The Only Ten I See

Thursday: It started with a 4am wake up call. Dirty. It was one of those tireds that hurts your eyeballs. The kind where your eyes feel like they are swelling out of their sockets. 

My most wonderful friends Maddie and Emily endured the agony with me and took me to the Ontario Airport (Ontario, California. Commonly confused with Ontario, Canada). My flight was scheduled to take of at 6am for good ol' Nashville, Tennessee, with a layover in Denver.

My first flight was nice. I had a window seat and sufficient leg room. Little did I know we were about to have a medical emergency. The flight attendants spared no emotion in conveying the panic. They announced it about 4 times throughout the flight. "Ladies and gentlemen. We have a medical emergency. Will a doctor please come to the front of the plane immediately?" The urgency can be clearly heard in her voice. You would think she would spare us so that everyone on the plane doesn't freak out and start screaming, praying out loud, and reading their Bibles. That didn't happen on my flight. Although it did happen on my friend Teagan's plane when she hit severe turbulence on her way to North Carolina.

So everyone looks around frantically after the first announcement. I had been sleeping and I was immediately wide awake. A doctor finally steps up after about a minute of awkward silence and head turning. I think he was waiting for someone else to step up. Nice job doctor.

They continue to make announcements talking about how we are flying as fast as we possibly can and as soon as we land we are not allowed to stand up because the paramedics have to come in and whisk the medical emergency away. I started getting really worried. They wouldn't tell us what was going on and it seemed pretty urgent but we weren't making an emergency landing. When we finally get to Denver, the medical emergency, a middle aged Latino man, slightly overweight, GETS UP, and walks off the plane. If it were a true emergency don't you think they would have had to wheel him out on a stretcher? I honestly thought someone was suffering from a heart attack judging by the pain and urgency in the flight attendants voice. I thought someone had died or something. He seemed fine! 

So after walking literally the entire length of the Denver Airport, I make it to my connection to Nashville. This plane was much smaller, much more cramped, and utterly lacking in medical emergencies. Although, our flight attendant was an incredibly enthusiastic black man who referred to everyone as young man and young lady, whether they were 72 or 3. It was epic.

I land in Nashville at about 2 in the afternoon and it's sooo incredibly hot. Oh side note, as I was landing there was a lightning storm going on. Freaked me out. We were in a plane, in the air, with lightning striking right next to us. I saw it. With my own eyes. It was terrible. 

My friend Megan picks me up at the airport and we head to her house for a shower, shave, and shine sesh and then we head out to pick up my girl Teagan at the airport. After stalling for about 20 minutes in the "No Waiting" section of the airport we finally find her. We are whisked away to Young Life club at a sweet house right on the Cumberland River. It was gorgeous. I did however feel incredibly encouraged by the fact that DPYL is not the only struggling YoungLife club in the country. Three kids showed up to club in Nashville. We all played signs and it was epic. After club, Megan whisked us off again to this concert. It was a British guy named Bobby Long. He's pretty good. The only downfall, we got to the concert too late so there was absolutely no room to sit. We had to awkwardly stand next to the sound tech guy. We even ate dinner standing up. Tad ridiculous but what can you do when there are hundreds of screaming girls with their heads falling off because a slightly attractive British man is singing sweet melodies to them, and they're taking up all the damn chairs!

So Teagan and I got tired of standing for so long, we went to sit outside among the smokers and ridiculously drunk women who had come outside to sober up a little. We take a seat on the curb behind the building and we can still hear the concert really well. Not long after, we are harassed by a homeless man that was clearly tweaked out but he was so incredibly polite and I made him promise that he would buy food if we helped him so we gave him 5 bucks and he went on his merry way. One of my prayers for awhile has been that God would release my firm grip on my finances. Slight progress made tonight. 

After the concert Megan waits outside for another 20 minutes to get a picture with him, Mr. Bobby Long. She really likes him apparently. We get back to Megan's house at about 12:30 and wither into bed. It's been an atrociously long day. But a good one. I am successfully in Music City. And boy is it musicious.