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Published: November 11th 2011
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We made it
Ok. At least we made it on the plane with our luggage. Ok. Majeed and I have accumulated several "airport stories" since being together. Here's another fun one.
So we arrive at the airport in Manila, Philippines. A quick, but as it turns out,
painful, layover on our way from Hong Kong to Darwin, Australia. Upon our arrival we must unfortunately collect our luggage -two giant suitcases and 2 large boxes, one of which falls apart when Majeed grabs it off the conveyor belt- no worries though, we have extra duct tape with us so we fix it up and stick it all on a cart and look for our terminal.
It turns out we have to exit the airport to get to our terminal, which means we are supposed to go through customs. We don't have a lot of time before our connection flight so I go to the front of the line to see if I can convince the guy to push us through. I start talking to him and he tells me to shut up and go through. Done. Awesome security!
So we wait for way too long for a shuttle bus to come get us and bring us to the other terminal. Eventually we get to
the next terminal and we get in the Jetstar lineup. We have since learned that this airline is also known as Shitstar. I could end the story here but then you'd be left wondering...so even though the vein in my head is pulsating right now, I'll finish the story.
As we wait in line the guy in front of us looks like he's having a really hard time filling out his customs form so I offer to let him use the top of our boxes as a table. As soon as he turns to face me I can tell that he is stinking drunk. Or a maniac. Or both. But definitely drunk. So Greg is his name and he slurs: "thank you, where are you guy-ths frrrom and where are you going?". So we tell him our story and he is extremely excited to hear that we are going to Darwin. He proceeds to tell us how awesome Darwin is and anybody who doesn't like it is a F fool and maybe there are some weird things in Darwin, but it's one helluva party, it's his kind of place and we're gonna love it.
Awesome.
When we f-i-n-a-l-l-y get to the counter, the very pleasant check-in lady (do they have a specific title? I dunno) very pleasantly tells us that it does not say on our tickets that we have luggage and that therefore we will have to pay extra to get our baggage on the plane with us. "No problem!" we exclaim, "how much!?". She weighs it in and is kind enough to overlook the couple of overweight kilos (Jetstar apparently has different weight allowances than Air Canada) and says that she will only charge us 375$ per bag for a total of 1500$.
OH
MY
GOD
So Majeed and I bring out our concerned, surprised and very reasonable faces and tell her that there must be an oversight, because clearly we've had luggage since Canada and so we had no idea why our Jetstar tickets didn't say that we did and she has to let us on the plane, with our luggage, free of charge, because we've already paid for the ticket and we are honest people and we are tired and we just want to get to Darwin and pretty please just let us on the freaking plane please. Please.
That didn't work so I asked her to come within whispering distance and offered her 500$ cash. That also didn't work. She told us that the plane was leaving in a few minutes so we could either pay now and she would help us hurry through security, or we could stay overnight in the airport and just end up paying tomorrow. So we paid 1500$ and she managed to get us on the plane, with our luggage and a hate-on for Jetstar.
Since it was late a night the interior plane lights were turned off after take-off and most people were trying to get a bit of shut eye. Unfortunately Greg, the charming Darwin-lover from the earlier line-up, decided he hadn't had enough to drink and since he was denied more booze he spent the rest of the flight alternating between deep snoring sleep and abusive behaviour. So we got to spend the rest of the flight with the lights on and the attendants took turns standing in the aisle just behind and ahead of his seat. Upon arriving to Darwin, we all had to remain seated until the police got on the plane and escorted Greg wherever they escort people like Greg to.
We felt very lucky to be welcomed and picked up at the Darwin Airport by Mel, one of Majeed's new co-workers, who along with her partner are now very good friends of ours!
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