Gosh I am so blessed! Its been 3 long days since I embarked on my "Desert Adventure" and already I will not have enough space on the internet to fully share everything that has happened. So lets break it down concisely, because as much as you might care about me, no one wants to read a 20 page blog post. I mean, I usually quit about 1 page into a 3 page on cracked.com article (usually they are hilarious), and lets be honest, blogs are... well, blogs.
TRAVEL TO ISTANBUL
Everything went really well at LAX despite being unable to check in until 4:30 a.m. Security was a breeze and checkin went smoothly (I think it helped that TSA was a little groggy). Although I was told by one TSA agent that I better be getting paid a lot to go to Iraq, and was laughed at when I explained it was volunteer. I find it incredibly interesting that for me, God will bring people into my travel days early on who become a sort of constant. For instance, I stood in line with a couple guys who worked for USDA. Not only where they on the same flight as me to Chicago, but they were in the same row as me. Anyways, I was sandwiched between the window and a burly man on the first flight, which was great, because he blocked all the light and I passed out immediately, awaking for the final descent.
The trip to Frankfurt was about 8 hours but overall was enjoyable. I met up with one Liz Jones, and Ben Chasnov (two PLC interns with me!) in the aeroplane. I watched this movie (not a film) called The Green Hornet featuring Seth Rogen as a millionaire's misguided son. It was only enjoyable because I was on an 8 hour flight, but watching Rogen not play an overweight bum was kinda bizarre. I then napped for the next 6 hours.
Upon arrival in Frankfurt at like 5 a.m. the three of us went through security. Much to our surprise it was relaxing and not at all a pain in the butt like the American security checks. We waited around in one of the terminals and chatted a little bit to break the Ice ( most of that credit goes to Liz, who makes a game out of learning things about people, so that one day when asked she can creepily reveal things that even we forgot. Needless to say, she is awesome.) I found out that Ben is a Graphic Design major at Cedarville in Ohio, which is really awesome as it will be great to collaborate on the work here. This will definitely increase the sphere of influence that design can have for PLC this summer. We also met up with Adam Brandt, who is a comm major at Cedarville before boarding for Istanbul
The Frankfurt to Istanbul leg was only a couple hours, but that didn't stop me from sleeping 2 more. This was by far the most awkward portion of the trip. While asleep, my ears refused to acclimate to the change in pressure, and thus I dreamed I was going deaf and then blacking out on the airplane. I was trying to speak as the blackness seeped in and was asking for help, when I felt someone shaking me out of unconsciousness. Then I woke up and found a flight attendant and this random girl next to me laughing and trying to wake me up so I could put up my tray table for landing. If I was on twitter (which I might do to promote PLC, sorry Devin) the appropriate post would be #fail.
Once in Istabul, Turkey (favorite country ever), the four of us waited at Gloria Jean's Coffee for the arrival of Ryan Rosenberry from Solvang, CA, and Ted Harrison from Oklahoma who studies at Baylor. This wait ended up being like 3 hours, and was followed by another hour long wait to get our ride to the Hotel Kafkas in Istanbul. When we finally got on the road, we were met with ridiculous Turkish traffic (something I had not missed) and spent 2 hours on what should have been a 20 minute drive to our hotel.
We arrived, checked in and then left for dinner and exploration. It was almost 7 so the Haggia Sophia had already closed, but we got to check out the sights before eating dinner at a restaurant I had remembered from 2008. We went back to the hotel after some meandering and updated facebook before crashing hard.
Travel to Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq
We awoke at 5:15 to leave for the Attaturk airport as we had to checkin at least 2 hours early for our flight to Istanbul. We found our checkin area with AtlasJet despite not understanding everything, got Starbucks for the last time in what will be weeks, and chatted and got to know each other better as we waited for our flight.
The flight to Erbil was awesome, just under 3 hours, it was relaxing and overall had the best food and service yet. A man on the plane spotted my Kurdish Sorani dictionary, and told me that he was an oncologist from Sulaymaniyah, and was excited that I was learning his language. We landed just after 1pm on Sunday in the Erbil International Airport, and immediately perceptions became misconceptions and the expected was shattered revealing the unexpected.
Security was friendly and not scary, customs was looser than America and we were not accosted or treated poorly by anybody. We took a bus from the terminal to a parking lot about a mile away, and met up with Cody Fisher (co-founder of PLC) and Awara who is his right hand man and is the regional development director for PLC in Sulaymaniyah. We then crammed the 6 of us plus cody into the car in order to go find a taxi at a reasonable price. The taxi drivers at the airport are "headhunters" and will charge 4 times as much money as usual just because they can. We flagged down a taxi while driving... which was awesome, and set out on the three hour drive to where we would be staying.
The drive was beautiful, slightly ridiculous, and green. Yes. Green. Green as in grassy and gorgeous.
windy roads, mountains, and even some rivers. Yes. Rivers. Like water flowing downhill. I was blown away. That was last thing I was expecting from Iraq. We got to Jeremy and Jessica Courtney's (co-founders of PLC) house, and settled in for dinner and relaxation. The house is 3 stories and will be the home for 12 people this summer including 8 interns! More to come on Sulaymaniyah and life in Iraq. But this post is already long so it will have to wait!
