Guest Blogger: Qualifications for the Amazing Race

The trip had many memorable experiences and what better way to share more of these memories than to have one of members of the trip who also happens to be a one of my loyal readers guest blog! DK shall follow up on my last blog post and share his #1 overall experience.

Its basically composed as a short story, so sit tight and enjoy the ride. =)

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Chris, already made his rankings on his blog. As for me, what was Chris' #1 experience on his Honorable Mentions rankings, my #1 overall experience was the 17 Hour "Qualifications for the Amazing Race" Day. I even already gave a speech on it on the Wednesday that we got back. Here is quick recap of that faithful day from hell which really challenged us, obstacle after obstacle, trying to bring our spirits down but failing to do so because of our perseverance and great positive attitudes.

Wednesday night was a great night, drinking wine and watching photos till the wee hours of the night between 10 sweaty, smelly, intoxicated friends, who somehow found themselves blessed with having delicious pesto, pasta, and seafood in Vernazza and drinking wine in Monterosso after 8 hours of cliffside, oceanside hiking through the terrains of Cinque Terre, Italy. With the view of the aquamarine blue waters of the Ligurian Sea, the taste of banana and strawberry gelato, and the smells of the delicious pesto still lingering in my senses, it was sad to face the harsh reality that we must depart the following Thursday morning on one of 2 trains: either the 7:30 am train (way too early - no way - we need more sleep, we don't want to miss the wonderful free breakfast at our hotel, and we would end up waiting at the airport for our 1:20 pm flight for over 3 hours) or the 10:45 am train (way too late - as we would miss our 1:20 pm flight). We decided to figure out an alternative train that would take us back to Genoa from Monterosso the next morning. We got our extra 1.5 hours of sleep, had our breakfast, and the hotel manager told us that we could hop on a 10:18 am train back to Genoa. It's not supposed to take us back to Genova Principe (the train station we need to go to), but rather it would take us to a different train station, Genova Brignole...however if we stayed on the train and not get off at Genova Brignole, we could still end up at Genova Principe. Wonderful!

10:18 AM
(1) We get on our train from Monterosso station to Genova Brignole.

12:00 PM
We arrive at Genova Brignole, and to our surprise, the train conductor kicks us all off the train as it is the end of the line, and no! they will not take us to Genova Principe station. CRAP! This is no good, as we need to get to the Genoa Airport by 12:20 PM to check-in for our 1:20 pm flight back to London. We have 20 minutes to get to the airport. There are only 2 ways one can get to the Genoa Airport, and that is by the Volabus, which is a bus that runs once an hour from the Genova Principe train station to the airport (no time for that as we are at the wrong train station), or by taxi cab...alright, I guess we have to use our contingency plan and hop into taxi cabs to drive us straight to the airport. There are 2 taxi cabs waiting around right in front of us. I ask the cab driver for 2 taxis to take 9 of us to the airport....AND...to my shock, we get the following reply "NO TAXIS! WE ARE ON STRIKE FOR THE NEXT 2 HOURS!" This is the case for all of Genoa. Was this a cruel joke from God? Were we on candid TV? The blank stares from each one of us with luggage in hand and backpacks on backs produced a feeling of initial dismal terror. Well this was quite an unfortunate turn of events...we did not have a contingency plan #2 ready for our failed contingency plan #1. The mad scramble started. Nobody in this city speaks English, and we have to figure a way out to get to the airport before our flight leaves. It is DEFCON 5 for us. Chris manages to buy Volabus tickets for all of us, and after the purchase, when he asks the ticket counter lady where we get on the bus, she says at Genova Principe Station!!! not here at the Genova Brignole Station!!! So, how do we get there? Based on local maps, people are thinking about walking/running to the airport from where we were when we had absolutely no idea how far we really were. Panic? Maybe. Darlene manages to speak to a local who explains where we need to hop on a Metra Bus that would take us to Genova Principe train station.

12:15 PM
(2) We get on the Genoa Metra Bus as we're packed in there like sardines with our luggage and backpacks hoping to God, that this bus gets us to Genova Principe train station. While on the bus, we hear Tagalog being spoken, so Jim and Darlene manages to strike up a conversation with fellow Filipinos on the bus to make sure that we are indeed on the right bus. A big "Salamat" to them.

