The 37 Hour Day

July 27

My day started early this morning. I woke up at 5:45 and took a nice lukewarm shower in the hostel bathroom. After that, I did my best not to wake up the others in my room as I took my two suitcases and backpack to checkout. Shortly thereafter, I arrived at the bus station and purchased my ticket with no problems. The first hiccup came when the guy taking tickets asked which terminal I needed to go to. My itinerary that I had printed out did not have that information on it. He asked, “mea guo (United States)?” and I responded, “dui (correct).” He then told me to go to the second terminal.

However, on the ride over I was second guessing that because I knew that the second terminal was for international departures, but the first terminal covered many Asian flights. Since my first connecting flight was in Tokyo, I thought that I might be taking off from the first terminal. Luckily, I stuck with the second terminal, which turned out to be the correct choice.

In the airport, I saw a few other Americans. After listening to a group of them talking for awhile, I decided to go over and join them. I found out that one of the guys I was sitting with took 4th place in the power-lifting competition at the World Games. It explained the massive upper-body that the guy had. One of the other guys worked on the medical staff at the events. I am really mad that I never got a picture with them. They were nice guys.

On the plane, I talked to a business man who travels to Taiwan on a regular basis. One of the things that I brought up was that I had a little visit in the Philippines. His eyes started to light up and he asked, “How did you like it?” When I replied that I hated it, he asked where I had stayed. When I replied that I stayed in Manila he understood why my experience was so bad. He told me that he had done quite a bit of traveling, and Manila was without a doubt the worst city that he'd ever stayed in. However, some of the other areas in the country were some of the most beautiful that he'd ever seen. It confirmed what I already believed: to fully experience the Philippines I need to explore other areas before I can judge the place.

On the flight from Tokyo to Seattle, I sat next to a mother who visited one of her children in Japan. She was nice, but kind of weird. I was kind of happy once the movies started so I could watch those instead of talking to her. Still, there are much worse passengers to sit by on an 8+ hour flight.

Upon arrival in Seattle, I discovered that my flight to Chicago had been delayed. There was a mechanical problem on the flight before mine, and the plane hadn't even arrived yet. It made me very antsy because my connection in Chicago was only 40 minutes to begin with. By the time we departed, it was at least 40 minutes past schedule.

When we landed, I borrowed the phone of the woman sitting next to me to make a call to Emilie. I told her that I was likely going to miss the flight, as the departure time was about 5 minutes away when I called. She gave me a glimmer of hope when she told me that the flight to Kansas City had been delayed an hour. However, after running to the gate, I discovered that the plane had already left. I would have to wait an additional 3 hours to get home.

It was at this point that I had one of my “Welcome to America” moments. I needed to call home to inform everyone of the flight change. Since Emilie and I traded phones for the summer, mine was only good in Taiwan. I walked up to the last group of people waiting in line at the customer service desk and asked if I could borrow one of their phones. One of the men reluctantly agreed. After a quick call I gave back the phone and thanked him. His response was like I had burdened him a great deal by using his phone. I thought about the woman the previous day that helped me find the hostel and realized that I was now back into a different environment.

Once I finally boarded the last plane, I took my seat next to two girls about the same age. I found out that they were arriving home after a couple of months in Ukraine. They described the process of constantly being interrogated there because there is little reason for Americans to ever want to travel to Ukraine. They said that they could tell they were back in the United States because the people here were so much nicer then in Ukraine. I laughed and explained that I knew I was back in the US because people here were so much meaner to me. They gave me one more reason to not want to travel to Ukraine.

After all of the adventures, about 28 hours later, I finally made it...home.