Thursday, April 7, 2011

& so it begins..



And so it begins…After a 3 day work week in Fort Myers, we stressfully ended up leaving our hotel, as our taxi waited about 25 minutes on us to finish up..I'd say we called for the taxi a little early being super excited about our drive to Miami. As always..one of us (we won't mention names) over packed and we were just two excited girls squished in with our luggage..a total of 9 bags plus a few pounds of chocolate and candy from the Valentine Candy Boutique show we had just come from. We arrive at the Miami airport to pick up our rental car. They give us our lot number and we head out to get our car. Without knowing, Hertz Rental Car had "upgraded" us to a brand new black volvo hard top convertible. We were like two kids the night before Christmas, oober excited! We then made the two in a half hour drive to Miami on Tuesday evening. We headed straight to a basketball game to watch a friend play in Miami. At this point an ice cold beer was on our list. At the game we popped the top to an ice cold bud light. Of course together, us two are always a bit loud and cackle and right when we walk in, the opponents look at us and say "we saw you tailgating!" Being the only fans at the game we cheered on the "Wolfpacks", in their tough, manly purple..excuse me.."lilac" shirts. Our cheer="OOOOOooooowwwww(howl) WOLFPACK". You can thank our deliriousness/tipsyness for that:)  Afterwards we all went to dinners, Shuckers to be exact, with a relaxing atmosphere and we sat on the patio nearest to the water. It was a beautiful evening..it was about to storm so it got to be pretty windy but felt amazing. We then headed to the Cite condominiums for some R&R. The next morning we woke up ready to run a few errands/squeeze in time to be "tourists" and hit the airport for our 8 hour flight. We went down to South Beach to put our toes in the water..literally thats all we had time for and we didn't want to get too sandy! We drove around Miami with the top down, feeling pretty upscale..even though we are the biggest penny pinchers we know!  Back at Cite we attempt to combine our luggage into a backpack for each of us…talk about stressful. Our anxiety level definitely went up and then it started to hit us…we were about to be out of our element for five weeks, not knowing anything..not even knowing how we would be communicating back home with our families..we were on two different cycles..one of us would get nervous and the other would be fine..then all of a sudden vice versa..One of us would be shedding a few tears while the other was laughing. As we head off to the airport we realize..we are both wearing dresses since they wouldn't fit in our suitcase..and neither will our sneakers..as much as we wanted to be slightly "cute" we realize we have to wear our sneakers…fashion crisis..this wasn't going to happen..so we tie our shoes up to the side of our backpack when we realize Shelly's sneakers are no where to be found..the night before after we went to dinner it was storming..we were staying at Reece's so we all quickly transferred luggage from our rental to his car and our final thought is we left them in the rain? Being on an emotional rollercoaster as it was..this incident did not help! Our flight was at 630 and this was at 4pm when we were giving us time to run to target for some sleeping pills for the flight! Reece is running off to his car to look, Shelly is at the car unpacking her backpack that is impossible to zip and Laura is running up to the apartment to do one last sweep through out the room…frustrating enough..no sneakers :(…At this point its 430 so we speed away off to target to get some shoes before the airport..Upon arrival at the airport , Laura is pretty emotional/happy/scared/nervous…trying to fathom how she is about to live out of a backpack for 5 weeks with no blow dryer..as her hair will dry in a straight up FRO every day now! & Shelly is frustrated/nervous about the shoe incident, so we conclude this must be good luck..like "rain on your wedding day"..thats how we compared losing your most comfortable shoes before you backpack across Europe!! As always one of us gets stopped through security and hasnumerous bag checks and finally we're off! In the mean time you have someone screaming because her laptop was just stolen and no security was doing anything, and another female complaining that her "20$" shampoo was having to be thrown away. By this time, we were ready to escape America! ;) It was a full packed day and we planned on calling our family and saying our good byes at the airport..to our luck we have about 5 minutes and both of our phone batteries are redlining…so for all the friends and family, we are sorry, we love you!!! As for now we are on the flight..we have already said our prayers, laughed, cried and have not yet come to conclusion that we are on our way to EUROPE!!! Lucky for us its a big 'ol airplane and its empty..we each have a 3 seater row..but of course we choose to sit by each other =)..well right now "social shelly" is sitting behind me..has already met a new friend named Andrew who is telling her all about Europe..very helpful and with his help I think we will be able to have a SIM card to be able to communicate! For the past couple weeks anyone and EVERYONE* is a bit concerned for us two to be traveling together..with not too much of a plan..but we have each other! This is the most amazing opportunity. We realize we are extremely blessed and so lucky to have this opportunity in life to be able to be doing this, thanks to our friends, family and our wonderful job with ECRM. We really plan on blogging daily, in hopes that we won't have trouble finding Wi-Fi. We want to remember EVERYTHING from this experience. Neither of us our experienced with traveling across the country, one of us "thankfully" is not directionally challenged, but together we make a pretty awesome team! We balance each other out and like to think we live everyday with a positive aura and thankful attitude! As you can see we really are two peas in a pod, always thinking, acting and speaking the same ideas at the exact time..it's sometimes scary! So with that being said, "Dear Diary" keep us in your prayers and thoughts, wish us luck and follow our blog as we are bound and determined to have some interesting yet amazing stories these next few weeks! We LOVE you all!! =)…and p.s.-we're pretty sure someone keeps tooting on the plane b/c we are downwind from something raunchy every 10 to 15 minutes. Someone had an interesting lunch…I'm just saying...

" A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength" Proverbs 17:22
 lexi


4 comments:

  1. I could of been on the plane tooting!!!

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  2. Love the blog, keep'em coming. XOXOXO

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  3. Aw love you guys! Have a great time miss you!

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  4. HILARIOUS! You guys will have a blast. I'm excited to read more :)

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