When you have a long trip, you want everything to go smoothly. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for my trip back to the US. I started off with a two hour flight from Davao to Manila. Tet and I arrived at the airport about an 1 ½ hours before my flight and said our goodbyes. I then went through a security screening and got my boarding pass. Next up was paying a 200 peso terminal fee. But I didn’t have that much on me. I only had about 150. So I asked if there was at ATM in the airport. Turns out that there isn’t one in the airport, but rather one right outside. So I went outside, got 500 pesos out, went back through the security screening, paid the terminal fee and went to the gate. In the meantime, I realized that I actually did have 200 pesos on me and could have saved myself the trip to the ATM.
The flight from Davao to Manila was fine except for the fact that it was delayed by 20 minutes. The airport in Manila is set up a bit strange as the domestic and international terminals aren’t connected to one another so you have to take a shuttle from one to the other. So after collecting my bags, I hopped on the shuttle and arrived in the international terminal at 5:15, seemingly plenty of time for my 7:55 flight to Honolulu. Similar to the Davao airport, you have to go through a security screening to get into the terminal. So after going through that, I want to get my boarding pass. And looked…and saw a really, long line in front of me. A very slow moving line. A line that took me a full hour to get through. (A guy in front of me told me that he flew this exact same flight 6 weeks ago and no one was in line). All the while, I’m thinking “If only my flight from Davao wasn’t delayed….”
Guess what was next? A 750 peso terminal fee. Well, if you’ve been following along, you should know that I don’t have that much with me. Fortunately, they take US dollars though I had to overpay a bit because they didn’t have proper change. Next I went through immigration, got my passport stamped, went through a second security screening and headed toward my gate. I was hungry at this point, but all I could find was a snack shop so I used the rest of my pesos to buy 2 cheese sandwiches, some muffins, a bottle of water, a can of coke and a newspaper.
So I arrive at the gate. Guess what? There’s another security screening to get to the gate! And they won’t let me take my water or my coke through. So I sit down on the ground, outside the security screening, and guzzle the coke and water. I go through the screening, sit down and eat my sandwiches. Now I need to go through the bathroom. To go to the bathroom, I have to give my boarding pass to a woman who gives me a numbered card to retreive it with, once I’m done.
So I go to the bathroom, come back out, and give the woman the numbered card and she looks at me and says “You have to go back through security.” What??? What do they think I was doing in the bathroom? How many times do they need to screen me to make sure I’m secure? So I go back through security, get my boarding pass, and sit down. There’s still time before they start boarding the flight, so I decide to read my newspaper. Except I realize that in all the confusion, I’ve misplaced it somewhere. Oh well….
The flight to Honolulu was a bit over 10 hours and went smoothly. And two good things happened on the flight. First, I had an entire row of three seats to myself. Second, I was actually able to get some sleep (I’ve never before been able to sleep on a plane before).
Once in Honolulu, I retrieve my bag, go through immigration and get my passport stamped, and check my bag back in. For those of us who have connecting flights, there’s a man right there to hand out our boarding passes. Except he doesn’t have one for me. He checks on the computer and says it’s because I don’t have a seat assignment. I tell him I don’t understand. I definitely requested a seat when I booked the flight. He tells me that requesting a seat doesn’t guarantee a seat. And that the flight is overbooked so while I’ll probably get a seat, there’s no guarantee. In the meantime, he tells me I have to go to a different building, get a boarding pass and then request a seat assignment once I get to the gate.
So I do that, and go through security. At this point, I’m thirsty and hungry but I pass by a lot of places to eat cause I want to get to the gate as soon as I can so I can hopefully get a seat assignment. It’s a really long walk to the gate and once I get there, thankfully I have no problem getting seat. I walk around a bit trying to find a place to eat but other than a snack shop or a couple of vending machines, there’s nothing around. I’m pretty sure there’s a meal service on the flight so I decide to wait. Eventually we board the airplane….a really big plane and once we’re underway, I look around and there are plenty of empty seats. So why I had to go through all the seat assignment stuff, I have no idea. And at this point, I don’t care. I’m just happy to be on the plane.
The plane ride to Portland was fine except for the fact that I was seated next to a guy who had really bad breath. Even though we didn’t talk during the flight, every once in a while I caught a whiff of it. Ugh! Anyway, I am now in Portland, staying with my friend Tonya. I’ll probably be here for a few days before heading down to visit my cousin Bobbi who lives about an hour from Portland. As to whether or not I’m staying in Portland long-term or short-term, you don’t really think I’ve made up my mind, do you? :)
(By the way, now that I’m back in the US, this is probably my last post. So I thank you all for reading along and following my adventures. I hope you’ve enjoyed them!)
