped for the water to still be hot when it was my turn to have a shower....

Welcome to Hawaii! Welcome to Paradise! Welcome missionlife and transition!


The story gets better. And it gets worse!

It started with almost forgetting my passport. Yeah you heard right. I had totally forgotten about it BEFORE we cleaned out my apartment, and at 10 PM at night (I was leaving 7.30 in the morning) I by a coincidence realized I didn´t have it, and it must be in one of those 21 huge boxes of all my apartment stuff, in the basement - somewhere!! I tried to not panic, and had Magnar come with me, and of course, in one of the last boxes we looked through we were able to retrieve it. Thanks Magnar for moral support!

The start of the trip was amazing. I sent snapchats and instagrams with me drinking coffee, and getting ready to read my must-have-History-magazine-on-trips, my Bible and a crime book!!! The first hours went like a dream, London was a way better stop-over than Frankfurt and I was just so happy to be on my way!

Then another sign of how this trip would continue caught me in London. My ESTA waiver program to get into US was invalid...  you had to get it at least 72 hours prior to traveling before you could enter the US!! So the next half hour was stressing out about that, re-applying, and the man at the desk felt so sorry for me he asked if he should bump me up to have a free seat next to me nearer the front, so I could get more rest. (Since I´m kinda tiny I´m used to crawl up and sleep if I have only two planeseats).

Next up was that the plane was over an hour and a half late, my layover in San Francisco was already short, and my free seat next to me ended up not being free..... and of course, I discovered later, the seat next to where I should have been seated, was free...

From then on it went pretty much downhill. I was getting very tired, but couldn´t sleep, I was restless and uncomfortable and because of misunderstandings I ended up last into Customs, behind the plane that had come in after ours. When I entered I was in the middle of a long line all the way into the hallway with tons of people coming in behind me, but when I finally was through, all the others had managed to get in before me, and I was alone in the whole huge Customs room with only 2 guys behind me. I just wanted to cry!

Then it was running against the clock again to hopefully reach my Hawaiian flight!!! Only to get there out of breath, on time, realizing that it had been delayed - also - 1 hour 15 minutes.... which ended up being 2 hours and I would not come into Kona until after midnight Friday night. By this time I was so exhausted I bought an upgrade ticket to have a free seat next to me (again so I could lay down and sleep) - which ended up being 70$ out the window.... because the handle could not be lifted up between the seats!!! Welcome to drama!! The next 20 minutes the flight attendant and my helpful neighbor frantically tried out almost all the seats in the plane while all the travelers were coming in, to see if any of them would go up. I wanted to sink through the floor...

End of - not the story - but this session was that I couldn´t care less and went straight for the hard, metallayed floor in between the seats!! The guy next to me said he would look after me, and when the flight attendants came wanting me to get up he told them that I was so sick, if I got up I would puke all over the plane!!! I had to laugh when he told me later..... But after a while it seemed like the flight attendants were starting to smile about the whole situation.

A couple of hours of half sleep on the wet metal layed, freezing floor (did I say someone had spilt water, so it was totally soaked!), I felt a bit better (like close to normal at least) and my helpful neighbor claimed to be a writer for Steven Spielberg, and has been for over 20 years!! "If you know who that is?!" If I know who Steven Spielberg is?!? I was starstruck again!! All those famous actors he knew, all those famous movies he´d been a part of... He gave me another glimpse of a life in another world, and told me he liked to ride Coach (Economy) and not first class, so he could talk to people like me. I was happy. And in any case, it ended up being an entertaining talk, and he offered to get his chauffeur to drive me home from the airport.

I was exhausted, but beyond happy to see Mike and Chris at the airport.... I was actually kinda hyper about the whole trip as I told them some of the details, and we laughed and talked the whole way back to the base... where my joy rapidly ended in a rather unpleasant meeting with the filled up room of 9 girls that had no clue I was coming....

And now - I´m trying to swallow all this... the Coke and chips for breakfast, the 10 of us living literally on top of each other.... how on earth we´re gonna manage to keep that room clean with 10 girls.... and a whole bunch of scenarios that are entering my mind. If nothing else, if I wasn´t prepared enough, this 26 hours - if nothing else - woke me up to the fact that I really am entering into a new and very different period in my life, and that I am really going to live a missionary life.....

- it´s a bit scary!

Right before I boarded the last plane, totally out of it, I walked by this sign about British Colombia. The "hub" I will join is called Awaken. OKEY! I am awake now!!

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And yes.... if you must know.... I have already spilt in my new room..... twice. Once just water, but then I broke a glass jar with sand and beads inside. Great!!