Air Vanuatu is officially the greatest airline of all time. Qantas is good-- Air New Zealand is better, I would discover, and Air Pacific much worse, but Air Vanuatu takes the cake. I almost missed my flight from Sydney (forgot about the time difference and showed up half an hour late to boarding... oops!) but finally took off-- significantly delayed of course-- and then it hit me: I was flying into a third world country I've never been to and whose language I don't speak late at night to live with a woman I've never met before, and because of that, I'd made no contingency plan and had no idea what I'd do if she wasn't there. I had a momentary panic attack and, given the circumstances, I thought some drinks were in order. I asked the AirVan flight attendant if they had any whiskey and she just smiled. She didn't come with one of those shitty little 50ml bottles of Jack or Jim; no, no, she whipped out a plastic jug of Johnnie Walker-- a proper ass-pocket of whiskey!-- and poured me a full-to-the-brim cup, no ice, and then gave me cups of ice and coke respectively so I could mix as I see fit. Holy shit, I was happy. So in the 3-hour flight I had 2 of those, and 3 Vanuatu beers (Tusker--pretty damn good!).
But nothing sobers you up like customs which, luckily, went smoothly and I stepped out into a balmy ass night and walked right into Susan. Her first thought was "This can't be him, he's too young!" and my first thought was "That can't be her, she's too old!" and 1,500 vatu (about $15) worth of taxi later we arrived at her humble abode, where I promptly unpacked, was given the grand tour, and went to sleep. So far so good.
Drink Count: 8
My room:
Susan's House:
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