When you fly so long you can't remember the last moment you weren't on a plane...

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January 4-5:

You know your flight is long when getting up every two hours and wearing compression stockings doesn't keep your ankles from swelling to the size of your thighs. Contrary to the last sentence, while the flights were long, Korean Air made the experience as painless as it could be. Our first flight departed from Dulles Airport and landed in Seoul, South Korea 15 hours later. The flight consisted of babysitting the two-year-old Vietnamese girl next to me while her mom passed out face-first onto the tray table, four movies, two episodes of Friends, poor attempts to sleep, and lots of stretching in the back of the plane. We were served two meals on this flight: lunch and dinner. For lunch our options were a traditional Korean dish (can't remember the name) and chicken with rice. I knew it was important to try new things, so I asked for the Korean meal which consisted of seaweed soup (tasted like literal seaweed), ground beef with various veggies and cabbage, white rice, and sesame sauce. For dinner I was less adventurous and got chicken and rice (already sick of rice) and had a slice of chocolate cake for dessert. After 8 hours, the flight crew came around with a hot wash cloth for us to refresh our faces and then the lights went back off and stayed off until landing. Upon arrival to the Incheon airport in South Korea, the plane was filled with the Olympic theme song to get us all excited for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Pyongyang. I was told by my professor that the Incheon airport is supposed to be the best airport in the world. The first thing we did after getting off the plane was walk through an area where they scan your body temperature and can assess if you are bringing any sickness into the airport. The downstairs consisted of all name brand stores (appeared to be just as nice as King of Prussia) like Tiffany & Co., Versace, Juicy Couture, etc. Apparently Asians really enjoy purchasing name-brand items. The upstairs offered showers, massages, and an incredibly large food court. Unfortunately I skipped out on trying new things and was pressured by my friend Libby to get some classy Taco Bell food 20 minutes before our next flight. Yeah you guessed it, Libby had diarrhea and I was constipated but the crunch wrap was worth it. The next flight was 6 hours long and luckily I sat with three of my classmates. This flight to Chiang Mai consisted of one attempt of reading a book, and lots of neck-aching sleep. We landed in Chiang Mai, Thailand at 10:30 pm on Friday after a total of 24 hours of travel. We were greeted by our Thai buddies who gave us leis of Jasmine and gave us lots of hugs. Fortunately, the Thais love pictures so my greasy hair & face will make lots of appearances on Facebook. My buddy's name is Mean (yes like the English word Mean) and while quiet, she couldn't stop gushing about how excited she was to meet me. She is the photographer of the group so there will be plenty of pictures. We then boarded a bus and headed to BCNC with our buddies who were excited yet nervous to speak English with us. All of our buddies are freshmen in the nursing program here and were selected out of 150 students total from their class. Once at the school, they helped us carry our luggage up the stairs and let us into our apartments. On our beds were small gifts from our buddies (elephant purse, polo, stuffed French bulldog, and a water bottle) who were so excited to share them with us. After getting some unpacking done and a nice warm shower, I headed to bed at 2 am. In Thailand, it is normal to sleep on a hard slab so our beds were no different. But after an entire day of sitting, laying on the hard slab of a mattress was the only thing I wanted to do.

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