Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The Charisma of Ian and Quynh, part 1: JFK

Greetings and welcome to Quynh and Ian's summer blog as we work in Cape Town for 2 months at St. Joseph's Home for Chronically Ill Children and experience the World Cup FIRSTHAND.

It's really hard to pack all of your life into 2 bags, one of which can weigh 23 kg (50 lbs) and a carry-on which can weigh 7 kilo (15 lbs). It's especially hard if your name is Quynh Do. Thanks to my mom's handy portable luggage scale Balanzza, we realized that Quynh was at least 5 lbs over (because of "toiletries") and in danger of paying riduculous overweight fees to Emirates. After unloading said "toiletries" (and a soccer ball and purses and all this other stuff), somehow my bag managed to just hit the 23 kg limit, while Quynh had to charm the Emirates check-in staff to allow her extra luggage on (I similarly pretended to be Quynh and used her flight itinerary to verify my visa since you apparently have to prove that you are coming back to America to go to South Africa).

Instance of Ian and Quynh's charm #2: After the check-in debacle, we decide to get food and drank at an Irish pub near our gate. After asking a nice-looking lady at the bar about the lack of free Wifi, she decides to give me her internet subscription for the rest of the day as she left for Ireland (thank you username cooltownusa, password maxcity, whoever you are). Taking full advantage of our internet, we begin to make sure we haven't forgotten anything as I get a beer. We get our sandwiches and because the table was way too crowded of stuff, it caused Quynh to accidentally knock over her glass of water. But thankfully, Quynh was graceful enough to catch the glass, with her lap, and proceeded to charm the waitor to get her a new glass, oh, and a gin and tonic. But she wanted to share the experience, so Ian got a cider.

So in a few short hours, Quynh and I have managed to swindle our way through security and make it to Emirates for our 12 hour flight to Dubai.

Fun facts of the day:
1) For an 11 pm flight, Emirates will still serve you dinner at 1 am.
2) Emirates has soooo many movies and songs to choose from. Had I wanted, I could have watched the Hannah Montana movie, both Twilight films, and the Aristocats and still had a 2 hour nap.
3) Emirates flight attendants have to wear an interesting headdress until take-off.
4) Those little things you use for outlets in different countries are called adaptors, not converters.
5) It's really hard to get all the water out of those new metal water bottles.

Most lovingly,
Ian and Quynh

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