Back in the US of A...

So... it's Thursday, the local time is 14:30 and I am currently in the United States, not Yap.

Everything was going just fine. The plane from Stockholm to Frankfurt left and arrived in time. The same for the plane from Frankfurt to Manilla (we even had time for a short stop in Guangzhou in China). But then things went bad.

Checking in at Continental Airlines in Manila, they objected to me only having a copy of my working permit, not the original. As I have no return ticket, I need a working permit to immigrate to Yap. After half an hour of running around the Continental guy finaly says, It's OK now, we just need to make a copy of your copy of the permit. So they did, and I got my boarding pass. Good.

Next issue - security did not like my tax free bag with liquids in it that I had purchased at Arlanda airport in Sweden. The bag was sealed and should be fine as it's contents where bought after the security check at Arlanda. After some discussion Continental staff said that I had to put it in my checked-in luggage. So they unloaded my luggage from the airplane, asked me to go outside and put the tax free bag in it and then things where looking great.

But... as I am finaly boarding the airplane 2 minutes before departure time at 21:45, someone calls out "Mr Nilson, Mr Nilson! Wait!".

Continental had decided that everyhing was not fine after all. After I got my boarding pass they had been trying to reach immigration in Yap, hoping to get a confirmation that my permit was OK. Quite futile as Yap immigration is not open late in the evening.

To cut a long story short, they unloaded my luggage again, and I was put on a plane to Guam (part of the US) leaving half an hour later, arrived here at 4:30 local time, got a few hours of sleep at a motel and am now at the airport leaving for Yap at 18:45. The permit problem has been sorted out and the only remaining issue is that the flight to Yap is first going down to Palau, and then back up to Yap after a few hours. So I am now looking at arriving in Yap at 2:30 tomorrow morning local time.

More, from Yap, tomorrow. I hope...



Patrik