America Travel Day

This was one of our shortest travel days (only 40 hours), but it left me more exhausted than any others.

We left the Indonesia base at 7:30, after packing everything and cleaning everything up. A few of our goodbyes were said here, but the majority were saved for the ferry station.

We had to wait around at the station for a while before leaving for Singapore, but since I’d slept so little the night before, I didn’t take the opportunity to explore. I just rested for about an hour and half.

We said our remaining goodbyes, then went through security. Everything went smoothly, and we were sailing to Singapore after only one scare (a few people thought the rest of us had been left behind, but really we were just sitting in a different area).

After an hour, we’d arrived in Singapore. We didn’t stay for long though. As soon as we’d collected our bags, we booked vans to come get us, and traveled to the Singapore airport.

As we pulled up, we saw the rest of the Squad (the people who had been in Malaysia) waiting outside for us, and our reunion was fully of jumping, screaming, hugging, and spinning. I couldn’t stop smiling, and immediately started getting caught up on everything that had happened while they were in Malaysia.

It was only around noon by this point, and our flight didn’t leave until 8:40, so we were given permission to wander the airport until 4:30.

I went to McDonalds with Abeni, Caryse, and Isabella, and we spent the whole time catching up. Then we went back to where the group was slowly beginning to gather, and waited.

At 4:30, we were moving again. Checking our bags, then finding our gate took longer than expected, but we still made it with plenty of time to spare.

I had no desire to wander around aimlessly, so I talked and read until boarding at 7:50. This airport was different in that there was security before each gate, so this was when we went through security.

Then we waited until we could board, and, once boarded, we settled down and waited to begin our 14 hour flight.

To help with jet lag, my goal had been to not sleep at all during the flight, but I still spent a couple of hours asleep. Mostly, though, I watched movies, and when we landed in San Francisco at 8:30 (on the same day!) I was tired, but still awake enough to feel alright.

We only had a 2 hour layover, and half of that was spent claiming, then rechecking our bags, so it flew by. On the flight, which was supposed to be 4 hours, I was looking forward to sleeping the whole time, but I had to wait another 2 hours after we’d boarded, because something was off with the baggage, and it took a long time to sort out.

Eventually, we did leave, and I slept the entire flight. We landed at around 8:00 the next morning, claimed our bags one last time, then waited to be picked up by vans that would take us back to base.

They came around 10:30, and the 6 of us who piled into the first van also picked up 6 members of L Squad. We made it back to the base where we’d spent the month of September around noon.

To summarize everything that happened afterwards, we unpacked and set up our little areas (most people chose to sleep inside, but I really like my tent), struggled to stay awake for most of the day, then dropped off to bed one by one.

To give you an idea of how tired I was, I went to bed at 7:00, after resting all day, and woke up at 8:30 the next morning, and that was only because I’d set an alarm so I could help with breakfast.

So ends Gap K’s last international travel day