I have to say that weekend trips across the country are extremely difficult on me!!! I'm so happy that I went but man, I am exhausted! The time change was not on my side being over in Virginia... 3 hours ahead!
My brother's graduation was on Sunday. We woke up at 5:45am (East coast time) which is 2:45am my time. Then we all got dressed, got in the car and made it to meet my brother for breakfast by 8:00am. The weather had been beautiful all day Saturday so we were all hoping that the storm would just go right by us and we would have the graduation outdoors as planned. WRONG!
Right after breakfast, the storm came in full force. We were all in nice dresses and open toe shoes. Thankfully we had plenty of umbrellas but they almost did no good. The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was just drenching all of us to the bone. We proceeded to the football field where they were stuborn about having the ceremony outdoors unless it was lightening. We sat down on our wet seats and were already miserable before the thing even started. At the last minute, they decided to move the ceremony indoors. There were about 4,000 people there and I still can't believe that they had the nerve to make last minute decisions like that instead of just having it in the stinking indoor gym anyways.
We all were trying to get to the gym, which was on the opposite side of the campus, and get out of the rain. When we got to the doors, they were locked. There were thousands of people getting soaked outside and they wouldn't let us in! All of a sudden, I'm not joking, it seemed like the sky fell out. The rain was pounding so hard that one of our umbrellas broke. All of us, including my grandma, were drenched from head to toe. It was awful! They finally opened up the doors and it was like a freaking mosh pit. People were elbowing people, using their umbrellas to get through, and I've never heard such harsh words come out of elderly folks. It was crazy.
On another note, there were only about 1,000-1,500 seats for the 4,000 guests so finding a seat was a battle as well. We scouted out our seats and pounced on them. We were all soaking wet, the air conditioning was on and we were so uncomfortable. They started a little more than an hour late. They finally called Justin's name and we all agreed that we wanted to go home and try to get into dry clothes, take some asprin, and get some food and then come back to meet up with Justin for some dinner. Well, as many people know, plans never seem to go as planned. We thought that the ceremony was going to last 3 hours but instead it only lasted 2. We were almost home when Justin called and said that it was over. We all were so bummed because now we had to ask Justin to drive in the rain all the way home and meet us before I had to go to the airport. We basically had about an hour to see eachother and then I was off.
Next time, no matter what, I'm staying for at least 4 days. This flying in Friday night, spending one full day and then having to stress about flying out on Sunday doesn't work for me!!!
If you've read all of this, I'm sorry for the ranting! It was just a very stressful weekend!!!
