The Vacation: Part Undecided

So our vacation is over and I do not know how to sum it up in an entry or two, or probably three that's why the title has the "undecided" tag line. Anyway, as I have said (or did I ever?) my mom left ahead of us because she has to attend a seminar in Manila. The day before our departure was my pupils' graduation and so are the paperworks that I have to get done. I got everything alright, but that also meant me being stressed out plus the fact that my aunt and uncle wanted me to follow up on their Shengen visa application as they will be going on a cruise this May. Yep, that's me, everybody's secretary, though I am not complaining.

So the day of our departure was full of excitement, my aunt and uncle drove all of us at the airport, paid for our tax fees and made sure we had plenty of food and chips to bring to the flight. We were good. Until there was an announcement that our flight is going to be delayed. Doomed. So my cousins and I brought out all our chips and gobbled them all up before we even boarded in the plane. A cousin of mine, not at all contented with the food, went out to eat at a nearby eatery. So what? We eat a lot! We consumed all the food that we brought (there were two duffel bags of food more but those were already in the checked in baggages) and we have nothing left to consume once we're in Manila.

So our flight was supposed to be at 1:45 but it turned out to be at 3:00, we arrived at the NAIA Terminal 3 at around 4PM met another cousin who will be coming with us but comes from a different city, and then met my mom. We are all fine and dandy until I helped my mother check in. It was kind of a shock because apparently there were some glitches in her tickets and that could not be re-booked or refunded. Another doom. After almost fighting with the airline staff about their incompetencies and absurd fare conditions, my mom said that she will back out of the trip. I, then calculated all the costs that we will be losing as against to the cost of purchasing another ticket in a skyrocketed price plus the fact that I wouldn't want to experience Singapore without her. I closed my eyes, took out my wallet and counted my money. I paid more than 12 thousand pesos for my mother's flight from Manila-Singapore but what the heck, one should never ever count money when it comes to your parents right? When I paid, I saw my mom look at me in disbelief and kept saying, "No. No. No." and "Are you sure?" I shrugged her off and told her it's just money and I am going to earn that again. However, it turned out that my mother cannot be with us in our flight because it is all fully booked so we opted for her to catch the first flight for the next day and told her to go to my brother's girlfriend to rest and prepare for her flight. We were settled.

And so there we were, lining up at the immigration in order for us to board the plane. We all had coffee, had our little chitchats, ate again, and took a quick visit at the loo. Until it was 30 minutes before our flight, my cousin realized that his passport was missing. We were all so dumbfounded. We searched for his passport, my other cousins went to the paging counter while the others went to the xray section to check if he left his passport there. All to no avail. And the plane's about to leave! We were in panic. My cousin told us to go and board the plane and his brother accompanied him in looking for the passport. While we were lining up at the boarding section, we called our aunt and she was in panic too. My cousin went to the security and requested to have a look at the CCTV camera just to check whether someone picked his passport or he left it somewhere. The airport security told them that they can show the footages only after a desired time. So my cousin, who accompanied the one whose passport is missing decided to board the plane with us instead of paying thousands of pesos more if they both miss the flight.

When we arrived at Singapore, we contacted our aunt who told us that my cousin's passport was found. Apparently, some idiot guy flying to Ho Chi Min picked up my cousin's passport by mistake at the xray section of the airport. He only noticed it when he's about to board the plane and the ground crew found out about it. We never knew the guy's name but I sure hope he'll suffer from diarrhea. He caused us stress and not to mention another plane ticket! On the brighter side though, at least my mom has someone to accompany her on her flight the next day as the two of them are on the same flight as well.

So that's how dramatic our trip was. AND WE HAVEN'T LEFT THE PHILIPPINES YET!