Tuesday 16 April 2013

A bit of a sense of humour failure

It was all going so well...

Got to Heathrow and parked the car with oodles of time to spare and treated ourselves to a coffee and pastry in Carluccio's while we were waiting for the Check-In desk to open. (Yes, we were THAT early) Fortunately...as it turned out, because we hadn't realised that we needed something called an ESTA (?) in order to enter the US...even though it was only a stopover in Miami...

"You can apply online," said the lovely BA girl, "but sometimes it can take two hours..." Panic, panic, off to Caffe Nero where they had a computer, struggled to find the website, to fill in a long form THREE times (one for each of us) all the while pumping pound coins into the slot because the Internet sessions only lasted ten minutes, heart thumping, blood pressure rising, but then...PHEW, it all came through and we made the flight...

It was all going so well...

Then we got to Miami International, to discover that the queue for US Passport control was at least two hours long...TWO HOURS?...slightly less than the time we had to make the connection for the flight to the Dominican Republic. "When you miss the flight, I guess someone will tell you how to go about catching the next one," said the grumpy airport official, pointing to large signs saying that due to government cuts (let's all blame Obama, shall we?) they were short staffed so things would take a little longer than usual...

FINALLY, after two hours, another official took pity on us and moved us to the (very short) queue for US Citizens only and we got through...

It was all going so well...

We ran to Departures, only to find that the special bottle of champagne, bought for the happy wedding couple in Duty Free Heathrow, wouldn't be allowed on the plane as hand luggage, so we had to go back again, empty a bag and check it in as luggage for the hold...

And then I couldn't find my boarding card..."You really have to control your scatty behaviour," said Peter helpfully. "It just doesn't work, does it?" I was issued with another boarding card...then I noticed my boarding card in Pete's shirt pocket, where he had put it, not trusting me to remember where I had it...

By this time, by the way, we'd been travelling, for over twenty hours, on about two hours sleep the night before...so, yes, I experienced a bit of a sense of humour failure.

BUT, it all evaporated in a flash, when we arrived at the resort and there was my boy Jamie and his lovely bride-to-be, Breanna, and all her family waiting for us.

And just look at our bath!

It's all going so well.





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