Saul and Chelsia: Over the Moon and Back: We travel not to escape life, but for life to not escape us.

Our first vacation while here in AmSam took place over the Christmas holidays. We had 2 weeks off of school and tried our damndest to take full advantage of it.

We left for Apia, Western Samoa Friday, December 21^st via itty bitty prop jet (15 seats). Those of you that know me well know that flying really isn’t my thing. I could have had you fooled with my immense love of travel but flying…that’s the worst of it. I had to grit my teeth and suck it up for this one. There’s not even a barrier between the cabin and the pilots. No bueno.

Anyways, a lovely coworker of ours dropped us off at the airport and we were off. Extremely uneventful flight (thank the man upstairs for that one). We arrived in Apia at around 12:00pm; our flight from Apia to New Zealand didn’t leave until 2:00am. WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING?!!!! This was the layover that nightmares are made of. Over and over everyone told us that our Interisland flight (Pago Pago to Apia) would probably be delayed, cancelled, our luggage would be lost etc. so we wanted a cushion. Well 14 hours is overkill **just fyi** especially when absolutely nothing goes wrong.

We hopped the Interisland shuttle bus into Apia proper (which is like downtown Western Samoa). Holy stop lights!! This was where the culture shock began. There were multi lane streets, stop lights, a mall, a gym, and much much more. Saul and I grabbed lunch at a Samoan fast food place that was pretty nom worthy. We had killed a whole 2 hours at this point [insert sarcasm here].

Next we headed off for Cappucino Vineyard. This place was awesome, super chill coffee shop/bar/restaurant. We had already eaten so we just grabbed some Vailima (when in Rome, right?) and people watched. Vailima is made in Western Samoa for all of you folk unversed with the greatness that is Vailima. Another hour had slipped through the cracks.

In AmSam, buses stop running on Saturdays (oh yeah, it’s Saturday at this point—we hopped the date line) at about 4:00pm. Being the cheapos that we are trying to avoid cabfare; we hopped a bus back to the airport at about 3:45. Woohoo back to the airport at 4:30ish. Again flight doesn’t leave until 2:00am. Faleolo Airport is an outdoor airport. The fans weren’t running and it’s in Western Samoa (humid tropical climate). Fun, right? Wrong! Saul read his Kindle to pass most of the time. I graded papers, did my nails and my toe nails, took a nap and anything else that I could find to pass the time. It was pretty depressing to be the only ones at the airport when we got there, have people arrive to depart on about three different flights, and then be the only ones at the airport again. We got some cup noodle for dinner that was inferior to the Saimin we eat in AmSam.

People finally started to arrive for our flight at about 11:00pm. It’s funny because it Samoa (both Western and AmSam) it’s an event to have a family member go or come. The airport rapidly filled up because for every one person on the actual flight, there were five family members just hanging out.

We waited some more, people watching, and animal watching to pass the rest of the time. It was finally our turn to board, yesssss! We were sitting in preferred economy so we thought we’d have some baller seats only to arrive at our seats and have an elderly disabled woman in the aisle seat. That was the last time we’ll ever book a middle and window seat. I definitely served as a pillow for a stranger. (the little air conditioning vents do wonders for solving this problem BTW). J

I can’t really remember if I slept or not. I was pretty delusional by this point. We got into Auckland at 7:00am and had our connecting flight at 9:00am. It was smooth sailing from this point on.

Whoever said getting there is half the journey was spot on. ;-)

-C