2.30pm Houston time. Today is a transit day. We got up reasonably early as we wanted to leave plenty of time to navigate Houston airport - after the palava of customs coming into the country.
We had found a tasty looking breakfast place a few minutes walk away while researching the night before, so in the morning Dan ordered and while I was in the shower he went to collect. He returned with a big bag of French toast, poached eggs, bacon, strawberries and a swather of jams, butters and syrups. We ordered one serving and it was easily Enough for the two of us.
Packing went smoothly, and we worked out we could go to level four and call the lift up to five, so Dan did this while I waited with bag city. Something was wrong with the parking ticket return so we had to call an attendant to let us out - he didn’t bother looking or checking whether we needed to pay or not (which was not). Returning to the car hire place was relatively strsightforward, Altho we had to do an around the block to get to a petrol station to top up. Again, once in it all went smoothly, and we waited for the shuttle to the airport.
The funniest thing of this trip was the automated voice saying the journey would take approximately 5 minutes. More than twenty minutes later, and navigating ridiculous traffic jams, the bus managed to nose it’s way towards the drop off zones. Thankfully we had left so much extra time that this just put us on schedule.
The bag drop didn’t accept our passports, so the machine turned from green to red and a lady came over to help. Another few people lined up behind us and she shouted at each of them to *try* using the machine and if it doesn’t work, it’ll turn red and an attendant will be over. She was getting quite frustrated with the other people but was lovely to us. We thought due to the sheer amount of traffic that it would be quite busy - it was pretty quiet inside and the lady said that “you won’t be able To see the white on the floor come 2:30pm”. Thank god we were going to miss that rush.
Customs and bag check also went relatively smoothly. Many people had doggies, including the tiniest little puppy going through security. Ahead of my a lady went through the body scanner. She was pulled aside, I was waved through - and then forgotten about I was standing there with my arms up like…er, I think it’s done? I lowered my arms and looked around and was waved through - but my exit out of the body scanner was blocked. I sort of sidled past a security guard but no one paid me any attention.
The lady ahead of me had scanned with metal on her being, and they sent her through again. I saw on her scan that she had metal showing up in her crotch region, and she started saying very loudly “Ain’t nobody gonna be touching my pussy!”. This was repeated many times, and I did witness her getting patted down eventually. The drama held up the line so Dan was quite a ways behind me, which gave me a chance to stand back and watch this unfold. Later on I saw her in the terminal, so she must have been let through.
Aside from that minor delay, we were through! With two hours to spare. We meandered through the terminal to see where our gate was and found a reasonably sized food court. We inspected all the food options but ended up with good ol’ Wendy’s. We were rather impressed by the QR code scanning system - almost every table inside and outside of the restaurants had payment facilities where you could order and the nearest food joint would deliver it to your table. Clever!
We remembered we wanted to break up some US notes as apparently this currency is accepted, or at least the easiest to exchange, in Argentina. We had settled on a Twix when I spied something in the next aisle.
Houston Texas Space Center Christmas ornaments. It had escaped me that Christmas ornaments were one of my (many) collectibles, so I was very excited to see these. There had been some at the Space Center itself but they weren’t very festive. This one is a delightful astronaut and shuttle in a wreath. Perfection. I even happily gave up the Twix in favour of the ornament, I was that happy!
Now we are sitting on the plane ready for takeoff. I’ll update once we arrive in Panama!
10:56pm Panama time. On board our plane, going to be a sleepless one despite our best efforts to take valerian and be prepared.
The journey from Houston to Panama got quite wildly turbulent, then the pilot stated that it would last for about another 25 minutes. I wasn’t thrilled. Other than that the journey was uneventful. The guy next to me was an armrest hog and a man spreader, which was pretty unpleasant for four hours. Once on the ground, the guy on the end took his sweet time getting up and out - we had another plane to catch and I was a bit edgy.
Racing through the airport it seems we had to walk the entire length of it to get to our next gate. We didn’t have to redo security thank god, but we weren’t 100% sure if our bags would go through. We were about 99%.
We also weren’t sure about getting fed in board so we decided to find some food. After passing many signs for restaurants and none in sight, but many under construction, we concluded this was the new airport and that there was practically nothing. We raced back to a bar we saw had some sandwiches then proceeded to line up for about 25 minutes. I don’t know why it took so very long. There was one poor girl at the till and I think she was overwhelmed. When the Irish guys ordered ahead of us she had to keep calling another waiter over to translate.
Once we finally paid we raced back to our seats, and things were a little behind schedule so we tucked into the food. Eventually they started calling boarding - this time we were in group cinqo, 5, so boarded last. It was all a bit of a weird scramble and I had forgotten how confusing it is being in a country where one doesn’t know the language!
On board Dan and I took our seats next to an older gentleman. I was in the aisle, and before takeoff there was a bit of a commotion going on in the row next to me. From what I gather a family of at least 1 deaf parent (father) was sitting with two children (one toddler, one teen- hearinf) and the mother (have confirmed, not hearing) was down the other end of the plane with a newborn baby. I think they were trying to find out if a seat in the row in front was free so one of them could move. In the end, mother with baby is next to me, with a screaming toddler and a teenager. The teenager (she’s maybe 11 or 11?) is translating the sign language from the parents to the air hosts. There’s a lot of noise from the baby and the toddler. Think this will be a sleepless one (writing in real-time!).
As most of you already know, I don’t tend to like children at the best of times. But watching the family navigate in a hearing world has been eye opening. The girl has been trying to do some things to occupy herself but is always tapped/waved at by the parents to translate. It must be a lot.
2:07am Panama time. Not sleeping - I fell asleep briefly on the Houston-Panama flight so apparently that’s all the sleep gods will allow. I’ve been playing with my phone for a while now, and I looked up before to find the teenager has moved seats and is next to me, staring at me.
“You speak English?” She asked me.
“I do yes!”
“I speak Spanish.”
She then said she was from Costa Rica to which I replied that I am Australian. Her eyes widened in wonder! I pointed to Dan and said “He’s from New Zealand.” The girl looked completely confused so I grabbed my phone and pulled up Google maps, pointing out Australia and New Zealand. I put my hands under my head in a sleep motion and asked “can’t sleep?” She shook her head no, and I said “me too.” I tried to make a bit more conversation but we hit a stumbling block.
She then said her mum is Argentinian (which explains why they are going to Argentina!). I tried to ask if she had been before but I was being too complicated. She then pointed to Dan and to her wedding finger, yes, we are married! It was a cute interaction, I might have to download a translate app that works offline so that more conversations can be had in future.
Ok, back to trying to sleep. Or playing more Sudoku.
3:50am Panama time. A little while ago Dan got up to use the baŋos and I thought I’d try to communicate with the elderly gentlemen in the window. He hadn’t stood up the whole flight and I was a little worried. I waved to him and shuffled over, and said “banos?” And pointed to the back. He unclipped his belt and repeated “banos?” But looked very confused. I tried again to motion “do you need me to get out of the way so you can stand up for a bit?” But he continued to look confused and I looked confused, so I laughed and said sorry and returned to my seat.
It’s light out there now, there was a beautiful salmon peachy orange sunrise. We will be landing shortly, thank god, and we ordered a transfer because I knew I’d be too stuffed to figure out public transport with our bags.
Check back in soon.
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