T - 20 Days Until Takeoff

I'm not quite sure how to start this other than something always seems to happen to me when Miami is involved. Thankfully it wasn't a physical injury like last time I was here (I paid that tax the other week when I fell down my stairs) but instead it was an elongated travel day. Now, for most people they start the count of their travel day with a car, mine starts with a boat. Dad and I caught the 9:40 boat to Hilton Head where we hit the post office for some final things then headed to the airport in Savannah GA. We got on the plane fine but a few minutes after leaving the gate and heading for the runway, our captain announced that we were grounded for a while due to bad weather in Atlanta (our connection). Our flight was supposed to leave at 2:30 but we didn't end up taking off until around 4:00. However because of the issue being in Atlanta and not Savannah, that lead to our connection also thankfully being delayed (YIPPEEEEEEEEE). By the time we reached Miami it was near 9:00, but because we were a delayed flight, we were stuck on the taxiway until our gate opened back up. At least the views on that last flight were pretty. That wait caused us to have just missed the shuttle to our hotel which was on a 45 minute loop, leading to us being stuck at the airport until after 10:30. In short, we were exhausted. We didn't let that get us down, but maybe dad being kicked out of the Italian Consulate might.

We kicked off the next day with an excellent breakfast at a cafe near the consulate. Definitely good food but if I had tried to eat more than half of mine I would have gone into a coma. The when we got to the consulate, I'll admit I was nervous. I knew I had everything prepared and with me (I'm a keeper of endless amounts of lists and various other things to help me prepare for anything) but there was still the fear of 'what if I filled out something wrong' or 'what if I missed something on the email and left it at home'. What didn't help was dad being kicked out not long after our arrival. Now if you know my dad you're probably wonder how on earth he managed to do that. Well, he decided to try speaking Italian to the security guard and ended up saying something very rude. I'm kidding, apparently you can only be there if you have an appointment and because the appointment was for me and not both of us they kindly told him he had to go wait somewhere else. I like saying he got kicked out though, it's more fun that way. My appointment went smoothly and quickly and I should be receiving it in the mail soon! with finishing my appointment a little after 11:00 that morning, dad and I had time to kill. So we figured why not go to the mall, walk some loops in it, go see Deadpool and Wolverine, get some dinner, then finish out the night with the Olympics.

The flights back went smoothly and I jumped right back into work, one of the reasons I accidently left this post in my drafts (sorry for the late update by the way). My visa actually arrived today! It's kind of hard to believe that I'm less than three weeks away from leaving. The rest of this week and next week I will be working (weather permitting, thanks Debby) and then I head back to rock hill for a few days to do my last ceremony as a student marshal and spend some time with friends. After that it's packing my things and flying off to far away lands.

Wish me luck!

-Kit