Out Of Country

The night before last, I got back from my trip to Jamaica. I correctly judged that I would not be up to the task of writing anything that same night, so I had something ready to go tomorrow. Today I will at least begin the task of describing how it all went, although whether there's any real appeal in hearing about it is debatable. Who doesn't like talking about their own vacation? Who doesn't hate it when someone else does?

I did little to prepare for the trip until late in the game. On the big day, I still had to buy a lot of things, and found myself frantically traipsing around the neighborhood, inefficiently making multiple trips to the print show, the library and the area where both the drugstore and the grocery store may be found. Between the print shop and the library, there were four separate trips just to print out things, which suggests that I really ought to buy new printer cartridges.

Finally I headed out, and found that if one must fly out of LAX, the Flyaway bus is a reasonable way to handle it. I think it took about forty minutes to reach that bus, and about that much time to reach the airport, where I breezed through security and found myself at the gate with some two hours to spare. It seemed a better fate than missing the plane, and I managed to avoid a lot of stress. So far things were going well.

The flight from LAX put me in Charlotte shortly before 8 in the morning, and there I met my aunt (with whom I was to travel the rest of the way). Together we enjoyed the treat of filling out Jamaican immigration and customs forms on the plain. Between the two of us, we muddled through it. After reaching Jamaica, we were met by a kind woman who was to push my aunt's wheelchair. Her presence was fortuitous, as she led us through the customs and immigration process, even correcting our forms and speaking on our behalf with officials.

She took us as far as the meeting place for tourists bound for our resort. We handed off our luggage and resigned ourselves to wait in the lounge area for the bus. I helped myself to a beer and my aunt to some juice, but we'd hardly had a sip before the bus appeared. I downed the rest of my drink and we got on the bus for what we assumed to be a short trip. It was not that, but I won't be such a bore as to continue on with that. Maybe another day.