Sydney Adventure: Departure

I did everything right. I had everything packed in a carry-on so there was no chance that my luggage would be lost. I got to the airport ridiculously early. I was ready to go. I was supposed to leave SLC at 8:48pm and had a little more than 30 min to get to my connecting flight at LAX to take me to Sydney, Australia. Then someone threw a snowball that just kept growing...
First, our flight was delayed. I didn't have much time for a flight delay. Heart rate starts to increase. I guess one of the flight crew had called in sick and we had to wait for another attendant to come in. there were 2 of us with connecting flights to Sydney and they let us know that we would have approximately 10 min to make it to our connecting flight. We would have to book it. LAX is huge! Ok, I can do that. I was undefeated in the 400m dash during the regular track season of my junior year of high school (10 years ago)--I can totally make it to this flight...
Then. Then I realized that my carry on luggage had to be checked at the door because we were flying in a small regional jet and it wouldn't fit in the overhead storage bins. This was a problem because I'd have to wait for my bag before running through LAX to catch my next flight. Shoot--Heart rate going even faster. I have no way to contact Brooke in Sydney if I miss my flight to Sydney. That's not good. So I ask the United Airlines attendant at the desk if there is any way we could fit my bag on the plane with us. nfortunately that wasn't going to work. Way to go carry-on luggage. But--the nice man who puts the door checked luggage on the plane told me he would put my bag on last so it would come off first and be ready at the door when I got off the plane in LA. Love this guy!! Then, the lady at the desk upgraded my ticket for my inconvienience. Love her too!! Heart rate starting to return back to normal. Too bad my long, 14 hour flight to Sydney couldn't get upgraded...
So things start to look up--except that I still only have 10 minutes to get on my next flight.
Since I had recently had a first class experience, I was excited and ready for another one. Endless snacks, real glasses, plenty of leg room, TV--WRONG! All I got was the "premium snack pack" (pretzels, nuts, and funny tasting cracker things), 1 cup of Sprite in a plastic cup with way too much ice (more like cup of ice with a hint of Sprite), and no movie or tv. I did have plenty of leg room as you can see. Yes, those are my legs fully stretched out. : )
After we boarded the plane and got settled, I met my friend, Brandon, who was about 7, lived in LA, and had been in SLC visiting his mom who is a member of the Salt Lake Roller Derby team. He liked to go surfing, has only been to Disneyland twice, and likes the Steelers football team (sorry Cardinals fans...Go Cards!) Brandon was having a tough time leaving his mom behind and a few tears had escaped from this brave little dude so I decided I would talk to him a little bit and try to help him take his mind off of it. I remember crying in Grandma's kitchen when I was a little, little girl as i would watch my daddy turn on the running lights to his blue, Ford truck and drive away after he dropped me off from our weekend visit. So I could relate to the little guy. This is Brandon after our little chat (I seem to have this affect on a lot of people...)
We finally land at LAX and the other guy, Dillan, and I take off running down the terminal to our next flight. You should have seen me!! I could have come straight out of a movie. My backpack kept coming unzipped as I was waddle-running through the airport pulling my little suitcase behind me. Not my most athletic performance. Good thing I decided to wear my running shoes and not my flip flops! Miraculously I made it onto the plane with 2 minutes to spare! I've never been on a plane that big before and was just in awe as I walked down the aisle to find my seat wondering how on earth something so big was going to get up in the air and carry me over 7500+ miles of ocean to Sydney...Ok. Now I'm ready to go. 14 hour flight and I'll be in Sydney--I made it. WRONG AGAIN! Our flight ended up being delayed 80 min due to some problem with the #3 engine. Great. Just what I need. An engine proplem when I'm flying over THE PACIFIC OCEAN FOR 14 HOURS! Just Fabulous. Take all the time you need...
So while I'm waiting for take off, still catching my breath from running from terminal to terminal to try to catch my flight on time, I overhear the conversation of the man and woman sitting behind me. Apparently they had just met and were discussing different "sexual talents" they have (I don't think these talents are what the Lord had in mind when giving the parable of the talents...), brothels around the world (this girl was apparently well traveled), and the fact that the girl was no longer wearing a bra...OH MY GOODNESS PEOPLE...WE ARE IN PUBLIC! ON AN AIRPLANE...YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!
Once we got into the air (finally) my flight itself was rather uneventful. I think I slept for a total of 10.5-11 hours with frequent changes in position. I was only mildly impressed with the functioning of the neck pillow I had purchaces for $12 back in SLC. I think I'll gift that to my sister when I get back--she has a shorter neck, might work better for her... My internal clock woke me up for each meal thank goodness. Flying makes me hungry. Dinner was pretty tastey. I must have been sitting next to Brooke when I ordered my meals because it was the "low fat" meal option complete with sugar free cookie. I never would have ordered a sugar free cookie on my own...EVERYBODY knows that! I missed out on French Toast for breakfast too...dang healthy omlete... I won't be making that mistake again anytime soon.
Brooke picket me up at the airport--so good to see her! As we were walking through the airport, I was stopped by 2 television reporters who wanted to interview an American about the "swine' flu and how it had affected my travel. It hadn't really affected my travel at all (although ironically it would on my way back to the States...but that's a story for another blog...). The first reporter really wasn't interested in what I had to say and walked away while the second one humored me and coninued the 2 minute interview. 10 minutes in Australia and I'm already a celebrity! Right on!
We took the train into the city (Sydney) and walked to the hotel. We didn't wait around long once we got to the hotel to get our day started. I took a quick shower and off we went!
To be continuted... *wink wink*

Wake Up Call

We've all been there...Something wakes you up before you intended on waking up and it just goes down hill from there...