12:30 PM
We arrive at the Genova Principe station and we have to quickly find out where we board onto the Volabus - the bus which takes us to the airport. We find out that we just missed the bus by a few minutes, and the next one doesn't arrive for almost another hour. (sigh) Realization has now settled in to know that we will not be making our 1:20 PM flight back to London.

By missing this flight, this unfortunate turn of events could potentially create a cascading trickle effect to not 1 travel itinerary, but to 4 different travel itineraries. Aside from Chris, Allison, Tim, and Darlene getting back to London, Jim and Phuc had pre-bought return train tickets from London to Paris for that afternoon right after we land in London. Similarly, Dan and Brian had pre-bought plane tickets from London to Amsterdam for that late afternoon. I had planned to take a train to Manchester that afternoon too. However, there was still hope that if we miss this flight, we could find another immediate flight back home. We shall see when we get to the airport.

1:15 PM
(3) The lavender colored Volabus finally arrives, and we depart for the airport. I find out that our flight back to London is delayed by 10 minutes, so it doesn't leave till 1:30 pm. It doesn't help, as we finally make it to the airport at 1:40 pm. We look a bit dejected, but still remain hopeful. We go up to the ticket counter, and they tell us that our return ticket on Ryan Air has been forfeited. Since we arrived after the flight had already departed, our tickets become garbage. What a waste. We would have to buy brand new one-way plane tickets to get back to London. Well...we soon found out that the 1:20 pm flight from Genoa to London was the ONLY flight back to London that day on Ryan Air. YIKES! There were no other flights back to London without having to pay over $1000, so we had the new challenge of just getting back to London on that day. We leave the ticket counter, and we find an internet kiosk.

2:00 PM
All of us are huddled around this red internet kiosk in the middle of the airport. We start feeding coins of Euros into this internet kiosk as we get onto kayak.co.uk to start searching for one way flights back to London from other nearby major hubs like Rome and Milan. We also tried to get tickets for going straight to Amsterdam, Manchester, and Paris for the other itineraries. We were doing searches for that evening, the next morning, the best fares, departing from various airports, etc...we did this for Milan to London, Rome to London, Milan to Manchester, Rome to Manchester, Milan to Amsterdam, Rome to Amsterdam, Milan to Paris, Rome to Paris, multiply this by 2 as we checked for both that Thursday evening and for the following Friday morning. Once we wrote down all the various options. We focused on the cheapest fares. While we have people at the internet kiosk, we have others finding out train schedules from Genoa to Milan. We find out that there is a train that goes to Milan from Genoa every half hour from the Genova Principe train station. We first book a flight for Jim and Phuc departing from Milan's Malpensa airport at 8:45 pm to Paris on Vueling Airline for the cheapest available fare of $190 per ticket. Now, that they have their flight booked, they need to get themselves back to Genova Principe train station via the Volabus (which runs only once an hour) and then get on the next train to Milan which leaves at 3:47 pm. We tell the reluctant couple to go on without us so that at the very least, they can make their flight from Milan to Paris. The clock is ticking and the internet kiosk meter is running a big bill as we keep throwing in Euros to buy more minutes. Next, I realize that there are no affordable flights to Manchester, so I give up on flying directly to Manchester. Instead, I decide that I will just take a train from London to Manchester. We find a flight on Air Alitalia from Milan's Malpensa Airport to London Heathrow departing at 8:40 pm for the cheapest fare of $264 per one-way ticket. It was the best we could find; I need to purchase 5 of these (for Chris, Tim, Darlene, Allison, and myself), but I keep getting an error page when I try buying the tickets. ARGH! So, at this point, I try going to the Air Alitalia ticket counter, and they quote me prices that are more expensive than the internet!!! Well, that won't work, so I head back to the internet kiosk. Dan and Brian chose to buy a $130 ticket on EasyJet from Milan's Malpensa Airport to Amsterdam, but departing at 7:00 am the following morning. They would need to sleep overnight at the Milan airport. They successfully buy their tickets, and now I get back on the kiosk, and I decide to go straight to the Air Alitalia website. I see that I can only buy 4 tickets at a time...maybe that's why we were getting the errors before. So, we decide to buy 3 tickets (Chris, Allison, and me) together, then quickly buy 2 more tickets (Tim and Dar) together. We luckily get the same price from kayak, and we successfully book the first set of tickets. Now, we quickly try to buy the last set of tickets, but wait!...is anyone watching the meter on the internet kiosk?!!....it's down to 30 seconds!...it would be terrible if we lost internet connection at this moment in the middle of the ticket purchase transaction. Tim yells out we need more money! Allison throws in a Euro in the kiosk, but it doesn't take the coin! Who put a damn cup on the kiosk which is in the way of the coin dispenser hole?! Tim yells out, "Get that cup out of the way!", we put in another Euro and with seconds to spare, the meter is back up to 6 minutes. Thank goodness. We successfully finish purchasing the last set of plane tickets. YIPEE! After spending maybe 20 Euros on the internet kiosk and being our own travel agents, we finished booking 4 separate itineraries. What time is it now?....It is 3:33 pm. The next train for Milan departs 3:47 pm. If we hop into taxi cabs (which by this time, the damn 2 hour strike is over), could we make it to Genova Principe train station from the airport in 14 minutes? I say YES! We have to try because if we miss it, we would have to wait another 30 minutes for the next train....at the luck we've been having, those 30 minutes could mean another catastrophe, so we are now in full Amazing Race mode. Where are the camera-men?

