Escape from Europe

Not the smoothest 24 hours of travel for us. We thought we had everything planned out for leaving our little hotel, getting to Sorento, and catching a bus to Naples international airport. So we started the day off pretty relaxed, enjoyed our lovely breakfast at the hotel, packed our bags, and set off to the bus stop. As we were leaving, the hotel manager was a little concerned for us "Are you sure that bus is coming today? It's Sunday... Oh I think that one should come today..." He very nicely offered that if we had any issues he would help.

So we waited for our bus. And then we waited some more. And we kept on waiting but it never came... Luckily we got talking to the guys that manage the beach over the road, and we negotiated paying them to drop us to the bus station in Sorento. Our bus was due to leave at 1pm, and we ran to board at 1.01pm... way too close for comfort. We did know that our plane wasn't until much later (8pm) so we were never missing our flight, but it was definitely the most stressed we've felt trying to catch transport!

Our bus arrived at the airport with no issues, and we spent the last of our euro cash on McDonald's for lunch (sometimes you just need some dirty fast food). Our plane ended up delayed and we didn't leave until after 10pm, which started to get us worried about our connecting flight in Istanbul... There was no need to worry however, but Nathan did attempt to board separately in Istanbul - with Vela's passport. This led to Vela chasing Nathan down the air bridge with an airline staff member to retrieve her passport so she could board... Whoops...

A short 12 hour flight later and we arrived into a rather wet Manila. No issues with security or border control, and Vela quickly extended her visa to cover our whole trip (she would only get 7 days by default). We then had to make our way to our hotel. It was quite literally only 200m from the airport, but we couldn't walk in a direct line due to fences and walls. As we were figuring it out, the heavy rain turned into a full blown deluge.

We eventually figured out how to get to the hotel, but we were drenched and our shoes were sopping. We checked in and hung out our wet stuff to dry. Time for some food!Читать далее