Survey Trip: The Journey Home

Saturday, June 28th – Our journey began at 6:00 a.m. when we left the Baptist guest house. We arrived at the Luanda airport at 6:30, were first in line at 9:00 to check in for our flight, and then spent the next few hours killing time in the restaurant until our flight left at 1:00. (For those of you wondering why we left so stinkin' early to catch an afternoon flight, you have obviously never been to an African airport. Luanda can be an absolute zoo, so we were thankful everything went so smoothly and we ended up with so much time on our hands.) We flew from Luanda to Johannesburg, South Africa, arriving at 5:00 p.m. After a four-hour layover, we boarded the overnight flight from Johannesburg to London.

Sunday, June 29th – We arrived at London Heathrow just before 7:00 a.m. We met the rest of the team, minus Danny and Nathan (who stayed in Luanda for a couple of weeks) at the airport -- they had flown direct from Luanda to London. Our flight from London to Chicago left just before 1:00 p.m. We arrived in Chicago at 3:00 p.m., and were out of the airport and to our hotel by 5:00. Total travel time (from the time we left the Baptist guest house to the time we were in our hotel room): just over 41 hours. We were TIRED!

Monday, June 30th – We left the hotel at 6:30 a.m. We flew from Chicago to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Memphis, arriving just before 1:00 p.m. Katie and Jordan met us at the airport. We stopped at Sonic on the way home for drinks (Route 44 strawberry-limeade, baby -- been craving it for a month!) and ice cream. We were back at the HUGSR campus by 3:00. It is wonderful to be home!