Oh the Joys of Traveling

Traveling is so fun isn't it!? Don't you just love the stress, the deadlines, the baggage (both figuratively & literally!), etc, etc!? I know I do! Especially the kind of trip I had the other day. Allow me to demonstrate: 

5:00 AM- Wake up. Silently curse the fact that I am awake before the sun! WTF? The last time this happened... try NEVER! I like LOVE my sleep. 5 AM does not work for me. 

5:15- Finally get out of bad, finish packing. Still cursing the fa

ct that the sun is still not up & I am. 

6:00 AM- Leave the house and start the drive to the airport. 

I'm a little less bitter about the sun not being up because I know Starbucks is in the near future. 

6:05 AM- We have to turn around, my mom forgot her phone. 

6:45 AM- We get to the airport. This is where the fun begins! We try to check our bags they want to charge us like $1000 for them, so we decide to only check 5 of our 6 bags. Then, they inform us that oops sorry, it's 2 minutes passed the deadline to check in bags for your flight, so you'll have to put them on the next flight. The next flight is at 1 PM... our flight is at 7:30 AM. Which means we will have to go back to the airport & get our bags before we can drive to the beach house. The ticket desk workers don't listen to our arguing, and put our bags on the next flight. Fantastic. 

7:15 AM- Best part of the day so far. STARBUCKS! It's like Heaven! 

7:30 AM- on the plane. I sit back, relax & enjoy the flight! 

10:00 AM- Plane lands. As we are getting off the plane, we realize that remember that one bag we weren't gonna check? Oh yeah, well it's gone. As in, not with us! No one picked it up and brought it to the plane. The missing bag? MY suitcase. Fantastic. I'm thrilled, really! 

10:10 AM- We sit down in the Charleston airport & try to call the DFW airport. We try to give a description of the bag, but don't know the type of it. My dad tells me to google suitcases with frog logo's (because that's what mine looks like) to find the type of the bag. The guy on the phone looks, doesn't find it. Stress is building by the minute!

10:30 AM- hang up with the airport. My dad tells me there is probably a 3% chance of them finding my bag (he's always the optimist!). I'm thrilled, really. 

10:45 AM- waiting in line for rental car. This takes forever. Seriously, like 30 minutes. 

11:00 AM- We go outside to look at our rental car when my dad decides it is too small to fit all of our crap stuff. So we go back in the rental car place & get a new car... this takes 30 minutes again. 

11:05 AM- I am still bummed about my suitcase. But I get a text which leads to a phone call from one of my sorority sisters who promptly cheered me up! Also, she informed me that North Face now makes hoodies. It is now my mission to obtain one of these. 

11:30 AM- We are finally leaving the airport (for now)! Since we have to stay in Charleston, we decide to get some lunch somewhere & then go shopping for some new clothes for me since my entire wardrobe is lost. 

12:00 PM- We eat lunch at a place called Hymans where apparently every famous person has been! They have plaques on the tables that say like "Raven Simone ate here." (bad example, I know, but that was who sat in my sister's seat)

We get some half-shelled Oysters for appetizers & they were so delicious! Even better, when my parents order wine, the waitress pours me a glass too!! Woo hoo!! 

See!!? YUMM!!! 

12:30 PM- We walk around by the restaurant for a little bit. We go into this one shop that has these cute dresses that could apparently be worn as a dress, skirt, or top. My dad suggests getting one since I have no clothes, & my mom says "No, we'll just get her some clothes at Target or Wal-Mart." Nice, real nice mom! My entire wardrobe is lost & y

ou want to replace it at Target!? Come on. Now is not the time to be cheap! 

While at the store, I found this awesome button: 

Terrible picture I know, but it says "I'm much cooler online". How cool is that!!? I LOVE it! It's so true! I would've bought it except no one would get it except my online friends! 

1:00 PM- We've still got a lot of time to kill since our flight our bags don't come in for another 2 hours, so we go shopping at Target. More stress erupts on the way! We're trying to get directions off my dad's iPhone & read them to him. He makes a couple of wrong turns or something, and starts cussing & freaking out! Um... as if we have anywhere to be anytime soon! We've got nothing but time to kill! 

1:15 PM- We finally make it to Target & work on replacing my wardrobe. Not only does this include clothes, but also bathing suits, underwear, pajamas basically all the necessities in life. At this point, I am tired & I really hate picking out clothes, so my mom & my sister take over & find me some decent outfits. My dad goes off on his own; I guess he didn't want to stand there while I picked out underwear. Who would've thought!? 

2:30- Leave Target. Go across the street to the grocery store so my parents can get wine. My sister & I wait in the car. They take forever. We got bored. So we took pictures of ourselves on our phone! 

3:00 PM- Drive to the airport to get our bags. Praying that somehow my bag turns up with the rest of our bags. Holding on to that 3% chance! 

3:30 PM- Arrive at airport. We got a text that the plane arrived, but clearly they were lying because we had to wait like 30 minutes. Some professional wrestler dudes were there and people kept taking pictures with them. *Yawn* Who cares!? 

4:00 PM- Our bags finally come. My bag is here!!! All is not lost!! Turns out it was our cosmetic bag that we forgot at the airport & it somehow got to the airport anyway! Woo hoo! I'm now working on a plan in my head to convince my parents to let me keep the new clothes. My mom claims she is returning them. Not gonna happen! 

4:30 PM- We finally leave the airport & head to the beach house! It's about an hour & a half drive. I'm just happy we have my clothes! Even though I was excited about getting an all new wardrobe, there were some things in there I wanted back like my AXO t-shirts! 

6:00 PM- Finally, we have arrived at our destination!! After a long day of stress & traveling seeing all my family was a great way to end the day. Not a lot of better things than sitting around talking to family & listening to crazy stories! 

So what did I learn from this? Stay calm at all times. As my ex bf says (in a really funny fake southern accent no less) "Do not panic! Everything will be okay!" When someone who is super optimistic slightly negative tells you there is only a 3% chance of something happening, don't listen! And, as cheesy as it is, at the end of the day family is almost worth it! (Almost!)