Up in the Air

It’s that time again. All breaks eventually come to and end. Christmas Break is over and it is time to head back to the world of studying, 8 am classes, and 12-hour clinicals. At the moment though, there are a bunch of mixed feelings going through my head. I am excited to go back to school, but not excited to leave home. I’m ready to get back to school, see all my friends and get back into the swing of things, but on the other hand, I’m not quite ready to leave home. I think part of the reason that it’s harder for me to leave this break is that I won’t be home again until summer time, 5 months from now. That’s the longest I’ve ever gone without going home at all! I am excited to get back though, and spring semester always does seem to fly by so much quicker than fall semester. I feel like it will be summer time before I know it.

I could not have imagined a more perfect Christmas Break. Unless, maybe if I was actually 21 like most of my friends from high school… However, that did not stop us from having a fun time J My Christmas break was well spent at the Debutante Ball, Dinner Parties, going downtown with friends, hanging out with my little sister, New Years Eve Bowling and Fireworks with Bex, going to the shooting range with my parents and a lot of reading books and watching movies/TV shows. I can’t believe that this month of break is already over.  However, I have so many exciting things in store for this coming semester, which I am sure you hear all about in due time! Until then, I sit here waiting for a plane back to St. Louis, day dreaming about what is yet to come, and slightly dreading the 45 degree drop in temperature from Greenville to St. Louis.

            After all that I finally get to what I actually wanted to write about. Airports. I absolutely love airports. This is fitting since I am writing this blog partially during a layover in the Charlotte, NC airport and partially thousands of feet up in the air on my way back to St. Louis. It really seems not to long ago that I was writing about last semester in this airport on my way back to Greenville. Anyways, I absolutely love airports, especially the Charlotte airport. I have been through a lot of airports since I was younger and since going off to college and the Charlotte airport is by far my favorite airport. If you ask my sister though, she has a special place in her heart for the San Juan, Puerto Rico airport. Why? I do not know, but that is her favorite airport of all time. The Charlotte airport is big, but not too big and such a pretty airport. It’s familiar; I’ve flown in and out of, and through this airport too many times to count in the past 20 years of my life. All of the 5 concourses branch off of one main terminal that has huge windows that look out over the tarmac. Suspended from the ceiling in the atrium are different airplane models and along the windows, and all through out the concourses there are blue rocking chairs where you can sit and admire the planes coming and going. Another perk about the Charlotte airport is that there are many Starbucks spread throughout the airport, so I will never be far from a coffee fix.

            Ever since a young age, I have always had a love of airports for multiple reasons. For some reason I love people watching. I mean who doesn’t? And what better place to people watch than an airport? You can never expect anything less than eclectic when people watching at the airport. There are businessmen and women, families, young couples, old married couples, preps, hippies, and the list goes on. Really you can see any type of person at the airport. Each person has their own story and is coming from somewhere and going somewhere different. The whole concept of the airport is fascinating to me, that may sound weird but it is. You are in one place and the whole world is within reach. You literally have the option of going anywhere in the world.  I could probably pass the whole day sitting and watching planes take off and land. It is calming in a way to me, I’m not sure why but it is. It still amazes me watching planes take off. They are basically huge piece of metal that fly into the sky and drift to another destination. Probably the most entrancing moment of this for me was when I first saw the plane that we flew on from LA to Melbourne, Australia. We flew on the Airbus A380, and it was absolutely MASSIVE, a double decker the entire length of the plane and held over 400 passengers. Now tell me it is not amazing and fascinating how that large of a plane can fly thousands of feet up in the air over an ocean, halfway around the world, without stopping. Up in the air, the feeling is just the same. I love flying. It’s a different world in the air. It is so peaceful looking out on the blanket of clouds below that are a mixture or yellow, orange and pink from a setting sun.

            Some people may hate flying and say that it is a hassle, but I beg to differ. It is a pleasure.