My brother and I flew to Sacramento to spend Christmas and New Year with my aunt and cousin last December. We left Sydney on December 8 and arrived on the same date in Sacramento -- longest December 8 of my life. Literally and figuratively. As soon as we got through immigration, we ran to our boarding gate and arrived just in time for boarding. It was chaotic at the airport. I knew it was that time of the year but I didn't think it would be that crazy already.
From Sydney, we stopped over in Manila for about 4 hours. Our parents and brother met us at the airport. We looked forward to eating in Jollibee. Luckily, there is a Jollibee stall at the airport terminal we were at. We left our summer clothes with them as we will still spend a few more days in Manila after our West Coast trip before heading back to Sydney.
From Manila, we stopped over in Los Angeles. That airport is huge and confusing! We arrived in LA at around 7 or 8 pm, LA time. We were travelling for, more or less, 27 hours already, including stopovers. We were so tired. We walked a fair bit to find where the terminal for Delta Airlines was for our connecting flight to Sacramento. We were hungry and my brother was dying to have coffee. Since we had enough time before boarding our next and last (At that time, I fully understood what Land Down Under totally meant!) flight for that day, we sat down in a coffee shop and ate the Dunkin Donut munchkins our family bought us when we were Manila. All we did were sleep, eat, sit and watch movies during the seemingly endless plane rides to the point that doing so became super tiring, too. Hahaha! Fortunately for me, I have no issues with sleeping. Jet lag does not exist in my system. I can sleep anywhere and quickly. I also wore my trusted compression leggings, which really helped because I was mostly asleep and sitting down during the flights. I had cough and colds a few days prior to flying. I was worried that either I would get really sick during the long flight or I would make other people sick. So I loaded myself some Rikodeine, antibiotics (as per my GP's advice, of course) and double dosed on Vitamin C. On the day of our flight, I had no colds and I wasn't coughing, yay.
We finally arrived in Sacramento around 10 or 11 pm, I think. We surely looked like shit but whatever. Hahaha! Even though I changed clothes in between stopovers, I was dying to take my clothes off, hit the shower, scrub all the dirt in my body and sleep lying down. I felt like I haven't taken a shower in 2 days! Yikes. Anyway, I liked the Sacramento airport. I even liked that there weren't a lot of people because it's almost midnight. Since my aunt just had surgery, she said that a family friend and my cousin will be the ones who would pick us up. She tried to surprise us but she wasn't sure if she was going to surprise the right people because she hadn't seen us in flesh for quite a long time. She actually almost missed us if her friend hadn't pointed us to her! It was a lovely mini-reunion. We haven't seen our aunt since she left the Philippines in 2006. It was also our first time to meet our cousin.
We stopped over at McDonald's first before heading to our aunt's house, which was the most final destination of the day. I wasn't hungry but I ordered large fries, just in case. Well, I thought I wasn't hungry until I took a bite of my fries. I was so flat out that the Maccas fries tasted better than usual. Hahaha! They drove us around a bit to show some of the spots in Downtown and some streets that are known for their Christmas lights decors.
When we got home, it was nonstop chika with my aunt while unpacking. My brother and cousin headed straight to the bedroom and played video games. We slept at 4 in the morning and woke up in time for brunch. And what did we have for our first (okay, that wasn't really the first because we had Maccas the night before) proper meal? BACONNNN! Legit American Bacon, yaaaassss!
Since we were still tired, we didn't do much that day. We just went to Walmart and did some grocery shopping. Since it was our first day and first time in the US, my brother and I grabbed every American goodies that we liked. I also bought myself some undergarments and foot socks because I only packed a few (to make room for my winter clothes -- as if naman may weight yung mga undergarments!). Hahaha! We bought so much junk food that we forgot to buy "real" food (we had to go back the next day). The lady at the register asked us jokingly where we live because we bought so much food. Then she asked, "Are you, guys, Filipinos?" We answered her. And she replied, "Yeah, I thought so. You, guys, always have a lot of food." Haha!
We also bought more Christmas decors because my aunt was feeling really extra because of her successful surgery, my grandma's successful surgery and the fact that we flew there for the holidays. :)
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