This is my story.

A physical therapy clinic that I had interviewed with two weeks earlier flew me back down for a clinic visit and had put me up in a hotel for the weekend. I set my alarm for 8am Friday to get up and go for a run and get ready for my day in the clinic...

RING RING RING RING RING!!

What the heck!? What time is it? Who the heck is calling me at 6:45am?? What is going on? So I crawl out of bed and stumble over to the desk and pick up the phone to hear "Goodmorning, this is your wake up call" I DIDN'T ASK FOR A WAKE UP CALL AT 6:45 IN THE A-M!! Grrrrr!!!! Ok...1:15 left to sleep before I have to get up and get ready. I'm going back to sleep. WRONG! I crawl back into bed and finally get comfortable and I have to pee. That might be one of the worst things ever...when you have to get up and go to the bathroom when you are all comfy in bed. Ok, get up. Take care of business. Get back to bed. Sleep...Wrong again. Now I have hunger pains shooting through my poor little tummy. GOSH! So I toss and turn for a while and finally get the pain to subside. Ok. 50 minutes left to sleep. Sleep...Are you kidding me? The drapes are just far enough apart that the wonderful Arizona sunshine is shining in on my not so smiling face. Get up again. Close the drapes. Crawl back into bed. Toss and turn for a little bit. Re-adjust the five pillows surrounding my head for the 8th time. Sleep.

30 minutes later... Beep Beep Beep Beep.

I hate it when that happens.

First Class Experience

This is a great story, just under rotten circumstances. Easter weekend my sister and I took last minute flights to Washington because my grandma was close to passing away and we wanted to have a chance to say goodbye. I'm not going to go into any more detail than that right now other than she past away a week later. But no more tears and on to the good stuff.
So my sister and I bought these last minute flights and rushed off to the airport. This was my sister's first time flying with assigned seats (we're generally Southwest girls) and I was being the helpful big sister that I am and taking the lead onto the plane. Well, I went to turn right and find my seat, 3C, and found myself in for a surprise. I looked up at the seat numbers and the first number I saw was 20C. 20C? What the heck happened to 3C? I stood there for a second or two longer and finally had to ask the flight attendant what happened to 3C? She politely pointed and directed me to the left. That's right...to the left. When I looked up and saw first class I thought there was some big mistake...How on earth did I end up with a first class ticket? I checked the name...yep, Alison Merritt. I checked the seat number again...yep, 3C. That was me! So I sit down and my sister sits down behind me. Oddly enough, I just couldn't get comfortable. Not because the seat wasn't nice and big and plush, but because I still didn't think I belonged up there. I didn't know what to do with myself honestly. :) My sister ended up sitting next to this cute, 29 year old military guy and just got her flirt on all the way to Seattle. I on the other hand ended up with this spoiled rotten, teenage boy next to me who had the audacity to wake me up to point out the train we were flying over, read over my shoulder out of my National Physical Therapy Exam prep book...aloud, and climb all over me to get out of his seat and to the bathroom. The flight is only 1:45 long! HOLD IT!
Anyways, besides that little blemish, my first class experience was a hoot! Did you know they actually serve your drinks in real glasses in first class?? Its nice. And that beverages are ENDLESS! And the snacks are endless too! And I'm not talking about packages of peanuts either...I had an entire Twix bar and a BANANA! Yes, a banana, and I was sooooo excited about it! And it just kept getting better because they played an episode of The Office too!! Which worked out perfectly because I just put in the FREE earphones, turned up the volume, and drowned out the unappreciated noise coming from the seat next to me. I had to be careful not to laugh out too loudly :) . The pillow and blanket were a nice touch too. I would have cuddled up and slept, like I always tend to do on my flights, but I didn't want to waste a minute of my first class experience once I figured out how everything worked.
So that was my little taste of what first class feels like and I think I could get very used to that :)
Don't get me wrong, I love the coach experience...crowded walkways, jam packed overhead bins, the infamous "middle seat", the guy whose body flows out of the middle seat and into yours, the package of stale peanuts and the plastic cup so full of ice you only get two sips of sprite out of it, and the bump I get on my head everytime I attempt to stand up and exit the plane from the overhead storage bin. I mean honestly, who doesn't love all of that!

Proof Katie and I sat up in first class: Check out the REAL glass and FREE earphones!

