Day One:
Our trip began on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 bright and early. We had to be at the Indy airport at 930 to meet the rest of our team. There was only a little hiccup at check-in where we found out that we all didn't have seats assigned (great). Except for the mean lady telling us where to stand (like we've never done this before) - we all got checked in and went through security. Time to wait for our flight to Minneapolis.
No adventure on our way to Minneapolis - just some sleep and getting to our next gate. Time - approximately 1:30 pm. Our next flight was the doozy. Minneapolis, Minnesota to Tokyo, Japan. Oh. My. Goodness. Flight time - THIRTEEN HOURS. Yep - that's right. And it was not very comfortable. I know those in first class were pretty comfortable. Their chairs turned into beds and they were given slippers to wear. Oh well - it's more interesting this way. So we leave around 3:30 and got to Tokyo around 5ish. On Wednesday. We jumped forward 13 hours - how trippy is that?
We just had a short layover in Japan before we got back on the plane to fly to Manila, Philippines. While we were in Japan - we had a good time finding out about the bathrooms. Envision taking a urinal - and laying it flat on the ground - and expect girls to pee in it. Yeah - that's what we thought. There was no way I was going to experiment with that when there were perfectly good toilets (with Bidets btw) available for my use. But Erin Carver didn't realize that she didn't have to use that :-) So she was the first one to experience that type of toileting while we were in a foreign land. Thank you Erin for bring us that joy.
Our flight to Manila was short - only 4 hours. So once we got to the Philippines (10:10 pm on Wednesday) - we still had to go through immigration, get our bags, and then go through customs. Like we weren't drawing enough attention to ourselves - we were trying to get 23 LARGE checked bags through customs at the same time. Thankfully - the men working were tired - so they didn't even make us stop walking. nice. So we successfully got all of our meds in without any problems at all.
We step outside to be greeted by 95 degree weather with 90% humidity at 11:30 at night. awesome. Now we got nervous - it was pretty stinkin hot. But thankfully our host found us and we were able to get into our vehicles quickly. We only had to endure the Filipino style of driving for about 10 minutes and we were at Vergi's (our host) house.
Foreign country - dark alley - what's not to love?
No actually we got there perfectly safe and were able to get ready for bed - asleep in 20 minutes.
Actually that isn't true - Prof. Spring, Katie, Traci, and I did not think clearly enough to put together that if we tried to fall asleep in the room that had no air conditioning - we would not sleep. Sitting awake at 4 in the morning - talking to each other while sitting on the floor - that was not restful at all. We would not spend another night in that room. Make room for the rest of us in that other room ladies! The more the merrier I say.
Day One - Complete
No comments:
Post a Comment