3:33 PM
(4) We hail 2 taxi cabs down, and we zoom off on the way to the Genova Principe train station. As the minutes quickly tick away, we determine that we will just buy our train tickets on the train. We call up Phuc and Jim who are sitting on the train, and they tell us the platform number. When we arrive there, we will need to jump out of our taxi cabs and sprint for the platform and jump on the train. We finally arrive at the train station at 3:47 PM. The 7 of us with backpacks and luggage race through the train station like mad banshees as Dan's big backpack plows over and through innocent pedestrians in the station like an NFL runningback breaking tackles to reach the endzone. We sprint in the train station going down the stairs, up the stairs, and Chris is the first to make it to the train platform. He yells "THE TRAIN IS STILL HERE!!" Jim and Phuc hears his voice and they see us. By the miracle of God, all 7 of us safely get on the train. As the last person gets on the train, the doors close, and the train departs. It departs not at 3:47 PM but at 3:50 PM. It was 3 minutes late, and it was those 3 minutes that bought us that extra time of making this train. We're out of breath but have smiles on our face as Jim and Phuc had their doubts of us making it.

3:50 PM
(5) The 9 of us are once again all together, and we are now on our merry way to Milan...a city that was not on any of our travel itineraries, but is now. We seem like we have created some good buffer in time as our first flight of the group leaves Milan at 8:40 pm. That is until Darlene asked Brian to see his "Let's Go Europe" travel book. Now, we're thinking that the airport would be somewhat close to the train station....OH...how wrong we were! The book shows us that Malpensa Airport is actually a whopping 47 km away from the central train station. We had a new challenge of figuring out the best way to get from the Milan train station to Malpensa Airport. We tried to figure out the Milan rail system by reading the travel book.

6:00 PM
Our train arrives in Milan, and we go into the subway system. We are in the fashion capitol of Europe and I can definitely see the high fashion sense by noticing numerous women who look like models with endless long legs that the eyes cannot avoid. Milan also has Il Duomo and the Last Supper painting, but sadly we had no time to do any sight-seeing. However, Brian and Dan had time as they didn't have to depart Milan till the next morning. We have to say our goodbyes to the two of them...but wait! We needed to get the train directions out of Brian's "Let's Go Europe" travel book, so we proceed to write down some of the major train stops onto Darlene's hand. I'm trying to figure out where to buy tickets for the express train to the airport, and I find out that I'm in the line for express buses. Chris patiently observes the locals buying their subway tickets from the ticket machines, and he copies the process to buy a subway ticket for 1 Euro for himself; he tests it out, and it works, so the rest of us buy our own subway tickets too. We say our goodbyes to Dan and Brian, as the 7 of us head for the airport. We don't know which way we're going or which subway to take as we're trying to figure out the rail system. (6) We hop on the first subway train which looks like is going to where we need to go. Once on the train, it takes us 3 subway stops to figure out that we were going the WRONG way. (7) We hop off the subway train, and then we hop back onto the subway train going in the right direction. We figured out which train station we need to go to in order to get on the Malpensa Express train. Tim, Dar, Allison, Chris, Jim, Phuc and I arrive at the Cadorna Railway Station by subway at 6:35 pm. We're starting to breathe a little bit easier.

