Day 1

I left for the Philippines from Reagan National on June 10. My mom clearly was an emotional/nervous wreck as she tried her best to prolong my leaving her. Dunkin Donuts coffee before going to the airport? Why of course I couldn't say no. Waiting in an endless security line as my mom paced back and forth watching me inch my way to the angry TSA lady was also not helpful. She managed to go the nearby store to buy me gum, another effort that gave her a reason to not leave me for a month quite yet. Making it to the airport and getting on my flight in time, needless to say was a success in itself. But what can I say, my mom is without a doubt the greatest person in my life so even her little nuances are appreciated. Anyway enough with the sappy stuff, I was headed to the Philippines!

My first flight was quick and easy to Houston. There I met up with my classmate from medical school Daniella as we boarded our next 8 hour flight to Hawaii. It was pretty packed so she sat in the row in front of me. I managed to get in an hour of studying, trying to remember everything I had already forgotten after completing my first year of medical school before my eyes and brain gave out. I was refreshing my knowledge of tuberculosis and various microbiology that I may be seeing on the trip to the Philippines. After that I went in and out of sleeping, played the Sudoku in the airline magazine twice. Go figure that it would take me over an hour to do the stupid puzzle.I awaited to get food on the flight but it never came.

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When we got to Hawaii it was a complete tease. I expected to be greeted with pineapples by hula girls and get laid but that didn’t happen. And laid with flowers audience, let’s not be gross. But the view from the airport was amazing with green mountains painted across a perfectly blue sky with turquoise beaches. I nervously stepped outside the airport doors to take a picture, afraid I would be thrown out of the airport and forced to go through security. All went well. Daniella and I were starving….ok well I was starving so we stopped to ponder our choices of fine Hawaiian cuisine; Quiznos or Pizza Hut. We went with Quiznos. All of our layovers were an hour or so, so there wasn’t that much time in between for any fun and games. I was a creep and tried to hunt down the other 4 Tulane medical students that would be on our flight, but failed every time I approached a nerdy looking medical-student like young man. The next flight was another 8 hour one to Guam and Daniella and I were once again split up. I was seated in the middle row of the large 767 plane, on the aisle with 4 seats in between me and an older gentleman from Guam. I put my feet up once the flight started on the chair next to me and he caught on to the idea. It wasn’t until I went to the bathroom and came back where the Guam gentleman was sprawled across all the seats only sparing mine. I made it work when I wanted to put my feet up, and in the end we became close friends…..no words spoken between us but I knew we were tight. I watched Safehaven on this flight, and it sucked. All the movie choices sucked on all the flights. Damn you United. I devoured my delicious Quiznos sandwich as soon as I got on the plane, only to find out that I would be getting fed every hour on this flight. Apparently I need to leave the US and they finally feed me. And even when I wasn’t hungry and passed out sleeping I always seemed to wake up for the food; like the ice cream sandwich snack, the only thing worth eating. From Guam we hopped on another flight that was only 3 hours to Manila. I sat next to a Filipino man who was going back to his country to see his 15 year old daughter who was in critical condition from Dengue. He talked about her aspirations to go to Stanford and also maybe pursue a medical career. I knew before I was even in the Philippines that the people there would be wonderful. They have such an appreciation for life, and are such accepting and caring people. He was so concerned for my well being even after only meeting me in a few minutes. And so my journey began.

When Daniella and I got to Manila we had to get our Visa’s because we would be staying in the country for more then 21 days. The security man saw me coming….what a dumb blonde, let’s play this one. He told us we could get our Visa’s when we left the country and pay then. Saying it was much easier and that we should do it later, then stamping our passports. Little did we know, it is twice as much in price to get the Visa when you leave the country. Well played sir, well played. We waited for an hour and a half in the airport for Dr. Schuster and his wife to arrive in Manila. His daughter would be arriving an hour after them. Still no sight of the Tulane students, and more failed attempts. I was the only blonde girl in the entire airport, which was fun to experience. We learned that the Tulane students had an issue with the airline and ended up not making their connection and were stuck in Hawaii….poor them I know. So we met up with Brant, another Tulane student that decided to fly standby and made it to the Sofitel Hotel in Manila where we would be staying the night. The hotel was beautiful, and we met up with a few more of the medical students there; 3 first years, and 1 fourth year from Tulane. We decided to keep our connection to Legaspi in the morning, which meant we would get two hours of sleep before having to wake up again. Our hellos and greetings were very short, and the next morning was brutal.