After three weeks of hopping around the USA it was time to depart. My journey went well for the most part but it was not without a few hiccups.

I encountered the first obstacle almost immediately. My sister dropped me off at the airport and there were a few tears but I was ready for this. Really I was. So I went to check in for my flight and I asked the woman behind the desk about my overnight layover in China. She looked confused for a moment, looked back at her computer for a minute or so, and then handed my passport back to me and said, “I’m sorry, we cannot let you leave.”

*&%IAFFF&#*$(@&$(@ is what I was thinking, but I remained calm. She explained that because I was going to two different cities in China I was not allowed in without a visa. I countered with the fact that her airline had provided me with this layover and it would be fine with me if she changed my flight so that I only had one stop. Send me to Bangkok, PLEASE!, that’s where I need to end up; I have a visa for Thailand. She talked to her supervisor, as well as three other airline attendants (all in a foreign language, mind you) and finally said I would be granted a 24 hour temporary visa when I arrived at the airport in China. Phew.

The trip went much more smoothly from then on. The first 13 hour flight was half empty so I had a row of three seats to myself, quite a good selection of in flight movies to choose from(I watched The Good Guys, Wall-E, and Captain America: Civil War), and some pretty good airplane food as well as the container of Thanksgiving leftovers that I brought! I landed in Shenzen and made it through customs with no issues.

Unfortunately, my flight from Shenzen was delayed. It was not delayed 00:40 minutes like I thought at first; it was delayed until 00:40 which is 12:40AM so I arrived in Fuzhou at 3:00AM. There were two very kind ladies from my airline that helped me get set up at a hotel but I had to wait a while for the driver to get there. It felt really creepy with no one in the airport; literally nobody anywhere. There was an erie quiet….like at any moment zombies were about to crawl out of the baggage claim and take over.

My night in Fuzhou was fine; apart from the bed that I jumped onto because I was so tired, only to find that it was rock hard. Once I got back to the airport I checked in and then as I was making my way through customs the immigration official called another official over and they spoke in Chinese for a few minutes before letting me through, while I had a mild heart attack. I asked the man if something was wrong and he said that the stamp was not in the right place but that it didn’t matter…ARE YOU SERIOUS!? I was so done with Chinese customs and immigration after that and thankfully I made it through Thailand’s immigration department quickly and with no issue!

At long last, after 35 hours, I had arrived.