Last Blog by Laura Beth (for now :))

Shoot.
I kind of wish I could swear right now. Not in any kind of bad way just... in a way that sums up how overwhelming this day has been. It's ok though. 'shoot' will suffice :)

Well I left Honduras at 7 this morning (Tuesday morning) after quite a tearful goodbye. I'm definitely an emotional person- I really do cry when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm mad... so any emotion basically. But this morning, I really tried not to. Ever realized that when you've resolved that you're DEFINITELY not going to do something, that's the one thing you're guaranteed to do? So, of course I did. I bawled all through getting ready at the hotel, kept having to wipe away tears on the way to the airport, and then cried my way through the line. It was pretty cute. However, on a happy note, my suitcases only weighed 20 and 30 pounds (compared the the 70 each when I was heading toward Honduras) which meant I didn't have to pay any extra fees!

I got on the plane and watching Honduras fade away put me on the verge of starting up the waterfall again, but I think God decided to take it easy on me because He sat me down next to a very talkative guy who has done extensive traveling in Latin American countries. (Actually, he's done extensive traveling to lots of places and kind of made me want to if I ever have money :)) The flight from San Pedro Sula to Miami was pretty good because of that and I actually laughed quite a bit and enjoyed the conversation. Landing was a little difficult- I have a little head cold which made the pressure-difference-descent horrendous. My head felt like it was going to explode, I couldn't hear anything my new friend was saying, and I couldn't tell how loudly I was speaking (New Friend informed me-twice, cuz I didn't hear him the first time- that I was speaking at a normal volume, thank goodness!) We arrived in the US (woo!) and I went through customs. One of the questions on the 'getting back into the country' survey was if you had encountered any livestock during your trip. Uh, duh. This was an obvious health concern due to the many diseases I might be carrying in so... I had to go in a special line. The airport guys asked me if I had been to a farm and I said the place I lived was rural so I was frequently in contact with animals. They were like, "Ok, so you visited a farm... what kind of animals did you see on the farm? Cows? Chickens?" I wanted to respond by saying pretty much any farm animal you could name had stomped around my yard at some point but I resisted. :) They fixed the problem by taking my shoes and dunking them in a bucket of disinfectant. Easy!

Coming in from an international flight, you have to recheck your luggage, so our flight went down to wait at Baggage Claim 2.... which after about five minutes of waiting, got changed to number 7. We all shuffled down to 7 and waited for another 5 minutes before another announcement was made that our things would actually be delivered at baggage claim 5. People were pretty frustrtaed and I had to chase my suitcases around twice cuz people were pushed right up to the conveyor belt with their carts and I couldn't get through. When I finally did catch up to my suitcase, I grabbed ahold of it and it dragged me past three people because I couldn't get it off the belt. I kept alternating between saying 'perdon' and 'sorry' cuz I couldnt quite figure out what language I was supposed to be speaking yet. Ahhh... Always anb adventure. :)

Also while hanging out in Miami, I visited a bookstore- pretty sure I'm goin to make it mandatroy for myself that I buy a book every trip I take. While in the bookstore, I heard the following conversation between the workers:

Worker One(17-ish girl): OH MY GOSSSH. Guess what I heard. There was this girl, she was crazy beautiful and she was a beauty queen or something and made her whole living on that and she was going to be Miss Universe or something and someone threw acid on on her FACE!! She didn't even see who it was, it was just some random person that threw ACID on her FACE! I mean, how can you recover from something lie that? I mean it was her career! Her face is ruined!

Worker Two (23-ish guy): Oh yeah, that's crazy. It's kind of like Nancy Kerrigan when that guy smashed her leg in.

W1: ok, it's kind of like that but Nancy Kerrigan got fixed from that. This girl is scarred for life. What is she going to do now? I mean she can't be a beauty queen anymore. She's going to have to start her life all over and they're probably not even going to catch that guy....

Oh to be able to completely understand random people's conversations. AND I know the famous people they're talking about! haha anyway, I picked out "Same Kind of Different as Me". Pretty good- lasted me the day!

I traveled from Miami to Chicago and sat next to an older lady and talked for the whole flight about life and its perks and problems. :) Once in Chicago I went on a hardcore American food binge. I mean not really. I have no money and 7 hours in the airport so I tried to pace myself for every couple of hours but my list of tasty treats ran as follows: Krispy Kreme custard and chocolate donut; McDonalds cheeseburger and fries; a Caramel Pecanbon from Cinnabon; and a banana. :) I will say Honduras definitely beats the Chicago airport on their banana but there is no comparison for those other tasty treats. :) I spent the afternoon reading and writing some of this blog and basically de...something. de-compressing maybe? :) As much as I hate sitting around in airports all day, I do think it does something for helping me transition back to something that is completely different from what I've been doing for six months.

I finally arrived in Des Moines at 11 pm and instantly cried when I hugged my mom (lame! I need to stop that!) It was so great to see everyone and even greater to see some of my friends when I got home. I can't wait to see everyone else in the next few weeks.


So.... thanks for reading! Maybe I'll see you around Iowa! :) I'm heading back August 8, so I won't be here too long but... I'm going to try and make the most of it!