Today was a long, long day of travel. Left Dhaka, Bangladesh at 10 pm Saturday night and flew to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The flight was delayed by almost two hours due to severe weather in Dubai, so we were stuck in a holding pattern about 250 miles out. Finally arrived in Dubai after the time for our next flight to leave, so had to hurry through security and get our boarding passes and on the next plane without time to rest between flights. Thankfully they were holding the plane until all the connecting flights were there. Then it was a 15 hour flight from Dubai to JFK in New York. After deplaning in NY we had to go through immigration, then collect our checked bags and go through customs, then recheck our bags for the next flight. Then, of course, back through the security check point. I arrived in NY at 8 am, and my next flight didn’t leave until 3:30 pm, so I had a long wait in the airport.
Finally, after two more flights, one to DFW and then the last one to Amarillo, I arrived at the Amarillo airport. But only to find out that my luggage was still in Dallas, apparently the lady who checked my bag in in Bangladesh failed to check it past DFW. She told me it was checked all the way to Amarillo, but the claim check said DFW. So, after filing a claim for the luggage, I was finally able to get home around 11:30 pm.
37+ hours of travel time, 12 time zones, and approximately 12,500 miles later I am home!
Upon reflection about the trip, and figuring the number of frisbees I took with me to Bangladesh, we must have visited at least 10-11 Child Development Centers and Child Sponsorship Sites. I took 19 frisbees with me. I gave one to our driver for his child, and gave 2 to each site where possible. There were at least two sites where I did not leave frisbees. One was where one of the other team members gave out pencils and I think there was at least one other site that for some reason we didn’t leave frisbees.
It was a great trip with great hosts and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but it is definitely good to be home.
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