but while my friend, Michelle, and I were on our way down to LA to see the girls, I sure wish I did!
It was a chaotic day.
SFO had an emergency landing on one of their runways, therefore delaying a whole heap of flights - cancelling some... including ours. We made the most of it, found another airline that was flying down there, and had a chatty drink at the bar while we waited through our 5 hour delay.
But, a family visiting from China behind us in line, did not.
They didn't speak very much english... they only knew a few words - and no one in our terminal at SFO knew any Chinese. From what I could gather from them, they were doing a self-guided tour through California and they had to catch another flight in LA before heading back to China.
I felt so helpless. I was trying to think of different ways I could find out some Chinese words. I even looked up a translator app on the iPhone, but it was taking so long. (I was also speaking very loudly, I finally caught myself, but you know when you're trying to tell someone something and they don't understand you speak louder, thinking it's your volume and not your words... I must have sounded like a dork!)
So, I thought... who do I know that knows Chinese??
Of course... a very smart reporter from my work, Suzanne Phan, speaks it. She lived in China for a while. She's also extremely nice.
So, I called her. She was driving and had to pull over to help me... but she translated everything for this family over the phone. She had a full conversation in Chinese with them, and they got all the details they needed!
It was awesome.
She was so helpful, and I cannot tell you how thankful that family was. They kept saying "Thank you", over and over.
After my short little list of places I have been out of the country, I know how frustrating it can be when you are somewhere no one else knows what you are trying to say and you can't understand a thing. It can really ruin everything!
Hope you are having a fabulous Sunday!
