getting there, being here part 1

I'm sure you, along with our mothers, have been dying to see some pictures and hear how our first week in the Philippines have gone.

Our trip started off with one gigantic pain-in-the-butt experience at the airport, because really, a trip across the world without a major pooh pah over luggage would be simply unheard of.  Being the consciences pilot that Jason is, he called the very fantastic airlines that we flew a few weeks before hand to verify their baggage allowance because their website was rather vague.  We were elated when we were told that we were each allowed two 70 lb. bags, or 560 pounds. 

We should have known that it was too good to be true.  

We were feeling pretty darn proud of ourselves that we managed to shove a years worth of our stuff into 7 bags (one less than we were allowed) and were hovering at 66 lbs a bag.  We had organized and packed all of our stuff so that we could live out of 2 bags in Manila and be at the correct weight to get on the plane from Manila to Palawan without having to repack.  We even had our carry-ons down to one backpack each and a computer bag.  We were feeling mighty fine.  

When we got to the baggage counter we were informed that we were only allowed two 50 bags each. Which meant that at $125 a bag in overweight baggage we were looking at having to pay $875 (about the price of our ticket) or dump 62 pounds of our stuff.  It didn't matter than Jason had written down the name, date and time of the customer service agent that he had talked to.  We were screwed.  Dirty bugger, as my mother would say.

To make a long story short we ended up adding an extra bag we already had hiding in one of our suitcases and Grandpa V ran up the stairs and bought us all roller bags to take as our carry-ons.  We started opening up all of our carefully packed and organized bags dumping stuff into carry-ons and the 8th bag.  Dump dumpity dump dump.  The worst part was that the manager of the area was a total jerk.  He just put a big ol' smile on our face.  The plastic missionary smile that goes on when you would really like to kill someone but you have already revealed that you are a missionary and therefore cannot.  

Once we got on the airplane, one last phone call to make sure everything was in order and we were off.