The Saga Begins & An Ode

It appears that most of my jetlag fogginess has subsided enough for me to start to relay the adventures and stories of our 2 week whirlwind trip to the Philippines to visit God’s Town. I have so much to talk about but I guess it’s best to just start at the beginning.

We said farewell to our men folk we were leaving behind to fend for themselves, who god bless their hearts got up early to see us off at the Harrisburg PA airport on Saturday, March 27^th. ( see photo)

That was pretty much uneventful and I must say the airport was nice and pretty quiet at that day and time. Our massive amount of baggage was checked and we were told it would go all the way to Manila even though we would be getting on at least 2 different airlines and flights later. We left Harrisburg for Newark which is where we would leave for the major leg of our journey. This is where the 16 hour long flight would begin…but not without our first “hiccup”.

And now, the following is my ode to Mr. Snippy. We boarded Continental flight 99, in Newark bound for Hong Kong which, by the sea of humanity appeared to be fully booked. Becky and I had trouble finding a place for our carry-on luggage. When we questioned a flight attended he immediately said I can take care of it and whisked away our bags. Now our assumption was he was going to simply find a little, hidden unknown spot for them. Perhaps an overhead compartment we hadn’t looked in. But no, he returned to us, smiling saintly and announced “your bags have been checked to Hong Kong”! And while yes we were going to land in Hong Kong it was not our final destination and we had no reason to claim any bags in Hong Kong before our next connection because, as I mentioned before, we were told in Harrisburg all our checked luggage was going straight thru to Manila. So we calmly told him “Hong Kong is not our final destination, why are they going there, we’re going to Manila?” To which the flight attendant made a resounding comeback from across at least one aisle “how was I supposed to know, did you tell me you were going to Manila?” To which we replied, “you didn’t ask us.” This exchanged was a bit heated and other passengers even looked at us with sympathetic eyes and offered us some comfort and suggestions.

Our fear was it could take too much time to claim our now checked bags in Hong Kong causing us to miss our connection to Manila. We asked to talk to other flight staff to see if they could make arrangements while we were en route before landing to expedite our first hiccup. It appears word got back to the original hiccup producer because the flight attendant showed up at our seats, leaning so far over Becky on the aisle to actually touch my arm, while seated in the middle seat to say “I wasn’t being ‘snippy’ with you but you didn’t tell me you were going to Manila”. I interjected that I had never flown out of the country before like this and had no idea I had to tell him this detail. We didn’t know what he was doing with the bags and he never asked. It was his attempt at apologizing but didn’t cut much ice with any of us. His comment of I wasn’t being “snippy with you” from then on officially named him Sir Snippy in our books. We also at times referred to him as The Snipster or other similarly affectionate pet names. He later tried to make additional amends, after learning we were going to an orphanage, by giving us a whole tray of those little cloths they heat up and give you for your traveling pleasure!! Those cloths actually did come in handy at God’s Town but the ‘hiccup’ stayed etched in our collective memories.

Please check back later for more trip blog posts with titles such as:

• Are You Looking at My Ax?
• I Slept with Lizards.

and my personal favorite

• Attack of the Toilet Bowl Gaga'mba!

Not to mention lots of heart-warming stories about the incredible kids and staff at God's Town.