I am a board member of UMANS (University of Maryland Association of Nursing Students) and am excited to be representing our class this week at the National Student Nursing Association’s Annual Convention in Nashville. (Yeehaw!) I started out thinking I would report on some of the highlights of convention, but it has now turned into a “It’s not the destination, but the journey” kind of blog.

Emile El Ghandour (3rd semester), Alex Shepherd (2nd semester) and I flew out of Baltimore for our 2-hour flight to Music City. Little did we know that we would make fast friends with our plane mates. We flew through a ridiculous thunder storm so the crew couldn’t do their usual beverage service. We were sitting in the way back (yes, by the bathrooms) just chatting away and I here “Hey…” I turn around and Sean, the Southwest flight attendant, who is safely sitting in his jump seat, says “We can’t get out of our seats because of the weather, but I’ll get you guys some drinks if you like. But don’t tell…”After that, I guess Emile, Alex, Ilena (another Southwest employee flying home for the night), were making quite the ruckus with our conversation and other passengers in the row in front of us thought we must be going to Nashville for a bachelorette party. Too fun. Ok, now back to the weather…

Flying through a thunderstorm is no joke. To take my mind off things, I asked an off-duty Delta pilot, who was also flying home to Nashville, his recommendations for good places to eat in Nashville. He gave me a long list, describing the ambiance, food choices and whether they had live music. Well, the turbulence got pretty bad and apparently, Ilena and the pilot were plotting the whole time that if we got diverted to Louisville, Kentucky, they would rent a big van and we would all drive to Nashville together. One big happy family!

We, we made it safely to Nashville and our new friends even offered to drive us to our hotel. Problem was, they only had a Ford Focus and needless to say, we are not light packers, so we took an Uber instead and met our driver Hector, who pointed out the Nashville landmarks as he drove us to our hotel. He had been driving nurses to the convention all day and said we were the most fun. Did he say that to all the gals? Who cares!

I told you we were all the way in the back of the plane…

So, we have only had one day at the convention and since arriving, we have met dozens of kind, fun nursing students, instructors and hotel employees. Yes, we’ve paid $4 for a bottle of water and $5 for a cup of coffee, but guess that’s how they roll at a big conference hotel. All I know is that if the beginning of our trip is any indication of how the next four days will go, we will probably meet 100’s more people who may even ask us to be in their wedding, come on vacations with them, or be the godparents to their children.

So be sure to check out your school’s student association and see if there is an opportunity to attend a conference. I highly recommend! And maybe I’ll blog about the actual convention next time…