HADIYAH QURESHI


GRACE HOPPER CELEBRATION, FLORIDA



06/10/2019



I was lucky enough to be one of the #FabFive2019 going to Orlando, Florida with the Stemettes! I was chosen based on my engagement with the Student to Stemette program, click below to read more about that! I write about the journey there, going to Walmart, going to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the Grace Hopper Celebration and Disney's Animal Kingdom!


Read more about the Student to Stemette program here

MONDAY: JETTING OFF ✈️



GETTING TO THE AIRPORT...



I could barely sleep the night before the flight because I was so excited! I left at 07:00AM and my dad dropped me off at London Bridge station. He left me at the ticket barriers and I went up to the platform – and to my horror, all of the trains to Gatwick were cancelled! A tree had fallen on the track! Some trains were delayed by over 20 minutes. I was getting increasingly worried, when I heard a station announcement to change at East Croydon. I got on the train and I passed the tree before I reached East Croydon! From then on, it was a smooth ride. I met up with Yasmin, Lucy and Charlotte at Gatwick airport – and I was on time!



THE FLIGHT!



We then had a lovely Wetherspoons breakfast, we had some time to look through duty free, then we boarded the plane. We met Holly at the gate. I usually can’t sleep on planes so I watched a few movies, my favourite movie that I watched was definitely The Intern and I definitely enjoyed the wonderful service from the Virgin Atlantic crew. For our lunch, I had macaroni cheese, a salad, cheese and crackers, and a lovely Gü cheesecake. I felt so pampered! We had a bit of turbulence and we had to put our seatbelts on a few times, but all in all, I enjoyed the flight.



LANDING AND CHECK-IN...



We then landed in sunny Florida! By this time, it was around midnight in the UK but in Florida it was just 7:00PM. We had to wait a little while to go through security and get our luggage. We got to go on a lovely cable car ride from the terminal to the airport. Then, we got in a taxi to our hotel. The whole ride, I felt like I was watching a Barbie movie. The houses and hotels were all so pretty – just look in the background of the photo! When we got to the hotel, it started to chuck it down with rain. It felt like we brought the English weather with us! Since the hotel site was so huge, the staff used buggies to get around. When we checked in, and the rain calmed down, we got to have our own ride in the buggy!



WALMART!



Then we got to go to Walmart! I was so shocked about how huge it was, but everything in America is so huge! We did a supermarket sweep and we tried to hit everything in our shopping list before the other group did! It was so crazy how much stuff there was in Walmart. You could buy literally anything you would ever need there. We got food for our lunch and snacks for the week and what I was most shocked about was the sales tax! Instead of putting the prices after tax on the shelf, they put prices before tax on the shelf so I was a little shocked when we got to the till! Since we were so exhausted by our long day, we ate in the McDonalds that was in Walmart. It tasted very weird compared to English McDonalds! Then we got back to the hotel, we put our groceries away and I slept like a baby for the whole night.



TUESDAY: NASA 🚀



ARRIVING AT NASA



We had a little bit of a sleep in and I put my hair in space buns for NASA! I was really excited to go to the Kennedy Space Center! As you can see, the weather was amazing. The drive there was longer than I thought, but I remembered that America is huge!!! We went over a lovely body of water, and when we got close, we could see the rockets! When we arrived, we snapped lots of photos, and we had a quick look around the gift shop before we went in. I learnt that the Kennedy Space Center is funded entirely on visitors, which is crazy considering how amazing it is!



SEEING THE EXHIBITS AND REAL ROCKETS



I was so excited to go to the space center and I was not disappointed. Seeing all of the exhibits showed me how far we have come in space travel! It's crazy that it's even possible right now! In the picture on the right, I'm standing under the real Saturn V rocket, the type that sent humans to the moon! Alongside the rocket, the exhibit highlights its assembly and that over 400,000 people helped build this rocket! I looked like a little ant underneath the rocket.



GETTING TO THE MOON



We got to experience the countdown for Apollo 8, the first crewed NASA mission to orbit the Moon in 1968, in front of the actual consoles used during the Apollo launches! The consoles lit up, one by one, and as the countdown reached zero it felt as if the rocket was actually taking off!



MEETING WINSTON SCOTT



We got to meet a real astronaut and he signed some NASA merch for us! We met Winston Scott, He served as a mission specialist on STS-72 in 1996 and STS-87 in 1997 logged a total of 24 days, 14 hours and 34 minutes in space, including three spacewalks totaling 19 hours and 26 minutes.



WEDNESDAY: GRACE HOPPER CELEBRATION DAY 1



GETTING OUR TICKETS



We were planning on collecting our tickets the day before, but Grace Hopper was having some technical issues! We got up early - I would say bright and early but it was still dark out! We wanted to beat the queues and we did! We took some lovely photos on the stairs and then we went back to the hotel to get that extra hour of sleep!



INSPIRATION GALORE



I went to a lot of talks on the first day, but my favourite by far was from the CEO of Girl Scouts, Sylvia Acevedo. She spoke about her journey from being a girl scout herself, to a rocket scientist and then to CEO. She was so inspirational She spoke about how, when she was 7 years old, her troop leader noticed her looking up at the stars one night and encouraged her to try for a science badge. She got a hobby rocket kit that, after a few tries, took off! She said that the trop leader made her realise that she could set her own goals for herself. She then went on to become an engineer and she worked for NASA in its jet propulsion lab. now, she's advocating for STEM education, especially for girls in minority communities, since more than half of the women in Congress were once Girl Scouts!



GOLDEN TICKETS



We went to the Career Fair and had quite a surprise from Bank of America! They rented out Disney's Animal Kingdom for Thursday evening and we were invited to join them! All of us were so excited - and Becky even started to cry when we told her we were doing to Disney!



THURSDAY: GRACE HOPPER CELEBRATION DAY 2 + DISNEY'S ANIMAL KINGDOM!



IMPOSTER SYNDROME



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GETTING TO THE MOON



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FRIDAY: GRACE HOPPER CELEBRATION DAY 3



MEETING WINSTON SCOTT



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GETTING TO THE MOON



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