Dad offers to drive me at 6am to LGA for my flight to Belize. Super generous... Even brought me a cup of coffee I eventually spilled all over my bag later. I tell him to take me to Terminal C, because the email says I'm leaving from Gate C7. "Are you sure? I only see Delta." It's all the same, I say. Amateur mistake. Of course it's the wrong terminal, and dad's gone, and they tell me to take the shuttle bus to the right terminal.
I get a message from Megan, one of the girls I'm going with, and she says that the flight is overbooked, and they're re-routing her through Newark, but they're paying the $100 car fare there and it'll be direct to Belize instead of going through houston. We'll leave an hour later but get there an hour earlier. Bad news becomes good news. I tell her to get me on that, too.
No one is anywhere to be found at the terminal I got off at, an when I ask someone where the shuttle bus is, a guy just grunts and points. I go outside, and there's a shuttle bus stop but it's not convincing. There's construction right in front. I ask a baggage guy where the shuttle is. He grunts and points "across the street." I go across the street, and 5 minutes later, a shuttle stops at the light, but refuses to pick me up. He also points. I'm now charging behind the bus, with all my shit, the cold winter air tightening up my lungs. I eventually catch it, lose my backup credit card on the sprint. Great.
I get to the counter. There are a couple of cops pointing to a bag, sitting on the floor unattended. About 2 seconds later, a third cop comes by with a huge dog to sniff the bag. I move behind the pillar, as if that's going to stop the bomb from killing me. Right on the other side of me, there's a group of about 8 people who look very confused when the lady tells them their kids cannot travel without passports.
Idiots. Something about airports turn everyone into idiots.
I get in my own $100 car to Newark. Jorge asks me if I speak Spanish. I say yes, but it's been a while. My Spanish is rusty. Within 5 minutes, we're having the usual conversation...where and why I learned Spanish, what I do for a living, and the fact that no, I don't have any kids.
It also didn't take long for Jorge, a medium-dark man from Ecuador, living in corona, queens, to tell me that the schools near him aren't good because "there are too many black people... But the schools in white plains are good... Lots of white people.." And "you have a lot of Chinese? They're really smart, right?"
I am usually reminded, when I travel, that when it comes to racism, America isn't necessarily the worst.
Get to Newark. It's packed. On line to go through security, the drug sniffing dog marched right past everyone else and jams his nose right into my cooter and asshole. he likes me," I say to the security guy. "Wait, please," he responds, after the dog has figured out that I was not smuggling any drugs in my orifices.
The flight leaves an hour late, and we still arrive in belize an hour before we were supposed to.
When we arrive, we learn that they left poor Megan's bag in Newark. They had also left a whole family's bags behind, and the bag of an older woman whose medicine was left in Newark as well.
Pro tip: NEVER check your medicine in. Always carry it on. Also, pack a bathing suit in your carry on, so at least you can spend the whole time at the beach.
The bag, in theory, we're told, was going to be on the same flight coming in the next day, and they would ship it to caye caulker, our next destination. Megan thinks maybe it's best to stay and wait for it. I tell her "you don't even know that they're going to get it here at all," which seemed to greatly offend the woman, as she got a little snippy with me and said "hey! This is pretty good.. We know where it is!" As if we should thank United for knowing where Megan's bag was at least.
Megan is a trooper... She sucks it up, buys a new baths suit and sarong, and we go to the hotel.
It's about 70 degrees with a strong wind, a little too strong to sit by the pool, so Sarah, Megan, and I went to the little shack restaurant on the dock of our hotel. My fish tacos and beer came out to about $7, and the girls ordered coladas bigger than their heads. There was some country music playing, and when we wrinkled our noses at our waiter all of a sudden the soundtrack turned to reggae, which was more than welcome.
The three R's of this trip: Rum, Relaxation, and Reggae. Off to a great start.
We find out that right next to the hotel, they're setting up for a party for the 10th anniversary of this park, and although there's no one there, they've been blasting the likes of 80's and 90's reggae (plus Rihanna, of course) on these enormous speakers all day, it starts at 6, and there's also a club in our casino/hotel, and it's Saturday night and we're going to dance all night.
We show up at 7, and we're pretty much the only ones there. We are then told that nothing gets going either at the party, or the club, until midnight or 1. The $5 cover got us all the rum drinks we could drink, and for me that number of drinks was "1," because it was a long day. We danced by ourselves and talked to the guy pouring the rum and ate a couple of pupusas in the park (Salvadoran corn cakes stuffed with beans and cheese) and went back to the hotel and passed out.
At 9:30 pm.
The first day of of a trip is usually a bust anyway. we didn't do what we set out to do, but the weather is nice, my legs and face are seeing the sun, and the company is fantastic.
No comments:
Post a Comment