Departure

The day of departure was quickly approaching. I was living with my brother, Elias, and his friend, Steve, in Orange County, CA. I was all prepared. I had my visa and was for the most part packed. There was only one problem: How was I going to get to San Francisco to catch my flight to China? I had no car that I could take with me and very little money to get there. Luckily, about a week before the flight, Steve was moving to the Sacramento area and offered to give me a ride when he moved. I gladly accepted and rode to Sacramento with him and his dog.

After spending the week with Patrick, a visit from Elias, and repacking my stuff I was ready to go. Our flight was for about 7:00 am on July 8. The night before Patrick and I were running around like chickens with our heads cut off checking and double checking that we had everything in order and doing last minute laundry. We didn't sleep the entire night because we had to leave the house at about 3:00 am to get to the airport in San Fransisco. The time to leave the house finally arrived and we loaded into Joanne's, Pat's grandma, SUV. The three of us arrived at the airport a little before 5:00 am and Patrick and I said our goodbyes to Joanne (who was also kind enough to let me and Elias stay at her house). We were officially on our way.

After checking in and having one last smoke for the next who knows how long, we proceeded to line up for the security check point. We found our gate then took turns going to the restroom and finding food and other necessities (such as Skoal) for the flight. As we sat at the gate eating our cinnamon rolls and drinking water the thought that we would soon be in China still hadn't hit me. Our plane started boarding and soon we were in Vancouver, Canada. Neither of us had been to the Vancouver airport before so we rushed as fast as we could through customs to find our next gate. We eventually did just to find out (after waiting for about an hour) that our plane was not safe to fly and that we would have to wait another few hours for a new plane to arrive.

It was obvious to us that we were in the terminal for flights to Asia as it was filled with Asians and Asian restaurants. We decided to get some food while we were waiting for the plane and settled on a Japanese restaurant. Being true to airport food, it was insanely expensive and sub-par for the price. While Patrick went to find some drinks I tried to sleep a bit in the seating area near the gate while sticking my arms and legs through handles of our carry-ons so they wouldn't be stolen if I happened to fall asleep. Although I had not slept in over 24 hours, I was unable to sleep. After a while Patrick came back and told me about the different beer that he had drunk and how much it cost.

This next story may provide a laugh for some. It had been about 6 or 7 hours since we had our last cigarette so we decided to break out the chew. Now, I had never chewed before and had always found it quite disgusting. After Patrick gave me a course in "Chewing 101" I grabbed a tiny pinch to put in my lip. Patrick laughed and said I needed more than that. So I grabbed a slightly larger gob and stuck it in my lip. Listening to Patrick on that one was a HUGE mistake! I immediately got really nauseous and dizzy. I spit it all out in a bottle I had and swore I wouldn't do that again.

Eventually our plane showed up and we began boarding. We were headed to China!