TRAVEL TO ISTANBUL
Everything went really well at LAX despite being unable to check in until 4:30 a.m. Security was a breeze and checkin went smoothly (I think it helped that TSA was a little groggy). Although I was told by one TSA agent that I better be getting paid a lot to go to Iraq, and was laughed at when I explained it was volunteer. I find it incredibly interesting that for me, God will bring people into my travel days early on who become a sort of constant. For instance, I stood in line with a couple guys who worked for USDA. Not only where they on the same flight as me to Chicago, but they were in the same row as me. Anyways, I was sandwiched between the window and a burly man on the first flight, which was great, because he blocked all the light and I passed out immediately, awaking for the final descent.
The trip to Frankfurt was about 8 hours but overall was enjoyable. I met up with one Liz Jones, and Ben Chasnov (two PLC interns with me!) in the aeroplane. I watched this movie (not a film) called The Green Hornet featuring Seth Rogen as a millionaire's misguided son. It was only enjoyable because I was on an 8 hour flight, but watching Rogen not play an overweight bum was kinda bizarre. I then napped for the next 6 hours.
Upon arrival in Frankfurt at like 5 a.m. the three of us went through security. Much to our surprise it was relaxing and not at all a pain in the butt like the American security checks. We waited around in one of the terminals and chatted a little bit to break the Ice ( most of that credit goes to Liz, who makes a game out of learning things about people, so that one day when asked she can creepily reveal things that even we forgot. Needless to say, she is awesome.) I found out that Ben is a Graphic Design major at Cedarville in Ohio, which is really awesome as it will be great to collaborate on the work here. This will definitely increase the sphere of influence that design can have for PLC this summer. We also met up with Adam Brandt, who is a comm major at Cedarville before boarding for Istanbul
The Frankfurt to Istanbul leg was only a couple hours, but that didn't stop me from sleeping 2 more. This was by far the most awkward portion of the trip. While asleep, my ears refused to acclimate to the change in pressure, and thus I dreamed I was going deaf and then blacking out on the airplane. I was trying to speak as the blackness seeped in and was asking for help, when I felt someone shaking me out of unconsciousness. Then I woke up and found a flight attendant and this random girl next to me laughing and trying to wake me up so I could put up my tray table for landing. If I was on twitter (which I might do to promote PLC, sorry Devin) the appropriate post would be #fail.
Once in Istabul, Turkey (favorite country ever), the four of us waited at Gloria Jean's Coffee for the arrival of Ryan Rosenberry from Solvang, CA, and Ted Harrison from Oklahoma who studies at Baylor. This wait ended up being like 3 hours, and was followed by another hour long wait to get our ride to the Hotel Kafkas in Istanbul. When we finally got on the road, we were met with ridiculous Turkish traffic (something I had not missed) and spent 2 hours on what should have been a 20 minute drive to our hotel.
We arrived, checked in and then left for dinner and exploration. It was almost 7 so the Haggia Sophia had already closed, but we got to check out the sights before eating dinner at a restaurant I had remembered from 2008. We went back to the hotel after some meandering and updated facebook before crashing hard.
Travel to Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq
We awoke at 5:15 to leave for the Attaturk airport as we had to checkin at least 2 hours early for our flight to Istanbul. We found our checkin area with AtlasJet despite not understanding everything, got Starbucks for the last time in what will be weeks, and chatted and got to know each other better as we waited for our flight.
The flight to Erbil was awesome, just under 3 hours, it was relaxing and overall had the best food and service yet. A man on the plane spotted my Kurdish Sorani dictionary, and told me that he was an oncologist from Sulaymaniyah, and was excited that I was learning his language. We landed just after 1pm on Sunday in the Erbil International Airport, and immediately perceptions became misconceptions and the expected was shattered revealing the unexpected.
Security was friendly and not scary, customs was looser than America and we were not accosted or treated poorly by anybody. We took a bus from the terminal to a parking lot about a mile away, and met up with Cody Fisher (co-founder of PLC) and Awara who is his right hand man and is the regional development director for PLC in Sulaymaniyah. We then crammed the 6 of us plus cody into the car in order to go find a taxi at a reasonable price. The taxi drivers at the airport are "headhunters" and will charge 4 times as much money as usual just because they can. We flagged down a taxi while driving... which was awesome, and set out on the three hour drive to where we would be staying.
The drive was beautiful, slightly ridiculous, and green. Yes. Green. Green as in grassy and gorgeous.
windy roads, mountains, and even some rivers. Yes. Rivers. Like water flowing downhill. I was blown away. That was last thing I was expecting from Iraq. We got to Jeremy and Jessica Courtney's (co-founders of PLC) house, and settled in for dinner and relaxation. The house is 3 stories and will be the home for 12 people this summer including 8 interns! More to come on Sulaymaniyah and life in Iraq. But this post is already long so it will have to wait!
"Hi its me Daniel" TSA is mean that dream was awesome and Iraq GREEN!
ReplyDeleteHi Anton, Thanks for the great update. I look forward to pictures of the green. ;o) Praying for you. Missed you at church on Sunday too. I wonder just where you were while we were there. You've had quite the adventure already!!!!
ReplyDeleteLove, Dawn
Anton, people related to me keep "hacking in" and leaving comments. The only thing you really need are pictures. pictures from your fancy new camera. pictures say at least 1000 words and are easier to read than 20 blog pages. So basically upload some pictures. Jeeesh.
ReplyDelete