Hit the Road Jack

Saturday Aug 16 

Time to head home. Was packing until about 3am so running on 4 hours sleep as I have been all week.  Too much excitement.  We grab a quick breakfast and say our good byes

This is really it

The cab shows up at 8:30 and it is good to be sharing it with my teammates, Carina and Brian.  They are planning on traveling through different parts of The Philippines over the next 4-5 days before  heading out and their flights are close to mine so it makes sense to leave together.  We share a few laughs during the hour long drive to the Manila Airport and drop them off first as their terminal is on the way first.  I had told Carina that I expected it to hit me well after we left but it is hard to say good bye right now.... I hate good byes at the best of times and especially where you never know if you will ever meet again. We spent a lot of time together and they were great to work with....lots of laughs! As someone who works mostly from home it was good to have that camaraderie again!

I spend the last 15 minutes with Ricky the cab driver and talk about the Philippines.... what we have seen, what we liked.  "Philippines people are friendly sir, don't you think?"   Right on Ricky ...right on !

The airport is a zoo with long lineups. I am glad I got there 2.5 hours early because I need most of it to get through.  The flight will be from Manila to Taipei (2 hours ), a 3 hour layover in Taipei Airport   a 14 hour flight from Taipei to Toronto and the final 2 hours to Halifax from Toronto. I am dreading, especially again being assigned a middle seat for the 14 hour piece (Both ways I tried well in advance to check in and no options other then middle seats....hmmmmm).  

The Manila flight is uneventful and pretty much on time.  I spend the 3 plus hours moseying around the Taipei airport psyching myself up for the journey.

All By Myself !

Buy some chocolates for Annette which cheers me up. How sappy is that? :-)

14 hours later land in Toronto; all in all not too bad. They look after you well on EVA Air but sleep is hard to come by and hard to get up and walk without disturbing your seat mates.  The Toronto Airport is an unexpected roadblock and it takes almost the full 2 hour "layover" to navigate successfully through baggage transfers, Customs and to a new Airline (Air Canada).  I had enough time to get a bottle of water before getting on the last flight.

Annette is happy to see me at the airport and I can't tell you how good it is to see her again.  We land home just before 3am.  Even the cat is happy to see me, see the joy ?

I'm telling you..she's overjoyed!

It is great to be home and hit the hay around 6am!

30 Days went by so fast. Can't believe it is really over.

 #ibmcsc philippines