Up in the Air...and Down on the Ground

By: Carrington Giammittorio

Waking up at 5.15 am, leaving my house by 6.30 and arriving at Reagan National Airport by 7, I hardly thought I'd have a problem catching an 8.30 flight. Long ticket lines and cross-country delays, however, had a different plan. After spending almost an hour and half in the ticketing line and thus missing my first flight, I found my connection re-routed from Dallas to Miami and my arrival time shunted from 12 noon to nearly 7pm. Confronted with a 3 hour wait in the airport before even leaving DC on top of 5 total hours of flight time and a 2 hour layover in Miami, I found myself pondering this question: how on earth I was going to spend my time both up in the air and down on the ground?

A quick dig through my trusty tote bag provided an easy answer: re-reading bylaws revision, amendment, and resolution proposals and taking one last look at the nomination packets of course! I'll be honest and admit that I wasn't as studious as I'd intended- I took two little breaks, one to watch 30 Rock and one to refine my Gift Mart strategy, which I feared would have to be revised due to my delayed arrival. Armed with convention prep and the NBC comedy block, I slowly whittled away at my time up in the air.

BUT...that's all in the past now because after what felt like an endless day of travel I'm finally down on the ground for good. As soon as I got off the plane I was reminded of how strong real sisterhood is. One of my chapter sisters lives in Phoenix and despite my nearly 7 hour delay, she was there to pick me up and whisk me off to the fabulous Arizona Biltmore:

Dashing to drop my bags off in my room, I managed to slip into dinner just as the salad was being served and took a seat with the rest of my province (thanks ladies for saving me that seat!) and my Grand Convention 2011 experience began. As promised, the food was delicious and the company was just what I needed after a day of harried cross-country travel. When I got back to my room after Adelphean Processional practice, it was certainly late (nearly 4am DC time!) and I was definitely tired, but I still wanted to share. Tonight was already so special and so fun- I can't wait to see what tomorrow (and of course the rest of the week) has in store.

~Carrington