Stress-free airport ride and wait

IC and MC getting busy

Off to the airport after ticking off our list of things to do.

We had three luggages, two big ones and one small. Actually, we have a secret weapon as we were planning to shop til we drop: one big, sturdy bag is folded inside one of the big luggages. We arrived at least two hours earlier before our flight and as expected, the check in counter for Thai Airways was already open.

There was a slight snag though, the kids, having only their temporary kiddie passports from Deutschland; were not allowed to fly to Bangkok using those passports. There was a change in policy in Thailand which our 'friendly travel agent' never even bothered to inform us, duh! My hubby was prepared to skip Bangkok and fly direct to Manila but then I reminded him that the kids have also their Philippine passports. Problem solved! But next time, we told ourselves to check everything and not rely on our travel agent.

We waited for at least two hours but we were prepared to wait as I have filled the backpacks of both girls with crayons, papers, card games and toys. And of course, there were the restaurants. Plus, we got to play penpen de sarapen; a play involving only the fingers and knowing the words to the 'pen pen de sarapen song.' We were the hit while waiting for boarding. Imagine the girls talking in Deustch and English and singing and playing a purely Tagalog 'pen pen de sarapen'? There were confused smiles and questioning glances.

In case you want to know the lyrics of 'pen pen de sarapen', here goes:

Pen pen de sarapen
de kutsilyo de almasen
how how de carabao
batuten

sipit namimilipit
gintong pilak namumulaklak
sa tabi ng dagat

sayang pula, tatlong pera
sayang puti, tatlong salapi

timpalok, timpalok
sampung manok!

And the game goes like these: Everyone who wants to join simply needs to spread their hands while singing and the appointed leader of the game would simply point and pass on to every fingers. When the song ends in a particular finger, that finger would have to say goodbye and would not be counted for the next song. This would go on until all the fingers said goodbye. The kids love this.

And oh, we also did the 'ilong, ilong' (nose, nose) where you need to point the nose two times and try to confuse the players by saying a part of the face/body yet pointing to the wrong part. We had fun and it was not boring for the kids while we waited for two hours. After all, we had to sit for almost 10 hours on our flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok.

Most important things to have a stress free airport ride and wait:
1. We loaded up our luggages in the car a day before our flight.
2. We were ready at least an hour before driving to the airport (the kids were ready three hours before our scheduled pick up!)
3. My hubby took care of checking the last minute list; I did the re-checking
4. The kids got a load of things to do on their respective backpacks: crayons, papers, card games, toys and some extra, sweets.
5. We arrived early so we skipped the long line at the check in counter
6. We took time for a stroll, for some snacks, for an art work, and to play