Thanks Dannie

Note: I have been in New Zealand for about a day at the time of writing this. Since I did not have the blog up during my day of travel or my first day here at Massey, I will be posting my experiences from those days in chronological order. The events of this post took place on the afternoon of July 4th.


I am dedicating this entry to a girl I met named Dannie. I stepped onto my first flight out of SEATAC in the afternoon on the Fourth of July full of expectation and excitement but also a bit of fear. I found my seat in the very last row of the plane. Then this girl came up and took the seat right next to mine. When she was seated she turned to me and asked, “So where are you going?”

“Well,” I responded, taking a little pause there to savor the fact that I was travelling VERY far over the next twenty-something hours, “I am actually on my way to New Zealand.” And to my surprise she responded “Oh, so am I.”

We exchanged names (I even remember someone’s name for a change!) and info about our trips, and I learned that she was Dannie, the WSU student who was going to be spending a semester studying in Christchurch. We talked for the rest of the flight, and then stuck together when we got to San Francisco. We both had the same four and a half hour layover there.

I gave my parents a call from the San Francisco airport, which was the last time I would be able to use my phone in the USA, and when I did I realized just how fortunate I was not to be sitting in that airport alone. I am about the most introverted person you will meet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate company. And as everyone else, I appreciate having someone who understands exactly what I am going through. One of my biggest fears about this trip was that I was not going to make any good friends and I would be all alone. Yet here I was, not even a quarter of the way to New Zealand, and I had already made a friend who was going through the exact same thing I was.

So here’s to you Dannie.

Afterward: Dannie and I were seated in different parts of the plane on the flight to Auckland, and we talked a little once we landed, but then were split up during customs. I doubt I will ever see her again.