(From Mom’s trip journal: Told from her perspective)
We were early to rise again this morning, for another travel day. I was up at 6:30 to get a shower before other people starting getting up. The cove was beautiful this morning. We got dressed and finished our packing, then loaded up the car and headed out by 8:00am. We decided to skip breakfast at Virgin Cove in hopes for something better at Aggie Gray’s in Apia. So we bumped our way down the dirt road and out to the cross-island road for the trip back to Apia. We were looking forward to a good western style breakfast and from the guide books, Aggie’s seemed our best bet. We paid our $15 per person for the buffet then entered the food line. We saw poached eggs, fried eggs easy over (yuck!), spaghetti with tomato sauce…… things weren’t looking good here! Our faces must have shown our disappointment and we were just about to ask for our money back when the chef at the head of the food line asked if we would like an omelet. We were thrilled and both order a ham and cheese omelet. That dude saved the day!
We had an okay breakfast then realized we were going to have way too much time before we needed to be at the airport so we took a drive down the eastern end of the island for 45 minutes or so then turned back to head into town for the airport. That’s when Jessie commented that we didn’t know where the airport was. Our map didn’t show it. We stopped to fill the rental car up with gas and asked for directions. Even with directions it took us a few wrong turns and some backtracking to finally happen onto it. The Apia airport is small so it didn’t take long to check in, even with all of our extra baggage and goodies we were toting. We managed to get our “weapons” through customs without a problem. Our plane arrived on time and quickly started taking on passengers. Jessie and I were some of the earliest passengers to board and we sat more toward the back of the plane this time. It was interesting watching a group of “larger” Samoans try to get down the aisle and into their seats. At last all were boarded and we headed down the runway and were quickly flying the friendly skies again. I still don’t feel too comfortable in these small planes. Thirty minutes later we’re on the ground and collecting our baggage in American Samoa. Again, a quick pass through customs and we snagged a taxi for the ride to Jessie’s house.
We hoped to get a rental car from a place near the airport but were disappointed when they told us they had no cars. It turns out that all the rental car places are out of cars due the Fema and Red Cross workers in town after the tsunami and the locals who are renting due to their cars being damaged. So we went home and unloaded our luggage then had the taxi driver come back to take us to the grocery store. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are having Thanksgiving dinner with some of Jessie’s friends so we need to pick up the things for our cooking. I had a good time checking out the KS-Mart and all the foods that they have. I was surprised at the number of US brands that they carry. We ended up with a full cart including stuffing fixings, the ingredients for carrot cake cupcakes, a cake mix, and a few other odds and ends. Our taxi driver waited while we shopped so it was a quick ride back home. We spent the evening doing some laundry, backing, and working on organizing photos and writing this travel journal. Jessie made us some chicken tacos for dinner too. As usual, we showered and turned in by about 10:30.
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| 11.21.2009_WesternSamoaWithMom |
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