Day 1, Monday August 5th- Departure



I had not slept in over 24 hours, with Junior Olympics and packing and buying necessary items for my trip, there was no time...My flight from LAX was supposed to depart at 845am with United Airlines, so I got to the airport at 630am, my dad dropped me off, I took my car to his house and left it there...he left his house at about 530am....when we got close to the airport, there was serious traffic, even that early in the morning....the flight was delayed because of mechanical service maintenance needed, so the next flight would have been at 11am, and I had to stop in Washington DC .... the DC flight to Dubai (which is where we needed to be to get to Kabul) was at 625pm on Monday...which would have put us in Dubai by about 330pm on Tuesday....however I was put on standby, found a 10:20am flight from LAX with United but I was wait listed and 4-5 people who had platinum or gold membership were ahead of me ...I was put back in to the 11am flight ..... as I was waiting, I ran into the Riverside Water Polo 16&U boys and girls teams who were headed to Hawaii for a team bonding trip and water polo tournament, there flight was delayed to...also with United....I got to chill with my coaching colleague Casey Greenawalt for a few minutes....then my name was called, so the standby flight was going to take off at 10:05am now instead of 10:20am... and the few people ahead of me, never showed up... so the flight attendant was going to let me in....my worries now was my check in baggage ...originally I was told at the entrance to the airport when I was checking everything in, that the bags were going straight to Dubai because that was my final destination....OK, so I double checked with the flight attendant at the standby counter about my bags, and she too told me that they would go straight to Dubai and that I didn't have to worry about anything.....OK...so now I am on the flight, I board at 9:50am for a 10:05 flight, and the flight doesn't even leave until 10:30am...... It was a very bumpy and uncomfortable flight, they didn't clean the plane, the seats were dirty, you had to pay for any movies or audio or meals with United....stupid....I think United kind of sucks now.....so I get to Washington DC Dulles at about 5:45pm, plane is taxiing , I ask the flight attendance if I am going to get to the next gate for my connecting flight to Dubai on time...she said yes and no problem .....just to be safe....with my backpack on.... I ran as fast as I could from one terminal to another in about 10 minutes, a good 20-25 minute walk.... I got to the gate ... my travel partner Scott Caruso was already on that plane on the seat next to mine, he came in from Chicago, no problems with his flight....so he is waiting for me, I get to the gate at 6pm....and they close it, they were rude to me and said that I can't get on because my checked in bags had to come with me on the flight, and I told them what I was told in LA, but they didn't care...I asked how long it would take for the bags to be transferred from one plane  to another, they said 30 minutes....meaning the flight was at 625pm and I was there at 6pm... I asked them to hold the flight for 5 more minutes, and they said no....I asked when the next flight was to Dubai, and they didn't know.... I started curing at them with a lot of profanities, it didn't help my cause trying to get on that flight, but it did make me feel better....so I was directed to customer service, waited for 10 minutes in line, told the guy at the counter of my situation, he also worked for United airlines, I kind of told him that so far all the United people in LAX and D.C. sucked, including the flight attendants, he kind of agreed, like he didn't want to work for them either .... so he gave me a $10 meal voucher to make things better, that was nice, however I would have preferred a first class seat on the long flight to the middle east .... he found me a 10:55pm flight Monday night, with Qatar Airlines that would go to Doha Qatar first, 1 hour lay-over, then go to Dubai, UAE ... I would land in Dubai at like 730pm or so instead of the original 330pm ...OK.. so I accepted, thanked him....didn't get first class, but got emergency exit row seating on an almost empty flight, which was OK .... I went to go get some dinner..

.DC Dulles terminal A and B is nice .... called T-Mobile to shut my service down for the next 3.5 weeks so I don't get charged for roaming services, etc....got on board the flight at 1015pm or so now....found my seat....some married women with a kid sat a few seats away from me, she was visiting friends in Boston, she was from Kathmandu, Nepal...a 5-6 hour flight from Doha ... she seemed very educated/intelligent about the world and politics.... another women with her baby and her elderly mother were across the isle....I think they were Indian.... the baby cried a lot, but once we took off, the baby was quiet.....I was so dead tired, that I just shut my eyes for the first hour or so....