Sunday, July 20, 2014

Luggage Galore!

My family before I leave.
Early morning wake up call for us 9 Brown Women and Leadership ladies. It has finally been the day that we have all been waiting for over 6 months now.  I tried my best to wake up as early as I can. Knowing Don, there is no such thing as tardiness in the ILC. It was a bit difficult for me however, to wake up since I slept at 11 PM the night before. I know, I should have taken Don’s advice of getting a good night’s sleep, but it seemed almost impossible since I just arrived from another flight hours before. I’ll be honest; it took me a while to pack the things that I needed. I guess I was just overfatigued from all of my activities that I did during my trip to France and I could not really focus. But later on in the night, I finally came to my senses and was successfully able to pack all my clothes, toiletries, and rentals.

We all met up at the front of El Cerrito High School the following morning at 3 AM to finally begin our adventure. To my surprise, I was the first to arrive with my parents and sister. From a distance I could see Don and Jenny setting up their table topped with various snacks and goodies for our trip. It was kind of a funny since you don’t often see people setting up tables in front of a high school at 3 AM in the morning. 

I got off the car and afterwards Don weighed my luggage. They were both well under 42 lbs. and I was ready to go. Of course, the morning would not be complete without Don’s famous lectures on the rules and regulations for the trip. Even thought they might have been repeated a good amount of times, it is never too bad for a refresher. The only minor problem that we had was the shuttle; it didn’t seem to fit everyone along with all the luggage like we thought it would be. So we improvised; 9 of us rode in the shuttle along with most of the luggage, while Don took Jenny and the remaining items to his car. I said my farewells to my parents and my little sister then made my way towards the shuttle van. 

The ride to the airport was calm, but you could feel that small rush of excitement in each of us. You could tell that we have been waiting for this day for quite a while now. Airport security was surprisingly easy for Jessie, Magaly, YeonSoo, Cynthia, and I. Our boarding tickets listed as "TSA PRE". We basically just put our bags in a bin and walked through a sensor. It literally took us only 20 seconds and we easily avoided the long line and the frequent stop and frisk of passengers in security. Unfortunately for the rest of the group, they had to wait in that line which took a couple of minutes to get through.


Quick breakfast at the airport
Both flights were a breeze and comfortable. I slept through most of the first flight unlike the second, in which I just talked frequently to Magaly and YeonSoo. The weather in Rhode Island seemed almost perfect. The airport was surrounded with lush green trees and was also enrobed in cloudy skies.

We finally arrived at Brown with our limousine-like shuttle bus. It was packed with us 10 ladies and of course our wonderful varieties of luggage. I was a little nervous when we first arrived because everything seemed all so new to us. The highlight of this first day has got to be hauling our luggage to our dorms. We were all assigned to Perkins Hall and it seemed very empty at first when we arrived. There was no elevator unfortunately, so we had to haul our luggage up the flight of stairs to our designated rooms. We were all sweating like there was no tomorrow. I'm pretty sure we burned up more calories then we could ever imagined. 

After a small dinner with my cohort, we made our way back to the dorms with our portable fans that we rented from one of the buildings. Inside, there were several other girls who came back from dinner as well. We got to meet some of them and I must admit, it was very fun to talk to them. I met a British girl, Chiarra, and I quickly fell in love with her accent. I complimented her about being British and she replied the same saying that she loved Filipinas as well. She was very cool and I can't wait to talk to her more during my stay here. 
Hauling luggage is our specialty.

It took me a while to find my roommate. Everyone already seemed to settle in and meet their roommates. I knew my roommate's name, it was Ofir, I just didn't know who she was. It wasn't until our assigned Resident Advisor, Kassandra (or Kass for short) held a small meeting at 9 PM where I finally got to see and meet Ofir. She is British as well, born in Boston but had the accent as if she lived in London. I was very exciting as I got to understand her more. She is one of those down to earth people and I always compliment her accent and how cool she is. I don't know, I guess I'm a sucker for those with a British accent.

Overall, this trip has been an amazing experience, even on this very first day. I got to meet a lot of new students and hopefully I will meet more as the days past by. Our first class is tomorrow, wish me luck!

1 comment:

  1. Dang--maybe someone should have advised you all to pack light. Oh wait! EVERYONE advised you numerous times to pack light! Maybe now you'll listen to us old folks about things like this.

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