Yowza! Remind me not to post when I’m tired and have just wandered around looking for a coffee shop that, apparently, has just changed its name.
The preceding post sounded a lot harsher than it was intended.
Let me go back in time with you fine folks and tell you the story from the beginning.
It all started on Monday January 12, 2009 in Portland, Oregon’s international aiport.
We ended up having so much stuff that we needed Nicole’s parents to bring two cars just to fit our stuff in.
We had, in total, five duffel bags and four carry on bags.
Knowing that we had excess baggage Nicole had called both our domestic airline and our international airline.
They indicated that the excess baggage fee from Portland all the way to our final destination would only be $68. We were astounded at how cheap it was and didn’t hesitate to bring one excess checked bag.
Being the packing guru that I am our bags were all underweight or on weight. The heaviest bag was a whopping 50.2 pounds. Score.
We proceeded down the empty United Airlines line to check in for our flight to LAX. We paid our $68 excess baggage charge and received a receipt that we were to give to our connecting flight folks to prove that we paid the charge for the entire trip.
We were assured that the fact that our receipt only said Portland to “first destination in new country” wouldn’t be a problem because our bags were tagged from Portland to “second destination in new country”.
We were assured.
So we left the United counter and sat with Nicole’s family a bit before hading through the empty security screening line.
The Portland airport was deserted.
Deserted.
Nicole got her last American coffee just on the other side of security and we headed toward our gate. It turned out that our first flight would be a connector flight.
Small.
The kind you have to go outside to get on.
No big deal.
An uneventful 2 hours later we were in LA and we had a good 2.5 hours to catch our connecting flight.
And this is where it all fell apart.
At LAX they have a stupid bus system that takes you from terminal to terminal.
We had to catch Bus A.
We walked and walked and walked to get to the bus stop.
We waited and waited and waited for Bus A.
We saw Bus B.
We saw Bus C.
Then we saw Bus B again.
Then we saw Bus c again.
After a good long while Bus A finally showed up.
A good long while.
By that time a whole herd of people were waiting to board Bus A.
We all got on.
And we were off.
We eventually ended up at our Terminal and quickly found “Regional Airline from our new country” to check in for our next two flights.
What a line.
It was one of those lines that was so long they had to have a staff member at mid line to direct people to keep the aisle open.
A long line.
But!
BUT!
We had no bags to check in having checked them all the way to our final destination while in Portland.
We got to use the Transferring-passengers-with-no-bags-to check-in-much-shorter-line line.
And we stood in that line.
And we stood.
And we stood.
And the other line moved.
And we stood.
And the other line moved.
And we realized we were hungry.
And we saw all the restaurants upstairs and we dreamed of food.
And we stood.
And the other line finished.
And still we stood.
With our fellow line-mates getting angry we stood.
And we checked in.
And we were asked again if our resort had contacted us.
You see our new country is in a state of emergency. Flooding has killed at least 11 with dozens still missing.
Millions of dollars of damage to homes, shops, and infrastructure.
Worst. Flooding. Ever.
But we were assured the day prior that the airports were open and that the flooding was worse on the side of the country opposite to our final destination.
And we were checked in and it was late.
And it was so late and the security line was so long that we decided we might as well forgo the wonderful, beautiful restaurants and go through security.
And we did.
And I had two full Nalgene bottles of water that I filled up in Portland and didn’t get to.
And I was happy that they let me dump them out rather than throw them out.
I was sorry to whoever had to change that garbage though.
And we were also sorry that the sign at the start of security said: “Limited concessions at gates”.
But it was late.
And we had a plane to catch.
So we went through security and arrived in limited concessions land.
And it was terrible.
Too many people.
Not enough seats.
Limited concessions.
But Lil’ Nicles bought us some waters and crackers and pretzels and it was something.
As soon as she was done buying our things it was time to board our bus.
We had to take a bus from our gate to our plane.
There were so many people and so many buses.
So much for an empty 11 hour flight.
But we got to our seats.
And we were in the middle section.
And there were four seats.
And no one was sitting next to us.
And no one else seemed to be getting on the plane.
