May Day (Travel Day): Part One.
All my life my mother has been telling me, “Everything happens for a reason.” And my response to my mother every time she would tell me this would be, “Yeah, I KNOW MOM,” secretly having many doubts about this saying. These doubts, however, came to a screeching halt on March 15, 2012. Please believe me when I tell you, “EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON,” HASHEM ALWAYS HAS A PLAN,” “WHERE EVER YOU ARE IS WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE,” and any other cliché’ quotes similar to these, are true. Following is my evidence that mother is ALWAYS right.
As I walked into the airport, I glanced over at a gathering of young adults I could only assume to be my SOS group I would be living with 24/7 for the next ten days. As I began to walk over I noticed that every two girls were in a clique, and I began to roll my eyes and flashes of Mean Girls scenes began to take over my mind. “Ugh, this is going to suck!” I thought to myself. I sat down and began to introduce myself to each individual girl. We began to converse with one another but mainly I spoke with my friend on the trip, Jessica. We had been sitting in the airport for about an hour when Aviva came over to us to tell us that our plane was overbooked by 200 people due to the fact that they sent a 316 person plane instead of the promised 516 person plane. This was most certainly a cramp in our travel plans. It was now a race against time to get to Greece before sundown on Friday, also known as Shabbat. At first this news was definitely a buzz kill. There was no way the 11 of us could continue to come up with subjects to talk about for however long it would take for Rabbi to figure out our new travel plans. “Alright!” I said, “Everyone get out your smartphones, let’s kill time and become facebook friends. By the way, when you friend me can you also like my status??” Little did I know, this statement in response to our changed travel plans, were the beginning to a 22hour ice-breaker.
With a rebooked flight and six hours into being at the airport, my SOS group of nine girls and two lucky boys became inseparable. After being rerouted through Germany instead of Paris, boarding the plane at 11:00PM instead of 5:00Pm, eating 7 Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, having to pick through our non-kosher meals in order to preserve our kosher observances, and rushing to our connection flight with only minutes to spare, we finally made it to Greece.
It was during these incidences that I learned, Moriah has a boyfriend 4inches shorter than her, Shikma is recently engaged, Josh is a Harry Potter fanatic, Aviva only eats certain meats, Becca likes her room temperature 5 degrees below zero, Ashley goes by the name Raven, Donnie and I graduated from the same school, Melissa is training for a half marathon, Heather is probably the coolest freshman I have ever met, Jenn and I went to the same public school, and Jessica is my best friend so there isn’t anything new I learned about her J. Well isn’t all that just dandy because I love weddings, Harry Potter movie marathons on ABC family is what I live for, “picky eating” is my middle name, whoever doesn’t like their room temperature similar to that of the south pole is just crazy, I’m trying to lose weight so I guess I could train for a half marathon, and an exchange of fun facts about people is what I consider the first stepping stones to a friendship that I hope will last a lifetime.
With all of this being said, this 22hour ice-breaker would not have occurred without the help of the airport that sent Dulles International Airport the wrong airplane, that in turn rerouted us through Germany, causing our departure time to be delayed by 6 hours, of which forced the 11 of us to bond as one big happy family that had to work as a Kvutza to make it to Greece before sundown on Friday March 16, 2012. I can now say, with absolute certainty, this is not a Mean Girls film that will be making it to Hollywood.
Now you tell me, is my mother always right? (This is a rhetorical question because yes, my mother is ALWAYS right).
Warm Regards from Greece!
This was Olivia Sayer Greene, SHALOM!! Or more appropriately ANTIO!!
Ps. Hi MOM AND DAD!!!!!!!! Mom, you’re right and Dad…I know my grammar sucks in this blog, but when in GREECE!!!! 
Pps. Rabbi Tessler and Aviva, thank you so much for working your magic and getting us to Greece on time, none of this could have happened without you and I love both of you more than a blog could describe!!!