The Weekend leading up to the start of our trip was amazing! Thursday; while watching USA play Germany in the World Cup, I cooked my last for a while for my gang; a chicken Thai curry (came out amazing), and garlic scape pesto. And everyone was happy because Team USA made it through the Group of Death! Go USA!! Friday, I spent some time helping out Professor Hawkins with prep for our families, and then we had our last meeting. Bryan shared some good travel tips like getting your seat on the plane, make sure you print your itinerary, making copies of your passport to carry and leave the original in a secure place, bringing coffee if you love coffee, and pasalubong, which is Filipino for gifts. We shared the transporting of some of the research tools and Professor informed us that our tour of the Presidential Palace may be cancelled. What? We’re not going to be able to see Imelda’s shoes??? So, wonderful Kenneth gave me $? to get the guards to let us in! He thinks it’s the only thing that will make the trip worthwhile!

Friday night Ken invited me to a Red Bull game so we had dinner at our favorite pregame restaurant, La Fiamma. Outside the stadium, management had hung a banner that decreed “NO BITING”. That’s our Jersey sense of humor. Red Bulls tied and held onto 5^th place in the standings.

Saturday I saw some friends from my old job at The Bridge (wave, Agatha and Muneerah), did some more packing and met Ken at church. Our sweetest friends, Fatima and Jorge, invited us out for dinner to ... where else? La Fiamma! I was even wearing the same dress as the night before! But we had an amazing time. I got so many well wishes from everyone and I felt so grateful and loved, there isn’t any way that this trip is going to be anything but fabulous! (I write this as we board the plane and a 15 month old child is screaming his head off!) Where is Carlos Mendoza when you need him??

Sunday I was at the Center for Spiritual Living and one of the gents told me a story about when Francis Ford Coppola was in the Philippines while making Apocalypse Now. He invited his wife to come for a visit during the shooting and they served dinner in the typical buffet style, but this was the jungle. Her first inclination was to say that she had not ordered raisins on all the dishes.

And that brings me to Sunday’s dinner! Ken took me, Sarah, Ankita and the Csedrik’s to Battello’s on the waterfront in Jersey City. Amazing view, and the Csedrik’s were kind and thoughtful enough to grace me with a bon voyage gift of a fly swatter! Hilarious, and useful!

So. After five movies, an attempt to sleep in between, a dinner that must be the standard (not sure if it’s high or low) airplane food, some cookies and a piece of gum, we are three hours from landing. We have flown almost half way around the world. Oh, and I forgot. I wrote this!