You can never predict the challenges that you may encounter in the future. For instance, when it comes to traveling it requires endless amounts of planning. You are constantly planning ahead and adapting to what is happening around you, however, even when everything is planned out, things still go wrong. During our trip to Norway, 35 students were tasked to plan out their flights accordingly, yet each student had a completely different experience even though we were all traveling to the same destination at roughly the same time.
Carter: My personal experience when traveling to Norway included my flight from MSP → to AMS being delayed, further leading to me missing my connecting flight from AMS → Stavanger. I continued to experience a chain reaction of delays and missed connecting flights ultimately leading to a canceled flight, and me finding a way to secure a hotel for the night as well as a flight to Stavanger the next day. All these bumps and turns were stressful, yes, but looking back on this experience I have grown as a person.
(Source: https://www.oneworld.com/airport-maps/ams
)
Annika: I was on the same delayed flight as Carter – however, I was slightly closer to the front of the plane and ran through the airport to make the flight to Stavanger. I quickly made my way to passport control and advocated for myself to skip to the front of the line, which I did with the help of several gracious travelers. After racing through the airport, I finally saw Professor Kari waving her arms at our gate. Unfortunately, my luggage did not make it with me and I prepared myself to live out of my backpack for several days. It was luckily sent on the next flight and made it to Stavanger only several hours later.
Maren: I flew from Des Moines to Minneapolis before departing for Amsterdam. My flight got delayed in MSP, meaning my layover in AMS was going to be tight. We arrived in AMS an hour and a half later than our originally scheduled arrival time. I got off the plane, ran through the airport, cut the line at passport control, and got on my flight to Stavanger. Unfortunately when I arrived in Norway, my bag was nowhere to be found. I had to file a claim for a missing bag and suck it up in the clothes I had been in for over 24 hours. I went another full day without my bag, but eventually I got it back!
Aaron: My flights went smoothly, however, jet lag was a challenge. The first night I ended up sleeping through my alarm and missing the wonderful hotel breakfast, the one thing I had planned for that day. Next time I travel across many time zones I will keep in mind the time it takes to transition.
Overall, when navigating these experiences it took assertiveness, communication, patience, flexibility, and maintaining our cool, all to eventually get to the final destination.