Friday night when Jon came home from work we loaded up his truck with our many bags of supplies for Haiti and started down the road towards Greensboro. Janet, my NP preceptor from the summer, was traveling with us as well. Our flight was scheduled to leave around 6:30am and we wanted to spend the night in NC rather than leave Roanoke at 2am. We made it as far at the Walmart on 581 when we got the call from Dr. Sarbin. Our flight had been cancelled due to snow in Atlanta. We were instructed to hang tight and wait for plan B. Seizing the opportunity, we stopped at Outback Steakhouse for our "last decent meal" in America. After two hours of waiting at the restaurant to be seated, we finally ate a wonderful meal and heard from Dr. Sarbin that we should go on to Greensboro. The plan was to meet him at 4:30am at the airport so he could try and get us all on a flight to Florida. Although I was a little uneasy about this plan, I had a sense of calm that told me God was in control. We arrived at our hotel around midnight. It was already snowing in Greensboro and I wondered how the others would fare driving in the snow at 2am. We had three broken hours of sleep before we drove to the airport at 4am the next morning.
At the airport, we all gathered together with loads of bags, smiles and excitement. Dr. Sarbin worked his magic with the ticket lady and got 5 of us on a direct flight to Miami, while the remaining 6 would take a shuttle to the Raleigh aiport to fly first class and meet them in Miami.
This is Janet and I.
Loads of bags!
Here are the 6 who went to Raleigh : Lauren, Jenny, Rachel, Me, Janet, and Sondra. We didn't want to split up the group, but we didn't see much choice. We hung around the in the airport for two hours because the shuttle driver taking us to Raleigh was late due to the snow. At this point we were still pretty positive, happy, and excited about the day. See how fresh and clean we look? We crammed us and 12 bags of medical supplies into a cargo van and headed to Raleigh.
In Raleigh, the lovely Southwest air employee informed us that our seats on our flight were overbooked and they could not get us onto a flight to Florida. She explained that the Delta employee in Greensboro should have called to confirm there were in fact seats available and there was some glitch in the computer. So much for flying first class...I was really looking forward to having a free drink too.
Oh well, for the next two hours we worked with both Delta and Southwest airlines to find a flight that could take us all to Miami to meet with Dr. Sarbin's group so we could get to Haiti. The problem was the snow in Atlanta. We started to get worried about meeting up with our group, and were about to rent a van to drive there ourselves when suddenly there was one option: wait on standby for a flight to Miami and if we didn't get on it we were assurred they could get us on an alternative flight to Miami later in the day through Atlanta. I questioned the Atlanta flight..I mean, hello, the flights were cancelled due to snow..why did they suddenly have an opening? But we felt pretty helpless and decided to go for it. By this time we were hungry and fed up with messed up arrangements. 
Me and Jenny Ma.
Janet, Rachy and Lauren.
Here we are in Raleigh, relieved to finally have a plan! Note the ticket lady in the background who was NOT helpful at all and was actually pretty rude until we told her we were going to Haiti. We made it to the gate and sat down to a long-waited lunch and discussed our plans for what we would do if we didn't all get on the flight. The Delta worker told us to come back to her if we didn't make the flight and she would book us on another one. Four of us ended up getting on that flight to Miami, while Rachel and Jenny stayed behind, thinking we would be meeting them soon.
When we got to Miami finally, we learned that Rachel and Jenny were in Detroit!! The Delta worker pretended to have no idea what promises she made us and going from Detroit to Miami was the only option left. They wouldn't get into Miami until after midnight. We were all bummed to hear the news. Meanwhile, the four of us in Miami headed to the baggage claim and got all 12 bags of supplies (did I mention how heavy they were and we had no man in our group?). At this point we found out that our other 5 team members were already in route to Haiti without us. We felt upset that they would leave us, but we didnt know at the time that there was no other choice for them. We would join them in the morning.
We had been told that a shuttle would take us to a hotel for the night. Well, we didn't know what shuttle or what hotel. The travel agent in charge of this whole fiasco was not answering her phone. We were stuck in Miami with 12 heavy bags and heavy hearts. What else could go wrong?
Being resourceful, we got a list of local hotels and started calling around to see if we had any reservations. The conversation went something like this "yes, hi, I am trying to see if I have a reservation at your hotel tonight. Name? Um, I am not sure..it could be under this name, or that name, or maybe this name." Yeah..at this point we were over it, and felt abandoned. Something told me to hang on and it would work out, but we were all tired, as evidenced in this picture. Note how Lauren is still smiling..it if weren't for her optimism we would all be far worse off.
Finally our travel agent called us to tell us what shuttle to look for. So we dragged our bags outside and loaded them up in another van, which drove us to a hotel in Ft. Lauderdale. After an hour and a half we finally arrived, exhausted, hungry, and OVER IT!! The hotel was a little sketchy, but at this point we figured to have one more night in a real bed with a real shower. Luckily, Sondra knew a friend nearby who drove us to a really great steakhouse at 8pm. At that steakhouse I shed a few tears. It had been a long day and I already missed Jon. I guess after a long day of bad news I wondered how it would be in Haiti. The whole day felt like an attack to keep us from getting to Haiti. EVERY SINGLE PLAN was messed up...how could that be a coincidence? We learned the other half of our group arrived safely in Haiti. We knew Rachel and Jenny would be getting in late so we went to bed. At 2am they arrived at the hotel...well after we had expected them. When they had finally arrived to Miami from Detroit there was no promised shuttle and they had a take a cab all the way to Ft. Lauderdale with a man who spoke little English and had no idea where the hotel was. This ended Day 1...
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