Day 1 - ¿¿Where's Derek Chan??

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Day 1

I flew into Houston around 3pm and immediately realized Houston is terrible. Seriously, the airport is absolutely atrocious. Think of the most basic airport you can think of; then imagine there was a nuclear fallout. That’s Houston. Not to mention the only thing in the Fox Sports Bar (which was the ONLY redeeming grace that kept me sane for 3+ hours) was Houston Rockets memorabilia from the early days (like the 90’s). I figured I would try the chili, I mean, I was in Texas... supposedly. It was alright.

So, on my plane was this 73 year old Chinese lady who was nicer than your grandmother, but maybe that’s because she couldn’t understand a word of English or Spanish. They gave us customs and immigration papers to fill out and she asked me to do them for her, but I was clueless too. Ok, so, wtf is the deal with the world using different freaking symbols for things. Why a period instead of a comma?? Am I bringing more than $10 or $10,000 into the country? I don’t even know, and who writes these things anyways? You can’t write small enough to fit on the dang paper. I just figured if they were going to detain me, it’d be an adventure. Yes, I have salmon and applets and cotlets in my bag, please take them from me and send me to prison. Lord.

After calming down and scribbling illegible hieroglyphics on the immigrations paper, our plane began to descend. As we got closer to the ground, the fog got thicker and the clouds were denser. As we were right near the ground, I couldn’t see anything but a winter wonderland out my window and suddenly the plane pulled up and right. Seriously?? Seriously? I finally get out of the lifeless pit that is Houston and my plane can’t land? Turns out we couldn’t land because it wasn’t safe and we didn’t have enough fuel to try again so we had to fly to Panama to refuel. Wonderful. I hear Panama is nice this time of year. Meanwhile, the Chinese lady next to me has NO IDEA what is going on and I whip out a cocktail napkin and try and draw pictures to let her know whats up. But of course my drawings make it look like the plane is about to crash in a firey explosion, so I probably scared her more than I helped her. I kept saying, “PA-NA-MA” and she would just smile at me and nod; where are you Derek Chan???

The Panama Canal looked sick from the plane... or at least I imagine it did - for the people on the other side of the plane who got to see it. Instead I saw like, literally hundreds of HUGE container ships waiting to get in. Pretty dope. On the way BACK to San Jose after refuelin in Panama, there was lightning everywhere. So freaking cool, but at the same time terrifying. We land, I don’t see anyone waiting for me, and grab my bags and just head out. Finally see someone, get in the bus, and go to my host family’s house. Enough for this day.

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Photos

Mt. _____ from the Plane
Um... Some mountain in WA. No idea.

My traveling companion
Where the hell is D Chan? I don't speak Mandarin!

Comments

[JT Mesquita]

HAHAHA
WOW. That is quite the adventure. I can't believe they flew to Panama hahahaha. Hopefully the rest of your trip will go a little smoother.

[Derek]

Here I am.
Haha, that's so effing true with this customs/immigration things. "Well I have $10,002.47, I guess I'll write that." Who in the hell knows all that stuff? Unbelievable. But dude, even if I was there two things: 1. I don't know how to say "Panama" in either of the dialects I speak 2. I would have been to effing scared to even think. But I'm glad you thought of me brother!