Kelsey has landed!

Just wanted to let you all know that I made it safely to the States. It was a little crazy this trip so I am thankful for all of your prayers! More to come...

Here's the more (a couple of hours later now...)

Let me tell you this trip here to the States sure was interesting! It started off with my reserving a seat in the overnight bus from Marghita to Budapest, Hungary (where we have to fly from.) Instead of the nice kind of bus/van deal showing up this very old 15 passenger van pulls up. The driver started yelling at me out the window telling me to "get over here to the other side of the road" so I could get in. I couldn't even tell if it was a legitimate company or not. The van was so dirty inside and smelled awful. I was not a happy camper. Then a lady yells at me because I was in her seat. (When I got on she got off to run to the store to buy something to eat.) I looked at her and said "Ma'am, we are all paying the same so does it matter?" She, in not so many choice words, told me that it did matter because she had set her water near that seat. My patience ran out and I said pretty sarcastically as I moved "Are all of the seats reserved or is there one I can actually sit in?" I know, I should have been more kind. Late at night, awful van and really hot outside all helped to add to the sarcasm. Then we drove around to tiny villages EVERYWHERE picking up gypsies. Now, it's not that I'm against gypsies. It's just that they all had been drinking and they usually don't bathe so so often. So the smell of the van was really bad with the combination of body odor and alcohol. And, I knew then that I couldn't let myself go to sleep because in my purse was the money I needed to get new glasses. Which, to a gypsy, is a lot of money. (A lot of money to me too!) So being squashed in with all of those people I knew I needed to keep eyes open. The driver then set up folding chairs in the back of the van that he stuck into holes on the floor. Four of the people in the van sat in these chairs the entire way holding onto the back seat to not fall. The driver took us to a border very far away because, after I questioned his decision, as he told me "I know the border guards here and they let me get away with the chairs in the back seat etc..." Which means, he bribes them. Because we had to go to so many small villages and to the border far away, the ride took SEVEN HOURS.
It was not worth the $27.62 (70 Romanian Lei).
Got to the airport at 3am Hungarian time and I knew check in would start around 5amish for my flight. I get in line and begin the check-in process when the lady tells me that my FLIGHT IS BOOKED FOR THE NEXT DAY.
What?
Yup, there on the e-ticket it said for Tuesday, September 9th.
No. Impossible.
See Alitalia had really messed up my ticket from the beginning.
1. They didn't let me purchase the ticket at the price that was listed on their website.
2. They refused to let it originally be a an e-ticket so made it a paper ticket.
3. The paper ticket, after 2months, never arrived. "We're waiting on the New York offices to issue it, Ma'am."
4. My little sister did some work with their customer service and 1 1/2 weeks before I arrived they finally agreed to switch it to an e-ticket.
5. The e-ticket they issued was for the wrong date.
6. "Smart" Kelsey didn't realize this until she was standing at the counter checking in.

Here's where GOD'S GOODNESS kicks in. The flight I needed to Rome left at 7am. It was 5:20am when I realized the date was wrong. The Alitalia office opened at 5:30am but the lady was there at 5:22am. She immediately took care of the problem and only charged me $135 to switch all of my flights to Monday. If I can prove that Alitalia messed up I'll get a refund of that.
And, the cool thing is this, I handed her my debit card to pay for it and she said she was really sorry but the system wouldn't let her use Mastercard - the system was too old. I got some one-time cash gifts in June that I had just left in my wallet so that when I came to the States for this trip I could use it for needs now. It was awesome, she said I could use American Dollars to pay for the charge - even though we were in Hungary. Thanks to God's provision with those one time cash gifts I was able to pay for the ticket change.
I made it on time for the flight. And, another blessing, the 9 1/2 hour flight from Rome to New Jersey, I had 2 seats all to myself. The flight was only about 1/2 full. It was great!

It was fun to see NYC out of the plane window on the landing...and to see the Statue of Liberty. All of the Italian on the plane were so excited - it was fun to watch them. It's been a really long time since I have been to NYC. I know that I wasn't going there but still neat to see it!

The Newark airport staff wasn't exactly so friendly in explaining to me where I could catch the shuttle train to the NJ Transit station (where I was catching a train to meet up with my friends picking me up.) Because of this I missed my train by TWO MINUTES. I know. Lame. I had to wait an hour for the next one.
It was cool though because I got to talk to so many people about Romania while waiting there! At the same time though my brain was going "48 hours since you went to bed, 48 hours since you went to bed..."
I got on the train and met a really nice guy who helped me figure out the whole how to get off the train deal. Let me tell you - it's not what you think it should be like. Basically they announce just before your stop which train doors they'll open to let you out. So you have to run through the cars trying to find those doors and get out before the train goes on. I was really thankful for his help, and I successfully got off!

Seeing my friends, pretty much family actually, thankfulness overwhelmed me.
There are few people who have known me since I was younger through now.
This family has known me since middle school and they were our closest friends when my family lived here. Their kids and us Winters' hung out a lot. The Mom was such a good friend to me and my Bible Study leader back then.
Seeing them just made me want to cry. I was telling the Lord this morning "I'm just so happy!" I really couldn't think of any other words...

Well tonight I head to the church that my Dad pastored when we lived here. I'm so excited to see what God will do through this time! Just need to find an acoustic guitar...I forgot to ask for one awhile back...I will teach them one of the Casa Alba songs so Lord, could you please get me a guitar for tonight? : )