a beginning

Today marks the official beginning of my journey. No, today is not really the beginning. After all, I am not even leaving the states for another week. I guess that makes this day i. Like all the normal books, any prologue material is labeled in lower case roman numerals. So this week of orientation and preparation will mark my days of prologue, the introduction to the trip.

But is today really the first day, or was yesterday the first day? I left Salem yesterday afternoon. But today is the first full day of the trip, so I will count today as the first, even though the adventure started yesterday.

It all started when…
I have this set of keys that is kind of my “Texas” keychain. Not that it has an abnormally large cowboy hat on it, or the lone star outline adorning it. It simply holds all the keys I use while in Texas. And since my tool box is now residing in my Oregon living room, that isn’t entirely true. But the keys on the chain that I really care about are the ones to my old apartment, and my mail box.

I knew these keys were SOMEWHERE in the mess of my room, but I had no idea where. And I kind of had to get that squared away before leaving. So I ended up tearing my entire room apart instead of packing. (I was mostly packed from the night before) It is funny how my room actually was cleaner after tearing it apart than it was before. Go figure.

After completely giving up on finding the keys and the lost key charges attached to them, I decided to clean out my backpack so it would be a little lighter for the journey. Cause really, who needs an entire semester’s worth of mail stuffed into every nook and cranny? So, in the process of digging out random papers and altoids containers, I find the keys. The whole time, they were in there. Seriously?? I guess so.

We end up heading out the door about 10 minutes behind schedule. Not bad, considering its me. We left the afternoon before because my friend has a night class in Portland. Instead of getting into town around 11 and turning around at around 3 to get me to the airport, we decided to grab a hotel up here. I still didn’t get any sleep…

So we get to about Woodburn, which is halfway, and I realize I don’t have my purse. Now, a woman’s purse is a crucial enough item, but considering this woman needs to be traveling halfway around the world, its criticality increases exponentially. So we turned around to get it.

We left the hotel this morning around 5:15. I had a library book I was trying to finish, so I desperately read while Danielle drove around the airport a couple times. I finally finished, we said our goodbyes, and I went to check in. Suddenly, I came upon a realization. There is this little blue booklet that is rather crucial when traveling internationally. Although that is not my destination today, I figured it might be nice to know where my passport is. So I called Danielle, and she said she didn’t put it anywhere. Little did she realize that, by agreeing to be my driver, she also assumed ultimate responsibility for everything I am taking with, and even a few things I left at home (like the purse!) She found it in the front seat, and was able to come back around to bring it to me.

I got through check in, security, and everything else with no troubles. Of course, the only thing between security and my current state is moving walkways…

My flight is going to board in 5 minutes… I should post this and pack the beast up!!