Live from the Shanghai Pudong Airport

Some 14 hours later, we touched down in Shanghai, China. Wow. That was a loooooong flight. I made friends with the flight attendants along the way. One asked me if we lived in China, so we must have looked pretty seasoned. When I told her we were just going over to study, she of course wanted to know more. After hearing about our adventure, our internship, and our journey so far, she was in awe. It dawned on me halfway across the world- this woman flies to and from China for a living. She meets every walk of life. She hears every story... and she thinks mine is top-notch. "Wow," she said, "That's really cool. Enjoy this opportunity of a lifetime!"

Functioning in the Shanghai Pudong Airport has been a little less poetic. I bet Traci that I could go the whole plane ride without using the bathroom. Needless to say, I really needed to find the can when we landed. Traci and I walked to the westernized bathrooms and stood patiently, waiting our turn. Wrong answer. The idea of the queue line is foreign here in the East. As we stood there being "courteous," people in and around us to cut in to the open stalls! So be it, lesson learned. On to the next adventure.

My bags (2 ~50lbs checked and a ~30lbs carry-on) are all piggy-backed. It all amounts to a long and HEAVY train of luggage being carted behind my person. Times that by 4 (for Jason, Traci & Val) and you've got yourself one heck of a parade!

We ascended three levels of escalators, bags in tow. Val and Jason were in the lead, followed by Traci and then myself. Val's carry-on bag falls off her shoulder half-way up the escalator, everything spills out. I start sniffing trouble as her books and belongings slide under Traci's suitcase. As the top landing approaches, Val is desperately scooping up her things. Her luggage hits the top... and stops, running her body into her things. Traci reaches the top and tap-dances in a tiny square of footing, trying to control her bags as they continue to ride up the stairs on top of Val's spilled goods.

I start laughing... wildly. It was slow motion, and I saw the whole thing develop. The worst of it was that I couldn't stop myself or my train of baggage. That made me laugh more. I started backpedaling on the moving staircase. That's right, me, backpedaling down the stairs, with a train of piggy-backed baggage, on an escalator, laughing out loud, while Val scurries to gather her goods before they get eaten up by the moving walkway in Shanghai. Classic moment.

Now we're just bumming and waiting for our 9pm flight to Beijing!

XOXO