PC Blog 2: International Travel - Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Note: This blog entry was originally posted on Monday, October 3, 2022. The names of those involved have been changed unless permission was given to use their actual name.

During our first full day at staging, we were told that our original travel plans, to fly through Brussels on the following day, needed to be changed due to a workers strike at the Brussels Airport shutting down all air travel. This was absolutely not, in any way, foreshadowing of what more was to come over the following few days of travel. Because it would no longer be possible to fly through Belgium, it was soon arranged that we would fly from DC to Boston and then connect through Istanbul instead, and was scheduled for only one day after the original travel plans. Although this was a little bit more of a roundabout way of getting to Sierra Leone, it didn’t affect us too much and gave us all an extra free day in DC. Plus, who would complain about getting to go to Turkey for the first time? Although, with only an hour-and-a-half layover in Istanbul, we wouldn’t have time to leave the airport, so again, it didn’t make too much difference to us either way. You did read that correctly, though: a little over an hour layover for two connecting international flights. But of course, Turkish Airlines, in their infinite wisdom, surely knew what they were doing when they scheduled things like this, right? There’s absolutely no way that this could be more foreshadowing… right?

So, after a last meal in the US, which for me consisted of some great Ethiopian food from a nearby restaurant and a pint of ice cream courtesy of Grubhub, we left in the early morning hours of Friday the 24th of June for the DC airport. I was roped into overseeing the bus transfer: making sure everyone got on onboard and collecting a tip for the driver, so after an uneventful (and rather sleepy) ride to the airport, we got in line to get our tickets and check our bags with only a slight snafu as one trainee, whom I’ll call “Hodor”, had to get their ticket corrected to reflect that they would NOT in fact be flying with a small child in their lap. During this time, with all the shuffling of bags and backpacks around, I somehow managed to nick my hand, drawing a surprising amount of blood for such a small cut (notice the title: tick 1 of 3). Once our non-existent children were struck from the flight logs and our wounds were staunched, we slogged through a rather long line past the drug sniffer dogs and through security, eventually arriving at our gate in plenty of time to wait for our plane to Boston. We waited... And waited… After some more time waiting, and wondering when our plane would actually arrive, because it was getting pretty close to the scheduled boarding time, we were suddenly hit with a one hour delay. Being from the Midwest, this seemed eerily reminiscent of those snowy early mornings watching the news, hoping for a snow day (or at least a delay). However, this delay didn’t really bother us because we had a decent layover in Boston before our Istanbul flight, so we settled back into our waiting routines (for myself: a rather unrestful nap, for several others: a large game of UNO). Not too long after this, however, without warning, the board was updated again - this time to “Cancelled.” Unlike those snowy winter days that I had just mentioned waiting for a school cancellation, we were not particularly excited by this news.

We play airport UNO as we await the decision of our fates. Photo courtesy of trainee Sia.

Now began a new waiting game, as the Peace Corps staff worked furiously to figure out what our new itinerary would be. Looking at the incoming flights to the Freetown Airport, I silently was hoping for a trip to Morocco. The trainee who was put in charge of airport travel, whom I’ll call “Joey”, was phenomenal at keeping in communication with both the Peace Corps and airlines for us and then directing us on our next steps. Apparently, the airline's original redirected travel plans that were automatically generated would have sent us all on multiple separate flights all over the United States and Europe to eventually get us to Salone one-by-one sometime over the next few days. Thankfully, the Peace Corps staff was able to convince them that this was not, in fact, a good idea. After some time, another trainee, whom I’ll call “Mark,” suddenly said “Oh!” and we all looked up at him thinking he’d somehow gotten an update on our new travel plans, but instead he continued: “Roe v. Wade was just overturned.” And that was how we found out about that… waiting in the Boston airport at the gate of our cancelled flight. Because of the court leak sevreal weeks prior, everyone had been expecting this outcome eventually, but it was still a little surprising to get this news just as we were trying our hardest to leave the country.

