Swaps, Spills, Sleep, Steals and Suicide - Argentina Day 1 (Thurs-Fri)
Thursday and Friday, June 5 & 6To say the start of our trip was uneventful would be the understatement of the year. It’s amazing how God changes your world so much in a just a few short hours.
We had some great team bonding and chill time at the Forman’s house before heading off to the Miami airport around 5:30pm. We HAD to stop at Jamba Juice (pronounced by the Forman’s with a short “A” sound like jam . . . .the stuff you put on bread . . .. or what you do with a bunch of musicians . . .. but I digress). I guess where Daniel Cavanaugh is from (“poe-dunk-ville” Kentucky), they don’t have JAmba Juice. :D
I think we made some peoples’ day at the airport . . .. We ONLY had 29 bags. John brought the ever-present team travel toy, a mini soccer ball. We managed not to hit TOO many people . . .. Mostly tried to knock out airport cars or at least make their job WAY more difficult . . .. Having to stop and back up when it went under her cart. She was laughing so hopefully it didn’t cause too much trouble. At 10pm lots of things get amusing.
We managed 2 rounds of 4-on-a-couch before boarding the 8½-hour flight to Santiago, Chile. ALL of our seats were spread throughout the plane, so we were hoping there would be some generous people willing to SWAP with us so we wouldn’t be sleeping on random people. Plus, I think we all just like each other’s company. :D I think I hit the jackpot for number of swapped seats. Amanda swapped tickets with a gentleman with the widow seat next to Nathaniel, and then I swapped him for a middle seat about 10 rows ahead. I swapped the lady sitting next to me the window for the aisle. Though I tried quite hard to be pleasant and see if she would let my “little brother” John sit next to me, she wasn’t quite up to that . . . . .I think I need to work on my pitiful-“older-sister”-puppy-dog eyes. A man from Brazil right behind us asked if we were Christians and after I found he was one, he let my “little brother” have his seat. A whopping 3 swap points for me!! :D
Right after take-off Amanda promptly turned around and dumped her COLD water all over sleeping Adrian, spill number one. Daniel’s water (perhaps feeling bad for the poor girl sitting there shivering) abandoned ship on HIS lap, spill number two. (Amanda didn’t bestow upon Daniel the tidbit of advice that water should be thrown on others, not oneself). Nathaniel followed suit (I think he was just imitating the great example of Daniel), creating the third spill and wet lap for our team within 10 min. Off to a great start!!
Average sleeping amount was 0-3 hours. Tim scored the most points in this event by throwing off our average with a whole 7 hours of sleep on the plane. Needless to say we arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina rather zoned.
After we arrived at the hotel, the team waited on the bus while Elizabeth, Daniel and Mrs. Salazar all went in to get us checked in. Our hotel is more like a resort on about 3 acres of land. There is a ton of room to run around . . . after we get sufficient sleep. John and Nathaniel are psyched about the numerous soccer fields.
Soon, the bags and people came piling off of the bus. Elizabeth came out of the office saying she had misplaced her purse and had anyone seen it. She was quite sure she just had it in the office with her. The bus was searched, the office was searched . . . no purse. The hotel staff rewound the security tape and sure enough, a professional thief had followed us an hour from the airport, walked in and snatched Elizabeth’s purse while they were working out details. The police were called, credit cards canceled and many prayers made for the thief. On the bright side, ALL the cash and passports were in the OTHER bag. I think God knew that we were tired and all of us had come to the end of ourselves. He allowed this little incident so that we could get our focus back on Him. Nothing like a theft to shake up the day a bit!
Restaurants in Argentina close at 2pm and don’t open again until 7pm. However, a Christian man was willing to leave his place open a little longer for us so we could have our first Argentine meal. Argentina is known for its beef and amazing sandwiches. This particular restaurant was known for its “suicide drinks.” Rather intrigued, we ordered those. Basically, they are fruit smoothies with ALL the kinds of fruit in them, with the banana flavor rather strong.
We get an early night of sleep tonight, its only 9pm! You’ll hear about tomorrow from someone else. Pray for health and good rest for the team. Also, that we can keep our trust in our anchor especially while the storm rages around us. Thank you!!
Jamie Conzatti
Flying over the Andes Mountains on our way from Santiago de Chile to Buenos Aires.