Our Plane Story

Three flights got us to PNG. Really, I don’t know if it’s possible to arrive in PNG faster than we did. If those flights were any closer together, we wouldn’t have made the connection.

16 hours – The number always sounds daunting, but when it gets down to execution, it goes by surprisingly fast. This isn’t a car ride! You get to distract yourself! Watch movies, eat food (they keep the carts coming to help things seem like they’re going faster), sleep. And when you look back and think, “I’ve been on this plane for 8 hours” it comes as a surprise.

Flying with James was super easy. Flying with a baby wasn’t fun. Let me clarify the difference. The activity of flying with a baby is, in its essence, miserable. Not a bit of that was James’ fault. He was great. Got fussy maybe four times on the 16 hour flight. Exhaustion was the worst, because really we just needed to let him cry it out for 5 mins, but we were on a plane… so we bounced and shush a fussy baby for 20. But the luggage. The snacks and diapers and sippy cups and toys. And only four hands. Ugh. No.

4 hours – Apparently someone prayed that we wouldn’t have to deal with 7 items and a baby on the gangplank after I made my  last Facebook post. That prayer was answered. But not at all in the way I wanted. They forced me to checked bags at the gate. Including the car seat! Which couldn’t fly because, though it had a sticker that said it was safe to fly, it didn’t have a number, which Qantas was fine with and this was a Qantas flight too, though on an Air Nuigini – No. Sorry. No. I’m not going to mentally rehash this. It was not the highlight of my trip, having to check bags I wasn’t prepared to check.

1 hour – The previous flight was delayed (I hate everything about the Sydney airport. Never again.) And I had less than an hour to get to my connection. Which includes going through the visa check, getting my luggage from international (waiting until every single thing came through to discover the pack and play didn’t make it and filing a claim), going through customs, transferring them to domestic, going through two security check points for all 6 pieces of carry-on luggage (we checked the carseat for the hour flight, totally not worth it), having to get baggage checked at the gate again. This time they made us check the sewing machine, laptops, and camera bag (last time I checked our personal items), but I watched them get put on the plane and watched them get taken off and brought to baggage claim. We were directed to the wrong plane and finally got on the right one and they closed the door behind us.

Landing – We were greeted with leis of frangipanis and a group of women from the PBT offices there, 2 of whom I already know and love. We found out that our pack and go was found in Port Moresby and it should be sent onto Madang on Monday. (We have a crib at POC and a little peapod bed for that night) We got to our flat for the night and took advantage of some free internet before passing out at 7pm and sleeping til 4am.

Things I miss from America - Free wi-fi
I just paid $18.50 for 800mb of data. MEGABYTES
#thirdworldproblems