In the Air

We got up at 4:00 a.m., ate breakfast at 5:00 and made it to the church a little after 6:00. While we were waiting Tom Clark passed out our name badges (with our names in Russian - cool!) and our passports, complete with Russian visas. When everyone gathered we headed for Reagan National Airport and made it there around 7:00. It took a while to get everyone through security and bags checked in. We all got our team sweatshirts to wear so Tom could keep track of us. They are a lovely blue with the VIM logo on them. We decided we all looked like big smurfs.

We flew from D.C. to Atlanta and then waited for our connection. The pictures above are Lyndsey and Susan, Jan (my roommate), me and John, and JuliAnna. I got to sit with Jan and get to know her on the flight to JFK in NY and then on the flight from NY to Moscow. We were seated toward the back of the plane on both flights; it was a good thing because we were close to the restroom and that's a good place to be on an 11 hour flight!

The 11 hour flight (12 hours coming back - head winds) was the worst part of the trip for me. You can get up and move around from time to time but I wasn't able to get any sleep and was worn out when we got there. However, it was awesome to watch the sunrise from the plane window. We were just about over Helsinki, Finland when I could start to see a faint glow in the sky ahead.