As I’ve mentioned before, my trip to Europe last May basically encompassed much of my 2017 (and the very latter parts of 2016, if we’re being honest; trip planning is not a walk in the park). Because it was such a huge deal for me, I figured that I’d open up a Eurotrip series on this website so that a.) I can have something to remember the trip by and b.) I can hopefully serve as a source of information and/or inspiration for any other Filipino millenials out there that are dreaming of going to Europe in the near future. I’ll try my very hardest to put up an entry every Monday for every day of our 15 day trip through six European countries. I’m so thankful that I’ve journaled pretty consistently during my trip.
My beat up journalSo here, goes: 2016 Eurotrip, Day 0: Manila, Philippines to Paris, France via Eva Airways
The division of labor for our Eurotrip was this: A was in charge of booking the flights because, I kid you not, she is some kind of a savant in finding cheap flights to anywhere. We’ve been travelling together for the past five years and she’s usually the one who snags the lowest fares. In this case, she managed to score us round trip flights from Manila to Paris for only a little over 36,000 PHP. It’s still a lot, I know, but the destination is literally on the other side of the world from the Philippines so.
Our outbound flight was on May 3rd at 6:45 in the evening in NAIA terminal 1 so I still had enough time to put in a half-day’s shift at work. I met up with A at her place in BGC at around half-past noon where her mom was kind enough to feed me lunch before we started our long journey to Paris. We booked a grab taxi to NAIA Terminal 1 where we fell in line again (to check in) and again (for the stupid travel tax) and again (through immigration). Check in was a breeze and the ground staff was even kind enough to let me hand carry my 40L backpack (in retrospect, this was a mistake LOL) but the line at immigration pretty much sucked. Still, we got to our gate with plenty of time to spare (I even got me one of those 100 PHP Starbucks Frappes – decaf, so I can snooze on the plane) and boarded at around 06:10 PM.
2016 Eurotrip – Day 0: Manila, Philippines to Paris, France
" data-orig-size="3264,2448" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" data-image-title="2016 Eurotrip – Day 0: Manila, Philippines to Paris, France" data-orig-file="https://i1.wp.com/www.veiledmusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DSCN4089-01.jpeg?fit=3264%2C2448" aperture="aperture" />EVA Air’s Hello Kitty Plane!!!Apparently EVA Airlines has some kind of tie up with San Rio so the planes we boarded for both flights were all decked out in Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty barf bag, Hello Kitty pillows, Hello Kitty everything! It was pretty much the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Of course, it wouldn’t have been a flight out of NAIA if it weren’t delayed, so our 06:45 PM flight took off at around 7:00.
2016 Eurotrip – Day 0: Manila, Philippines to Paris, France
" aperture="aperture" />Hello Kitty Barf BagStill, even with the delay, we managed to make it to Taipei in less than two hours. I pretty much slept through most of it but I will forever be amazed at the fact that EVA Air still managed to serve the entire plane diner in such a short amount of time. We landed at around nine in the evening and boarded our Paris bound flight at eleven thirty. As you can imagine, A and I were very sleepy at this point. Apparently the whole plane had to refuel so we didn’t actually take off until a little bit past midnight, despite the 11:40 PM ETD.
2016 Eurotrip – Day 0: Manila, Philippines to Paris, France
" aperture="aperture" />Hello Kitty Boarding PassI had prepared myself with the mindset that I shall be snoozing as soon as the plane takes off but the crew had other ideas; they served the first meal around an hour into the flight which kind of sucked because I was still pretty full from the first meal I had so I didn’t get to enjoy it as much. Luckily the crew pretty much left us to our own after that first service. The flight was surprisingly uneventful, considering that the plane was pretty jam-packed. Thirteen hours kind of flew by with me alternating between watching TV shows and snoozing.
We landed at a foggy Paris at around seven in the morning and this is what we looked like after roughly over 30 hours of travelling.
2016 Eurotrip – Day 0: Manila, Philippines to Paris, France
" data-orig-size="2976,1664" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" data-image-title="2016 Eurotrip – Day 0: Manila, Philippines to Paris, France" data-orig-file="https://i1.wp.com/www.veiledmusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/IMG_20170504_094123-01.jpeg?fit=2976%2C1664" p70-a="p70-a" />happy, but tired (on the train to the city center)Stay tuned for Day 2.
