Monday 2 January 2012

Miami Airport

There was one really good blog title I had not used yet: SWEET ANGELS. This is what the waitress at Jaxson's called our boys a few weeks ago. She says that they are extremely well-behaved and 'we don't often see that in here, the American kids behave like wild animals'.

Two flights down and two to go.... Brendan keeps telling me very optimistically that we are halfway now because 'we have done two flights out of four' today, but those were local flights on Bahamas Air and we still need to do Miami - Philadelphia, Philadelphia - London. That is many hours of flying ahead of us.

I wish boats were like hotel rooms: walk out, check out. IF ONLY!

Leaving Queenie is STRESS FULL (double l intended).

Our neighbour was having a ciggie on deck. I admired his tattoos, then managed to foist all groceries on him, (the perishables like butter and cheese etc) TICK!

Then another guy appeared. Practically broke in to the big motor cruiser Bellissimo. Those cruisers must be fast asleep or not there at all - I observed, walking the lemniscate on a jetty. However, turns out it was Ulric this guy was looking for. He can't be much good at reading boat names, confusing a yacht and motorboat....Mmm... Apparently he is our next boat repair person. Another saga starts.... TICK!

I took Brendan for a walk as we will have many hours of sitting on airplanes. Suddenly Quinn and Elliott were out walking too, with a tray of reindeer cakes. Stored in the oven and very nearly forgotten... Fancy the smells in three months' time! The boys had their feast.

The taxi arrived late. I went to reception to chase it. Extracting Ulric from the boat took even longer - always the hardest job on the list. TICK! However, the REAL problems started at the airport.

The lady on check in desk was asked to verify our visa status for entering the USA. This threw her. She misspelled Belfast (where Ulric's visa was issued) and a long LONG line built behind us as she got nowhere at all. In the end she handwrote us boarding passes, making a point of not allocating us seats and not guaranteeing us a place on the flight. (Five places we had paid full price for, obviously!)

I admit that I made some sarcastic comments. I even admitted to Quinn that I felt some "anger management issues"! However, Quinn said, very matter of factly, "No Mum, that is mood swings! You never hit anyone and I have never seen you strangle anyone either!"

So that is OK then?!

Right... flight to Philly is leaving in 45 minutes. Ulric might pop to the business lounge and post one more blog. This blog is not uplifting and not interesting either, but it is a good excuse to post that picture of the bird that befriended us at the Warwick Cay islands!

By Imelda Almqvist