Amanda Kautza-Farley
We began our journey to Cuba today with a flight to our overnight stay in Miami. We all met at the airport at 9:30 am. Our flight was not scheduled to depart until 12:50 pm, but we arrived extra early due to the many rumors of long lines at security with the government shut down. Luckily this did not seem to be an issue. We were all through security with plenty of time to spare. A few of us even saw one of the TSA dogs in the security area.
Once we finally did board our flight, we realized that we were not all seated together but were spread out over about 10 different rows on the plane. Some of us were seated next to each other, but others were not. One of us was even lucky enough to enjoy an entire row to himself. This was not the norm though. It seemed like the plane was mostly full otherwise.
During the flight, a number of us worked on our topic readings. We are each assigned to learn about a different aspect of Cuba. Some of the topics are Castro and politics, the economy, history, human rights, race, the arts, the US and Cuba, and women. Later when we are in Cuba, we will each present on our assigned topic to the rest of the group. Once we landed we only had to wait a short time for our bags; then we were off to the hotel. We had a long walk through the airport from the baggage claim area to where we were able to catch the shuttle to the hotel. Tonight we are staying at the Sheraton in Miami. We do not actually arrive in Cuba until tomorrow.
During different points in our trip through the two airports, different individuals stepped up at varying times to take the lead. Certain individuals were able to provide insight at different times when others were not. However, through all of the chaos and confusion, we did all actually manage to make it here together as a group.