In A Day's Travel

Yup. It's one of those. I think it started 9 days ago while I was booking my flight from Vienna to Lyon. I was working but I have just gotten my visa. It meant my travel is certain. So while I was waiting for some documents to upload (quite slowly), I was also looking at flight options. So I typed, "Vienna to Lyon" and came up with several. I checked the date, time and looked at the most reasonably priced. That translates to, "most likely not the cheapest but would either be a direct flight or a connecting one with the shortest layover." I found one (or so I thought) and booked accordingly.

A day after, while I was going through my itinerary one more time, I discovere that what I actually booked was "Vienna to Geneva!" I was like, "what the...!" I could.not for the love of me understand why there would be a Geneva option for a flight search for Vienna to Lyon.
Apparently, it is quite common as I tried the search again. There were other yields as "Vienna to Antwerp," thrown in among others. Looking closely, it seemed that there is no direct flight so the choices for the nearest airports to Lyon. Either those or connecting ones. So in my case, Geneva it is. And I was like @#$&$+#. It meant another hour of looking for options to get from Geneva to Lyon. There were flights but with another roundabout so the best one is either by taking the train or a bus. The former takes the shortest time.

The next hour saw me looking into how to get to the train station from the airport. It meant, researching for the correct train station; the trip schedules and what-not's. It was such a hassle and any other person could have shaved his head already out of frustration. Good thing, "Patience" is my middle name and "methodical, problem-solver" is a trait (maybe that is why I keep the job I do). So anyway, I found my options and planned accordingly.

On the actual day, it meant, taking the train from the airport to the central train station; looking for where to buy the ticket to Lyon (pre-buying online was not an option as there could be flight delays, etc.); and praying I would be able to catch the last train. My flight arrived  late in the afternoon and I did not want to spend another day in Geneva. It was tedious but I felt all grown up having managed to do all that. Before I knew it, I was seated snugly on the train, looking at the landscape unfolding before me. It was gorgeous.

That was a week ago. Now, TODAY was another matter. It turned out, I needed to secure a transit visa in Turkey, no matter if I only have a 7-hour layover for my flight back home. I was told at the counter that unless I have one, I would have to take another flight. Now, I have 2 connecting flights thereafter that had been perfectly timed. So if I miss this one, I'll be doomed. I told them that fine, I could secure it and that I needed to be on this flight. The ground crew looked at me dubiously but I squared my shoulders and proceeded to do just that. I understood her doubts though as I only had less than an hour for my flight. But I did manage and so I was given my boarding pass and my luggage was loaded.

Now, just when I thought that was that, I had to find out that my passport was not given to me. We had to chase the supervisor who took my case. She was on the phone and taking so long while we stood there waiting for her to finish. I have but a few minutes left. And we had to look for my passport which she left lying on one of the counters. (I could have lost it!!!) In the end I had to run all the way to the immigration and the boarding gate. Whew! But guess what? The plane took forever to take off. Our sched was 1:30. We taxied at 2:44. Yup, $#!+ happens.

But, as you can see the drama did not end there. In Istanbul, I had to find the airport shuttle and it took a while. There were a lot of us who had a hard time. The information officer was not exactly "informative." She just said to look for the Havana bus outside and that we had to pay but she doesn't know how much. "Information booth" my @$$ :P But yeah I wasn't really upset. I was just real tired though. It did not help that when I did found the bus, the driver told me in halting English that we would be going around the city and at one point, I had to transfer to another bus. He told me to be very vigilant as to where my stop should be (he kept on repeating, "last stop!"), otherwise I would find myself back to the very same spot we are on. Now, that was reassuring.

So yeah, the transit visa made sense as we made our way around the city. It took so long it was like travelling from Lyon to Turin, Italy (of course, Im exaggerating, as always). In this case though, it might not be such an "exagge." And yes, I had to take two busses. I paid around 15 euros. Learning that, I remembered the duty free shop staff's face when I asked how much would I have to pay for  a taxi that would take me all the way to Ataturk airport. Good thing I persisted on looking for the shuttle. I imagine having to pay for as much as 50 euros or more!

So yes, there I was whiling the time away, sitting on the bus, starting this blog. Now it's almost 1 am and I'm  right here at our boarding gate, waiting to be on the plane. Can't wait to catch up on my much needed zzzzz's.

And if I may add, typical of Filipinos, one is broadcasting a budot's song,  not mindful of the other passengers waiting.  Parang nasa bahay lang hahaha. They are seemingly oblivious that the others had their earphones on, respectfully listening to their own preferred music.  Some are even singing along, quietly hehe It's a remix of some old, danceable tunes. So those singing along are actually giving away their age :D

Oh, we're really such an eccentric race alright but that's our particular brand, that's part of our identity. And I've matured enough to just let some things go. There is no such thing as "perfect." Perfection is but just an illusion. And if you let every little thing that does not fit in your own definition of "should's" and "shouldn't" upset you, you'd be wasting so much energy and could even be buying yourself a one-way ticket to premature aging :P Let's just embrace who we are -- quirks, good traits and all. There are better battles and causes worth channeling our collective energies on.

Love and light!