We Set Off On Our Adventures
When I was searching for airfare to Fiji, it became obvious that flying out of a large international airport was going to be significantly cheaper. There are no international airports anywhere near where I live in southwestern Virginia.
I finally settled on flying out of Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C.
With all our gear and a combination of excitement and dread over the long flight, we headed to D.C. My dear friend, Carolyn Nau, put us up for the night. Then she took us to the airport the next day.
Five hours from D.C. to L.A. The on board movie was the new Karate Kid movie. It was awsome. I've always loved the Karate Kid movies and interestingly enough Jess and I had watched the first two movies only a week before. I just love it when I am "inspired" to do things and they line up beautifully with what the Universe knows we have in store.
The adventure was now fully underway.
When we got to L.A. we were told at Air Pacific that we could not board the flight on one way tickets to Fiji. We had to have return tickets or a flight to somewhere else or they would not even let us on the plane. Nice!
I already had a letter from Brian, the captain of the vessel we would be boarding, but apparently what we were supposed to have was prior permission from immigration with an official letter from them.
The airline tried to contact Fiji immigration to no avail. Finally they got through and were told that I had to purchase a second ticket. So I had to come up with money for a flight from Fiji to Sydney Australia.
Well, it was becoming interesting so far.
The plane boarded around 11 p.m. Pacific time. Thankfully they were letting us take the flight. We were still on East Coast time, so it felt like 2:30 a.m. already.
We were totally exhausted.
Already having flown for hours, then dealing with the immigration problem and the potential of not even being able to make the flight, my joyful nature was beginning to wear thin.
Once on board the huge airplane, we tried to sleep. They gave us pillows and blankets. I had eye shades and ear plugs for both of us. Regardless of all the proper stuff, neither of us slept at all during the 10 hour flight from L.A. to Fiji.
One of the many on-board movie choices was a movie I had seen the previews for and always wanted to watch. I enjoyed it.
We had now been up way too long.
I had a bunch of vitamins and mineral supplements - tons actually - and I was fairly concerned about getting them through customs. None of them were in the original bottles because I had put them into daily packs ready to use each morning.
We also had the issue of getting into Fiji and having to produce the documents about boarding the boat, the airline tickets I had purchased to Sydney, etc.
Luckily all of that was fairly simple.
Once we had all of our luggage, we saw Abdul holding up the sign for Furthur - the boat we would be calling home for quite a while.
Abdul was very sweet. He runs a taxi service and had been chauffering Brian around to various parts of the island. Brian arranged to have Abdul pick us up at the airport. He got there at 4 something in the morning because the flights are sometimes early.
Ours actually got in at the scheduled time of 5:30 a.m. We had crossed the international date line, so instead of arriving the next morning, on Fiji time it was 2 days later. Our bodies weren't quite sure what to do.
We got the official greeting by Abdul who put a shell necklace around each of our necks and welcomed us with "Bula."
Bula means hello. According to Brian, it is one of the few hello's that he has actually been able to say.
Having fun in paradise,
Debbie Takara Shelor
No comments:
Post a Comment