6:55 PM
(8) The Malpensa Express train departs Cadorna station, and the 7 of us are on our way to the airport. There is no rest for the weary as we all need to check in at least one hour before our flight departure. Jim and Phuc depart at 8:45 pm for Paris, while the rest of us depart at 8:40 pm. The train arrives at Malpensa airport at approximately 7:30 pm. We say our goodbyes to Jim and Phuc as they are off to check-in with Vueling Airlines, while we have to check in with Air Alitalia. The 5 of us (Tim, Dar, Al, Chris, and I) successfully check-in and get our boarding passes at 7:40 pm. Now, you can imagine how important it was to catch that 3:47 train from Genoa to Milan; if we had missed that train, we would be running over 30 minutes behind, and we would be in jeopardy of getting on this last flight out to London from Milan.

We arrive at the gate and we wait in line to board. There is no jet way for us to board the plane, but rather, we have to hop on a bus from the gate which drives us to our plane parked in the middle of nowhere. As we wait in line, I get a phone call from Jim and Phuc, and they tell us that they are on their plane and getting ready to take-off. We wish we were in their shoes at that moment as we were still waiting in line at the gate. All of a sudden, we look up at the monitors in the gate, and it says that our flight has been suspended! Then, we see the first group of people, who boarded the bus, getting off the bus and coming back into the gate. Through word of mouth, we find out that the plane is having mechanical issues as a piece of the plane is broken. At this moment, I have a flashback, and I can recall one of my co-worker's stories. My co-worker/friend, Markus, had flown on Air Alitalia to Italy for his honeymoon last year, and after that trip, he vowed to never ever fly Air Alitalia again because of all of the delays dues to mechanical failures. He didn't get home back to the states until the following day of his scheduled return date. He warned me about them, but nevertheless, with our current desperate situation, we didn't have many other choices outside of Air Alitalia. Now, we're sitting in the gate waiting and waiting. It's been one hour, and we notice the first group of people get back on the bus...wonderful, they fixed the plane, and we might be departing soon. But! Alas! We see the monitor say that the flight has been suspended again, and we see that group of people come off the bus again! We find out through word of mouth, that the airline decided to change planes! We're not sure why, but we hear that they had to change to a smaller plane, and that they need to kick 6 people off the flight, as the smaller plane doesn't have enough seats for everyone. Mind you, there are no public announcements on the loudspeaker system because with the bad reputation that Air Alitalia has with on-time departures, they don't want to alarm the passengers, and they decide to just keep quiet about it. We know what's going on just through word of mouth. At this point, I really don't know if we'll be sleeping over night at the airport. Almost 2 hours have passed as we continue to wait in the gate with some very irritated waiting passengers. Finally, we start boarding the bus standing on the tarmac. (9) The bus drives us from the gate down the tarmac to the middle of nowhere. Our plane awaits us, and we board the plane. While I'm looking for my seat, I see that my seat doesn't exist on this plane. Of course, we're on a totally differently configured plane. The flight attendant tells us that it is open seating - first come first serve, so therefore, the 5 of us immediately grab the emergency row seats. I can understand why open seating was not announced back in the gate; there would've been a mass riot of people trying to mob their way onto the bus to get first dibs on seats on the plane.

10:40 PM
(10) After a 2 hour delay, our flight finally takes off and we are in the air. This was the first flight I had ever been on with an all-male flight attendant crew...strange. Also, I finished off the worst airplane meal; it was some sort of sandwich with 2 layers of cheese and green colored bread inside 2 white bread. The flavor was just simply very foreign and odd to me. Maybe I shouldn't have eaten this meal because of what to come later on.

11:30 PM
We manage to gain an hour by changing time zones as we land in London Heathrow. Chris' flat is on the opposite side of town from London Heathrow as this is the most inconvenient airport for getting to and from Chris' flat. We understand that the London Underground shuts down at around midnight, but we race through customs and we hope we can grab the last tube train from London Heathrow to the city center. When we arrive at the Underground, we dejectedly find out that the Underground is closed. Our next option is to take the night buses from London Heathrow Airport to the city center. We make our way to the bus stop, and wait for the N9 bus.