So, after awhile more waiting, it was finally arranged that we would leave the DC airport on a newly chartered bus to take us to the Baltimore airport, where we could catch a flight to Boston in time to make our original flight to Istanbul (I’d said we had a sizeable layover in Boston, remember?). So, we all headed to the baggage claim carousels to pick up our checked bags, which I’ll remind you never should have been loaded onto any plane since ours never arrived, and… found ourselves in yet another waiting game… Apparently, it seemed that the airline was having difficulty locating our bags… After close to an hour or so, our bags finally started showing up one-by-one, and after some initial anxiety that not all of them would be located, they eventually were finally all found and brought out into our waiting arms. So after some more trekking with all of our bags to the bus pick-up (this was when the sweat really started showing up as the day was starting to get warmer - tick 2 of 3). Since I was still technically the one in charge of bus duty, I made sure we were all loaded onto our new bus without leaving anyone behind and hastily collected another round of tips for our unexpected second driver. After about an hour's drive, we arrived at the Baltimore airport. Quite surprisingly, everything went rather smoothly for a change (other than some additional security checks for our overloaded carry-on bags) and we were shortly on our way to Boston after a quick airport lunch. Boston, however, was another matter entirely…

I needed a picture, so here's the baggage claim stubs for Turkish Airlines.

Because we were connecting to Turkish Airlines, which is international, we had to collect our checked bags once again and re-check them with the new airline. And so began the Great Weight-Loss Saga. Unlike the other airlines we had used thus far, Turkish Airlines had a very strict weight limit for carry-on bags with an exorbitant overweight fee of over $200. However, the overweight fee for checked bags was only $80 (apparently this difference in fees was to help prevent overly heavy bags from falling out of overhead cabinets onto unsuspecting passengers or workers). There was no additional weight limit for this overage fee (just a flat fee for any weight over 50 lb), so myself, along with about half of the other trainees, spent the next non-insignificant portions of our lives frantically trying to re-pack as much as possible of our carry-on items into our checked bags to get the carry-ons under the new weight limit. Luckily, for myself I didn’t have too much of an issue since I still had quite a bit of physical space in my newly bought roller bag (i.e., I was previously weight-limited for packing it, not space-limited). Unluckily, the Turkish Airlines check-in counters were understaffed and not very well-organized for payment of fees, which required waiting in yet another separate line, but after at least an hour or two, we eventually all made it through with both our wallets and carry-on bags a little lighter, and the check-in line behind us quite significantly longer than when we first arrived. The one upside was that our carry-ons were now much more comfortable to lug around the airport with the reduced weight. After yet another security check (our third of the day in as many airports, though this one was a little smoother since our carry-ons were no longer as jam-packed) and a tactical wardrobe change (I’d mentioned the sweat already, right?), we had all settled in to a nice… yep, the board was just updated with another delay. At this point, we were too tired to worry and didn’t even bat an eye when not too long later we needed to quickly grab all our things for a last minute gate change. Eventually, after a boarding line that stretched for a significant portion of the terminal, we all finally made our way onto the plane that took us a full day of travel to reach.

Fortunately, I was placed in a row with two other trainees towards the back of the plane, just as the middle seats switched from four to three seats, so we three were relatively comfortable together. If you’ve ever been on any international flight, flying Turkish Airlines is likely much the same, though they did throw in a pair of complimentary slippers alongside the more standard freebies of a blanket and pair of slightly obnxious over-the-ear headpones. I saved the former for later use and made use of the latter with the headrest entertainment system to catch up on a few movies, one of which was the latest Marvel Spider-man movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home. And so we finally come upon the final of the promised titular trifecta, because if you have seen any of the previous Spider-man movies of the past two decades, this latest one will be quite emotional at points (especially if you’re at altitude after a full day of travel), and so several quiet tears were shed (tick 3 of 3).

And so concludes the first part of our story. “But wait!”, I can hear you thinking through the tubes of the internet, “We haven’t even reached Salone yet!” Yes, at the present moment of our story, we’re still barreling over the lonely Atlantic in a metal sardine can. “But what about the promised definitely-not-foreshadowing?” Well, fear not! You’ll just have to tune in next time to read the epic conclusion of our harrowing tale for our final arrival in the land of the Lion Mountains.