We Got Promoted? - Genie

Wow.

If you want to experience stress, I highly suggest doing the past two days of what Amanda and I have just been through. I officially have no eyelashes or eyebrows (sorry, Mom).

So we left off in Minneapolis where all seemed dandy. Our flight from MSP to San Francisco was perfectly fine - a little delayed which made our layover even less pleasant.

We finally arrived in San Fran about 25 minutes later than expected. Normally you'd celebrate this, right? Less of a layover? Well, we would have except that our next flight was on the other end of a different terminal, the train between terminals was broken, we had to re-check luggage, and go through security again. And now we had to do all of that in 52 minutes.

Arriving at the ticketing office, out of breath and chugging down our water bottles (can't bring water through security anywhere - there's a drought in California but sure, let's dump our nice, potable water down the drain), we finally get to the EVA Air check-in station. A very timid young lady did her best to help us and did... frankly a crap job. I'm almost certain it was her first day based on the people buzzing around her (I was doing my best Mandarin eavesdropping... it turns out I'm still "meh" at best. But it also turns out that "meh" is much better than nothing.) but that still does not excuse the phrase: "here's your boarding passes. You're going to be turned away by Bangkok immigration. Sign this paper so we not held responsible."

INSERT MASSIVE PANIC ATTACK.

Like. What do you do when you hear that?

Answer: you whip out your phone and email your school company with an all-caps headline. It turns out Leon (our MVP rep from MediaKids Academy) will email you back relatively quickly. But not quickly enough. We had to go through security, sign the forms stating if we were turned away, we would need to pay the full ticket price to get back, and boarded our flight.

Then had to make a calculated choice. In order to be guaranteed access to Thailand when we arrived on tourist visas, we needed to have proof we were leaving the country again. So we needed to book further tickets. However, since we were already in midair above the Pacific at that point, it wasn't really an option to whip out our phones and book something. (I am not rich enough to afford in-flight WiFi. If you are, please Venmo me some money or Paypay - I'm not choosy.)

After a very stressful flight  (so stressful that my 'when you're stressed all food makes you feel nauseated' senses kicked in), we landed in Taipei, Taiwan.

But I go too quickly. The flight was, in theory, pretty grand. We got 2 meals. They thought I was a vegetarian from India so my food was actually spectacular. There were piles of movies and an interactive map stating where we were and a bunch of statistics about the plane and where we were in relation to what was below us. Also, there were two planes leaving from the same company doing the same route but 10 minutes apart (thank god we were on the later one). So our flight was only about 1/2 full. This meant that Amanda and I got 3 seats instead of 2 and we got to spread out and relax a bit which was lovely on a 14 hour flight.

Also, at the beginning of our flight, I started waving into the camera of the lady who was sitting in front of us. We got to talking and it turns out that she used to live about 30 minutes from where Amanda and my contracts are. She was very cool and gave us her phone number in case anything bad happened in the next month. 14/10 these people are basically midwesterners.

Anyway. So we get off our flight (which was, wait for it, late) and head over to our next concourse. This was THE COOLEST AIRPORT. Like I wanted to wander around all day and just look at it. It had little stations that were all themed for the waiting terminals. Honestly I wish all airports were like this. Imagine if every terminal was a mini-museum for something. There was one for the history of the Chinese postal system. Another was for their water purification center - which you would think isn't interesting, but we've already covered that I'm a nerd.

We thought it safest at this point to buy tickets from Bangkok to the capital city of Laos. This way we would be guaranteed a way into the country - but we weren't guaranteed our money back when we cancelled the tickets.

The flight from Taiwan to Bangkok was delayed due to what the captain said was a: "mechanical failure" WHICH DOES NOT HELP ANXIETY. We knew before we left the ground in Taipei that we were going to miss our bus to the hotel.

That plane ride was 100% uneventful. We sat next to a guy named "Papa Steve". He was ... a 50 year old 'dude bro' who once knocked up his Thai girlfriend when he was a contractor here about 10 years ago and now he visits his daughter twice a year. He was an interesting fellow.

This plane ride, I was apparently not a vegetarian.

The normal people food was not as good.

Life hack: register as a democrat and a vegetarian.

So that plane landed, we got off, and began the freaking nightmare of an adventure through immigration.

First we headed through what felt like a maze of passageways following signs for "Immigration and Baggage". When the maze finally took a split between "Immigration and Baggage" and "Visa on Arrival", we went to "Visa on Arrival" (in the US, we lived too far from a Thai consulate to get a 60 day tourist visa and were informed we would need one when we got here.). We filled out the two page document, went to the photo center, got told by the lady at the photo center that we needed to go to immigration processing first, went to immigration processing, and promptly panicked. You needed 5 things to get in on a "Visa on Arrival".

1. Passport
2. Boarding Pass coming into the country
3. Boarding Pass leaving the country in no more than 15 days
4. The name, number, and address of someone in Thailand to vouch for us
5. 2500 bhat each (~75$)

We swallowed our nerves and walked up to the counter. I was very aware that we didn't have 3 and 4. I was getting ready to argue it with our boarding passes we booked in Taipei for 21 days from now. I even had the contact number of someone at the school screenshot in my phone if it came down to it.

But after waiting in line, the immigration officer took one look at my passport and said: "American? Oh no. Just go straight through."

WE DID ALL THAT PANICKING FOR NOTHING.

So we got to head right on over to immigration. We got through that in about 15 minutes, grabbed our luggage, and were disastrously late for our bus. Thankfully there was one more bus to go out today and boy oh boy am I glad we were on it.

We met some lovely humans today. First it was Fern and Penny from MediaKids. Then it was Bianca from Toronto. Then Rachel from Orlando, Sarah from Dallas (formerly Iowa but wearing an Idaho shirt), and Ashley from California. Bianca, Rachel, Amanda, and I got to sit around for 2 hours waiting for Sarah and Ashley's flight to come in and in that time, there wasn't a silent moment. They were super fun.

When Sarah and Rachel did arrive, we boarded a van and took off for our hotel.

This place is gorgeous in a very "American Horror Story: Hotel" sort of way. I'll definitely be taking pictures to post later.

We got all checked in, got our super attractive uniforms, new SIM cards for our phones, and then were taken aside by Leon (mentioned above MVP) and Dana.

Now. If you've just moved to a foreign country and two people who are essentially your bosses pull you aside with the phrase: "we need to talk", what do you do?

Guys, you know me by now.

You panic.

You think of everything that could be wrong: visa problems, job issues, I talked too much in the van ride over... I don't know. It's just... what you do, right?

HA.

I love being wrong.

Take that, anxiety.

So Amanda and I have been offered different teaching jobs. These are at an international school. It's better pay and a better city. We have until tomorrow morning to talk it out, but we both think the answer is pretty obvious. We'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, it's 6:30pm and we have a dinner date with the ladies from the airport van.



TLDR: we're safe, very warm, and freshly showered. Fear not, we have also found the Pokestops (though we don't have data plans yet - so forgive me for slow gift giving!)