And we ended up having four seats for the two of us.
We took off.
We ate our snacks.
We watched a movie.
We ate the sandwich given to us.
Sandwich!?
And then we slept.
I leaned my chair back (no one behind me) and Nicole laid out across her three seats.
And we slept.
And slept.
When we woke up it was time for breakfast (yuck).
And then a short time later we landed.
The fastest 11 hour flight ever.
Because we slept.
And slept.
We arrived in our connecting city only to learn that we had to collect our luggage, go through customs and then drop our bags off when we checked in for the THIRD TIME.
And then we’d have to go through security.
For the third time.
So we collected our bags and waited for another cart to become available, as I’m unable to carry five duffel bags.
But we got our bags walked a fairly long way from the international terminal to the domestic departures terminal.
And we walked up to the gate to check in for our 7:00 am flight and it was already 6:30 am and we were told that they would open the check in in fifteen minutes.
And we waited for fifteen minutes and they didn’t open check in. And we waited some more and then they finally checked us in and charged us more money for excess baggage because our receipt was only from Portland to first city in new country and not second city in new country. And we asked how much.
And we were told: “?”
And we were told: “The credit card machines are down, we don’t know the exchange rate for the US and we can’t give you a receipt because the person that does it isn’t here.”
And we felt like we were getting ripped off.
But we paid.
And it was 7.
And we didn’t know what gate to go to.
And it was 7:15 and we waited.
And it was 7:30 and we waited.
And it was 7:45 and we waited.
And it was 7:50 and we heard the first announcement we’d heard all day.
Our flight would be delayed until 8:00 am.
And we were an hour late.
And our taxi driver that was hired to pick us up wasn’t impressed.
Although he was gracious.
And he told us not to go out at night.
He ended up taking us to our new work.
And they ended up taking us to our new, temporary house.
But we couldn’t get in because someone changed the gate lock.
So we went back to work and we waited.
And waited.
And then went to the grocery store and restaurant and bought a few things and were finally taken to our home.
Where we ate some ok food.
And napped some ok nap.
And then we watched our one tv channel.
Well we have three tv channels. Two of which are identical. One of which is blurry TBN.
But we were surprised that there was a DVD player.
And we were even more surprised that it played our DVDs. Because we’re not in the North American region.
As we explored the three bedroom, 1.5 bathroom house we noticed that there was mold everywhere.
On the walls.
In the cupboards.
On the carpet.
Everywhere.
And it smells of mold and mothballs.
And there is no air conditioning.
And it was raining buckets.
And it didn’t stop for two days.
The next morning we awoke and went to work and did nothing. And stared at the walls. And the internet didn’t work so we couldn’t tell anyone anything.
But Nicole was eventually able to update her Facebook status.
But after sitting and staring for awhile we went home.
And we napped.
And then we waited for a break in the rain.
And we went to the store.
And we came back.
And I realized that I lost the keys.
And we had to call someone.
And I felt stupid.
Because I am stupid.
We woke on Friday to a sunny day!
And we went to work and had meetings and learned what our role would be.
We also learned that they are on a hiring spree and we would be joined by a lot more people over the year. We also learned that we would have to see patients when the students are learning how to see patients. Its ok. Although not ideal. They decided that it wasn’t fair to the community to have the clinic open only when students were training as it makes the community feel like guinea pigs and also causes the clinic to be open for only a short time.
And after our meetings we took a taxi downtown and saw that even downtown was a developing country’s downtown.
Dirty, rundown, buildings looking a little shoddy. Much like the hospital we had toured earlier.
The hospital looks just like a hospital you would see in a movie based in Africa. Old. Dirty. Run down. Things crammed everywhere. Makeshift offices. But the eye surgery suite is really nice… despite the three dead roaches.
And today is Saturday and Nicole is sick. And we still don’t have internet at home and our FREE laptops have been confiscated at the airport so we won’t get them for awhile so we can’t keep in touch with people and that kind of sucks but we’ll get our computers and internet eventually.
Next week we look for a new house and continue to settle in.
And that’s our story.
Posts
