Finally the day!!!

The day has finally arrived!! As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in the Amsterdam airport. This day has surely been a journey, but nothing I couldn't handle! Made it to Madison without a problem, even got there 2 hours early! Thankfully I had enough time to download a travel book on Scotland so that I could read it on the flights over. As I was getting onto the plane from Madison to Detroit, I realized I wasn't able to gate check my bag like some people said (ahem DAD). I took my bag on and noticed it was just the tiniest bit too big. Thanks to a very helpful flight attendant and cooperative passengers, I was able to find a space for my bag to fit. Once I got to Detroit, I found my next gate and boarded my plane with no problems. Or so I thought. After our plane was on the runway, there was an announcement that there was a computer that needed to be replaced. After returning to the gate, they made yet another announcement that there were a few "discrepancies" between the pilot and flight control. After sitting there for an hour and a half, they told us that we would be able to get off the plane as long as we could be back in 45 minutes. We were issued meal tickets for $12, which isn't actually all that much considering McDonald's french fries were $4 for a small. I sat and waited for what seemed like forever, waiting for another announcement of what was going on. After sitting and waiting for 5 hours, they finally made the final announcement. The mechanics had given us an extra 2 hours to wait. They were still working on our plane, but were going to help us get new connections. At this time, our plane was supposed to leave at 4PM and it was 9PM. I waited in line and tried to figure out what to do next. Then we realized that there was a plane at the gate next to us that was leaving for Amsterdam at 9:45. I ran as fast as I could to the gate and made it on the flight at 9:36!! I even managed to get an economy comfort seat, with more legroom and it leans back farther. Everything happens for a reason! A cool thing about this flight was that everyone had their own personal TVs, and you could chose from a very wide selection of movies and TV shows. It was really amusing to watch every single person struggle to use them, until they realized that they weren't touchscreens. Other than that, the flight itself wasn't very entertaining. I wasn't able to sleep much for some unknown reason, and I started feeling it as soon as I got off the flight. While the plane was unloading, the people around me started talking about how they were in a rush because they had a connection in 20 minutes. As I was listening I realized that the person I was sitting next to for the entire flight was in the Wisconsin in Scotland program! The whole flight without talking when we could have been gushing about Scotland. Because we had landed while our flight to Edinburgh was taking off, we had to figure out a way to get there. Thankfully, now I not only had Nikki but our new friend Luke! We stuck together and managed to get everything figured out and made it on a new flight that left at 3:30PM, and got to Edinburgh at 4:00PM. Originally we were supposed to be in Edinburgh by 8:35AM. Because we had a few hours in between our flights, the three of us decided to walk around the Amsterdam airport. We then realized that...we were of drinking age. My first of age drink!! We all got a kick out of the fact that we were able to buy alcohol without the bartenders even batting an eye. We're off to Edinburgh now, more updates later!