11:55 PM
(11) We hop on the N9 double decker red night bus. We sit at the top level, and we start a new 2 hour journey to Trafalgar Square in the city center. We are very, very far from the center of London, and Chris tells us that it will take 2 hours to just get to Trafalgar Square and then another 1 hour by bus to get to his flat. Wow! The day and night of travel seems never-ending. At some point, our bus comes to a complete stop, and the driver tells us that we all must get off the bus and transfer onto another N9 bus. Huh?! We are absolutely baffled. This is a very odd occurrence. We're transferring from one N9 bus to another N9 bus. Did our bus break down? Well, nothing would surprise me at this point. (12) So now, we're on the 2nd N9 bus of our trek to Trafalgar Square at the city center. We have a long ways to go still, so Chris pulls out his Nintendo DS and Dar/Tim pulls out their Nintendo DS, so we can all play some one-on-one Mario Ware games. I take my turn, and I'm playing Nintendo DS while in the moving bus. This was a mistake on my part. For me, personally, I get motion sickness whenever I read or focus my eyes on something small like playing video games in a moving train or car. Well, I started to get sick in my stomach, and remember that messed up green sandwich I had on the Air Alitalia flight?...well, that wasn't helping my symptoms of nausea. I had to stop playing Nintendo DS, and just try to control my nauseous stomach. We've been riding on this bus for almost 2 hours, and I'm a little afraid of hurling up my green sandwich on the bus.

1:45 AM
The bus finally comes to the end of the line at Trafalgar Square. We get off the bus, and I graciously welcome the cool fresh air to help rid my nausea. This is when I inform my travelmates, that I may vomit at any point. Luckily, I did not. Chris says that there is another bus we would need to hop onto for another 1 hour ride to his flat, and I said NO!....let's get into a black taxi and try to get home as quickly as possible. (13) We find a black taxi, pay the extra quid, and head for Chris' flat.

2:18 AM
We arrive into Chris' flat at 2:18 AM. We are greeted by his sister and her boyfriend who had just flown in from the states. After a day that started in Monterosso, Italy at 10:18 AM, we finally arrived at our destination 17 hours later (including the 1 hour from the time zone change). It was quite an experience to remember. For many, it was all just a blur, but for me, it was quite vivid. As for me, I still needed to get up early the next morning and find a train to Manchester and I arrived in Manchester 16 hours behind schedule on the following Friday afternoon.

In summary, what was supposed to be a 6 hour travel day from Cinque Terre to London, turned out to be a 17 hour travel day, and a $305 breakfast after adding up all of the additional on-the-fly transportation costs. As you read through the journey, you may have noticed parenthesized numbers - these represent each form of transportation which totaled up to 13 different transportation vehicles we had taken by the end of the 17 hour trek. Based on my experience, that is unprecedented. Disclaimer: some times are not accurate, but rather estimates.

So, in conclusion, was this most-memorable experience a good one or bad one? hmmm...I'll let you be the interpreter and judge on that for yourself. As for me, honestly, I wouldn't mind doing it all over again. After all, it makes for a great story to be told for years to come. There is conflict, villains, suspense, surprise, underdog heroes, triumph, and conclusion.

After speaking to other people about the taxi strike, which triggered our doom, I found out that these strikes are a very common occurrence in Italy. There are train strikes too. Even the semi-trucks go on strike, and when they do, they stop in the middle of the highways and roads to block all traffic. It's just a way of life that people deal with in Italy. If that is indeed the case, well then, we can certainly proudly say that we lived through it too.

As you may all remember, before the trip began, during the preparation stages, when Phuc asked what should we bring to Europe, Chris and most of us all responded with one of the most important ingredients needed for a successful trip - that being an open-minded, positive attitude. Boy, did this come in handy during our most challenging moments. Smiles, laughter, joking, and our care-free spirit really helped make light of the more potentially stressful situations. I can guarantee you that this was not the first time we missed a flight, and it won't be the last time either. I'm looking forward to our next Amazing Race.