Our Journey Across the World: St. Paul - Korea

It was midnight by the time we arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota. Of course we were not going to make our flight to Las Vegas. Delta had promised us a hotel voucher, and boarding passes for the first flight to San Francisco in the morning. Unfortunately, the counter agent who met the plane didn't have any idea how to do anything. She said something about a new system, and something like that. We weren't really too concerned about a hotel voucher, but we just wanted to be sure that we made it to San Francisco, and hopefully with our luggage. So, we went downstairs to the baggage claim area, and after some waiting, they found our luggage. We had some "mock" tickets for our flight to San Francisco, and so we just had to wait. They told us that people started lining up around 4am, so going to a hotel wouldn't have made much sense anyways. We were hungry, though, and needed some food. Someone told us about a restaurant that was open and that delivered to the airport, so we spent some time, and change trying to call them, or someone else that might deliver. That got us no where.

We had been told that there was a MacDonalds and a Quizno's that was open 24 hours. So, we went up to the floor that was on, and asked security if one of us could go through, to go to MacDonalds to get us some food. They were very kind, and let me go through to get us some dinner. At about 4 am we decided to go get in line. We were standing in line when someone came and asked us if we were waiting for boarding passes, and if so, we were in the wrong line.

We had to go line up with a gazillion people, many of whom were headed down south to some place tropical! Thankfully, that line moved pretty quickly, thanks to the use of computerized ticketing agents. We had to speak with someone, though. The gentleman who helped us gave us our boarding passes to San Francisco, and assured us that our bags (which we didn't have to pay for again, thank goodness!) were checked all the way to Korea.

We got on the plane to San Francisco, and it wasn't too crowded, so we had some breathing room, and it was actually a pretty nice flight. Flying in to San Francisco was beautiful. There were beautiful mountains coming up to that area. The most amazing, though, was the fog. The pilot had told us leaving St. Paul that there was fog in San Francisco, but I couldn't believe it. It was like a warm, fuzzy blanket had just covered the whole city. It was something I'm really thankful to have had the opportunity to see.

Once we got to San Francisco airport we had a very long trip up to the international terminal. It was a long walk, and we were both already exhausted. We got to the Korean Air ticket counters, and they were stressing out about our luggage, and whether or not it would actually go through to Korea. So, they wanted us to call the airline to ensure that they would. I called them, on one of the courtesy phones, and was disconnected a few times before I finally got through to someone who assured us that our bags would make it to Korea.

In the San Francisco airport we went through customs for the final time, and once again, Derek's PS3 got a good cleaning off. He was actually getting very accustomed to the process, and was chit chatting with the security guys. We then found a restaurant and had a great lunch. We both got a cheeseburger and fries. The restaurant didn't have too many options, but everytime they brought something out for someone, it kept looking more and more amazing. Derek did regret not getting the Cesear Salad, because it was huge. But, alas, we enjoyed the food, and the little bit of a break from airplanes.

Finally, we got on the plane to Korea. Poor Derek was exhausted and spent most of the flight sleeping. Thankfully that flight was also not packed full, and we had some extra space to breathe more. Korean Air rocks! There were so many movies to watch, games to play, and although the food wasn't my favorite, there was at least food. Derek didn't eat anything for the entire time we were on airplanes, or drink anything. He was very paranoid about the washrooms on the planes.

Overall, it was about a 38 hour journey, 5 different airports, 4 different planes, and a completely different world than the one we left.