We made it!

The 4th Journey summer project has hit the ground in the Middle East! Our first 48 hours together as a team were pretty eventful as we traveled to our secure location.

We gathered together on Sunday, May 18 for a final night of briefing and then took off from MSP airport on Monday, May 19. On our first flight from Minneapolis, we sat on the tarmac for an hour waiting for a lightening storm to pass. Luckily it moved fairly quickly!

We landed in DC with plenty of time for a bite to eat before boarding our 5p flight to Frankfurt. An hour after take off, someone had a heart attack on the plane and we made an emergency landing in Boston. After 2 hours of sitting on the tarmac while the pilots worked on paperwork and the passenger was removed, the pilot announced we would be taking off.

Shortly after taxing to the runway, the pilot announced there was a problem with the engine and we would need a replacement part, if they could fix it at all.

We waited in our seats while a tow truck came to tow us to the gate, the maintenance crew replaced the fuel valve in the engine, and then the crew did more paperwork.

After another 2 hours on sitting in the tarmac, we were ready for takeoff again.

We landed in Frankfurt at Noon, 5 hours after we were scheduled to arrive. Since our connecting flight to our country was scheduled for 9am, we weren't sure when we'd be re-booked.

Because we were so late we had to deboard the plane on the tarmac, where we waited for airport buses to pick us up and shuttle us to the main terminal. We then waited in line after line to get our tickets rebooked.

Thanks to a wonderful Lufthansa ticket agent named Christoff, we were able to get seats on the 945pm flight to our final airport.

We landed there about 1am, and then spent 2 hours getting through customs and picking up luggage. Thankfully this all went smoothly - and we even got a toblerone on the flight :) I think this is also the flight where I lost my iPod, but I'm not totally sure. I'm still hopeful that I might find it, but it's probably gone forever.

Now that we were in the right country, we had just a 2 hour ferry ride left to our final destination. Because they only run a few times a day, we had to spend the night in the city. Luckily a fellow staff person met us at the airport and arranged for a hotel and bus. It was 4am by the time we got to our hotel, and we were so tired from our travels we slept until Noon the next day!

After grabbing some wonderful middle eastern food for lunch and touring around a bit, we walked to the ferry station. We were quite a site: 17 Americans who had been traveling for 60 hours trying to navigate the narrow cobblestone streets with 2-3 bags per person. We only walked a kilometer or so, but it felt like several miles!

The ferry ride was 2 hours, and once we docked, we boarded another bus to take us to our apartments. By then it was 9pm and we were greeted by the staff team here and some yummy lamb pizza. Needless to say, we were relieved to be "home"!