Day #1 in California

November 13, 2013 - Wednesday

Wednesday was one of the craziest days in terms of my emotions and travel. I'll have to write something else about field hockey because I can't even explain it right now, but on Saturday at 2pm we were in Keene, NH, playing in the first round of the NCAA tournament. So that alone was emotional because it was my last game if we won (because my team would move on without me while I was in CA), and it was my last game if we lost, because that's how it works in the tournament! Anyways, the game went well for the first half but then they scored a few more goals in the second half and there were thirty seconds to go and I was crying (because when do I ever not cry?). I ran over to the bench, grabbed my suitcase, backpack, and field hockey bag, then quickly hugged a few people and jumped in the car with Dad. It was 3:45 at this point and boarding started at 6:40 in Logan so I was nervous I wouldn't make my flight! Mostly because of traffic.

Anyways, Dad had a sandwich ready for me for dinner, we talked about field hockey for a while, and then finally at 6ish we rolled up to the airport (there wasn't too much traffic until the end). I made it through security at 6:20 and then I found Laura waiting at the gate! Had some Dunkin' Donuts, of course, and then we started to board the plane. It was weird because the plan was probably only 1/3 full so Laura and I ended up sitting together with a seat in between us. I was so tired at this point and I wanted to sleep but I was SO EXCITED to see Sara that I didn't really sleep at all! The flight was around 5.5 hours long and it felt really really really long after the two hour mark.

So we arrived in LA (we flew to LA instead of Santa Barbara because Laura's best friend is studying there for the semester and it was cheaper to fly there), where Sarah picked us up (not Sara from Orvieto but Sarah, Laura's friend). She drove us to her apartment building where we dropped off our stuff and then Sarah and Laura went out while I stayed back and slept (I'm a sloth) because it was like 12:30am in LA so 3:30am in Boston! I was exhausted from the day but so excited to finally be in California! We bought these tickets at the end of August, before I knew that my field hockey team was going to be good (call me pessimistic, whatever - we've never been this good before). Visiting Sara was something that we talked about at the end of our semester in Orvieto together but it didn't really happen until I was feeling sad about being back at home so I was researching flights and ran into Laura's apartment at Gordon and I was like "LET'S VISIT SARA IN NOVEMBER. LET'S BUY TICKETS NOW." Anyways, it was kind of impulsive and even though it was a little frantic in terms of field hockey, I couldn't believe that Laura and I had made it this far! Mostly because we're awful at traveling together. If you don't remember, you can read my post about our trip to visit Kelly in Edinburgh and how Laura and I got on a train to Bologna instead of the train to Florence. So it was impressive that we made it to LA! :)