Stairs, Stairs, and More Stairs

My last internship is at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah. It's the new hospital that was opened a year or two ago and is lovingly referred to as "the Death Star". Inpatient rehab is up on the 12th floor of the hospital and is where I spend my final days as a graduate student. Well, one of the rehab docs apparently had this brilliant idea to create teams and race up and down the 24 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS from the main level up to the 12th floor. That's right...there are 24 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS...not 12...don't let that fool you as it did me.... Well, there are enough crazy people who work on the 12th floor that there were 5 teams of 4 people each who participated in this ridiculous challenge. I was lucky enough to be recruited to one of the teams which included Adam, the PT manager; Kasey, one of the OTs; Courtney, one of the PT aides; and myself. Adam tends to underestimate me on occasion and that's how I got myself recruited to his team...to prove myself (what's new? haha). I had no idea what I got myself into...
Ask me when the last time I walked up more than one flight of stairs was before I did the challenge? Yeah, I don't know either. So needless to say I went in a little untrained after returning from Arizona two days before. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. Adam and Kasey took the 2 downstairs legs which left Courtney and I with the 2 upstairs legs. Their reasoning was that they had more weight to help gravity get them downstairs faster. HA! I suckered Courtney into going first so I had more time to freak out and wonder what the heck I had gotten myself into...
Adam came racing down the stairs and tagged my hand and off I went...
The first adventure I ran into was the mysterious 3rd floor. You can't get to the 3rd floor from the public elevators or the staff elevators so I just thought it didn't exist. Oh but it does and that added 2 flights of stairs to my ascent that I wasn't prepared for. I had to run down this little hallway and up a different flight of stairs on the 3rd floor. As silly as it sounds, I was afraid I was going to get lost and let my team down. But I managed and now know that there IS a third floor that you can't get to from the elevators (the number 3 isn't even on one of the buttons...). Then things were going pretty well until I hit the 8th floor. Almost wanted to die, but I still had 4 floors left to go...which translates into 8 more flights of stairs. I decided I would take the 2 flights up to the ninth floor walking up while still skipping steps with the idea that it would be a little rest break and I could bust out the remaining 6 flights of stairs up to the top. WRONG!! Once my legs stopped...they stopped. It was like running through quick sand to get them to move again. I was so mad at myself for stopping! And thinking about how I was going to be the slow putzy one on my team...the intern who couldn't make the cut. Fabulous. I finally made it up to my last flight of stairs, where I officially wanted to just keel over and die, and I literally had to swing my legs around from my hips to get up the stairs and tag Kasey's hand because they just wouldn't move. My legs were done. And that was that.
Our team ended up coming in 2nd only to the other therapy team, so I guess that's ok. But the best part was my time for going up. I honestly thought I had blown it for my team and that my time would be horrible. Believe it or not, its really easy to lose track of time when you just keep going up and up and up and up and up and up and...I'm sure you get the point. Anyway, I ended up racing up 24 flights of stairs in 95 seconds!! That's pretty much AMAZING! My time was the fastest "up" split for the girls and the 3rd best time overall. I was only behind 2 of the OTs who both ended up throwing up at the top, one of whom missed work for the next 2 days and the other who needed supplemental oxygen to recover. Racing up that many stairs tears you up! It took me a good 30 minutes to get it all back together, but I neither got sick, nor needed O2 for my recovery. So really...who's the tough one here? : )
Moral of the story...I'm going to take the elevator next time : )

I lost my arms!!

There must have been something in the cupcakes that were left over from St. Patrick's Day at my birthday party because last night sure was a doosey! I spent close to an hour and a half sitting on our front porch shivering like it was nobody's business just talkin' it up with a couple of good friends. And by talkin' it up I mean spilling the beans to just about every good boy story I've had in the past year to my dear friend Brad Hatch. He had no idea what was comin' when he sat down at 11:00 that evening...I had no idea either. But this post isn't about those stories. I finally headed inside around midnight and was so incredibly cold the shivering was turning into convulsing and I couldn't feel my toes. I crawled into bed and despite the 4 blankets, 1 down comforter, and my hoodie hood pulled up, I could not warm up and fall asleep. Eventually pure exhaustion must have hit because I finally fell asleep.
During the night I remember waking up in a panic because I would try to roll over but I couldn't find my arms! Yes, I was panicking because I couldn't find my arms...you read that right. The crazy thing was that not knowing where my arms were was not enough to really wake me up and I drifted right back off to sleep once my blood pressure normalized. It wasn't until this morning when my alarm clock went of at 6:45 that I woke up enough to care about my apparently missing arms...I tried to roll over in bed and turn off my alarm when I realized my arms were not in the arm holes of my hoodie. Instead, sometime during the night I had pulled them out of the sleeves and in close to my body. When I had tried to use my arms to roll over during the night, they were stuck inside my hoodie...resulting in the panic attacks while I was sleeping. When I realized my arms were still attached and how ridiculous the whole situation was, I just rolled over and laid there and laughed until I almost cried.
I learned an important lesson last night...Apparently not knowing where my arms were was not enough to wake me up. Damn alarm clocks... : )