Up by 4am to get picked up by 6:30am and at the airport for 7:30am… at least the smog was somewhat decreased at the time we left. Though having said that, all of us have been wrinkling our noses at the smell of our clothing today. Guess Sunday is going to be a full out laundry day.

Our flights today: PaP to Miami; Miami to TO; TO to home… long day – and lots of up and downs. We are all still so dehydrated that we are likely to get off the plane looking like blimps due to water retention!
We managed to find the amazing Haitian coffee in the duty free shop in PaP, and then waited for a couple of hours to get on the plane. That flight was supposed to be ~1.5 hours but we got lucky and it was just over an hour.

We then were directed off the plane and into the lineup for immigration. For some reason they elected to send us to the US residents area. Which was weird because it was moving slower than the line for non-residents. But we figured “what the hell we have lots of time” (supposedly we had 3.5 hours)…Of course that took almost 1.5 hours, during which Tyra and Jasmine amused themselves by making up conversations for all of the people waiting in line. What was even more hilarious was when random strangers would add in their two cents.
Once through immigration, chaos ensued… it had taken us so long to get off of our flight, that our bags were already off and about to be loaded into the area for unclaimed luggage. We managed to rescue them, however Rick and Jasmine ended up being sent a different direction than Amanda and Tyra. Since they had no idea whether Jasmine was being detained again or what was happening, the girls asked where R&J would be exiting so that they could meet up right away. Unfortunately the airport staff was somewhat less than helpful (or knowledgeable!) and informed them that all passengers exited out the same way. Stationing themselves on either side of the doorway, they waited in vain for more than 90 minutes asking each staff member who came along whether there was another exit, or if there were people waiting for them, or how to go back to check… always with the same answer “wait here, and they will come”. Finally, about to miss their flight, they sprinted through security (which resulted in being stopped and scanned more thoroughly because the staff was suspicious about drug running or terrorism or something) and booked it over to the departure gate (which was of course in a different terminal – nothing was easy today!). Meanwhile, Jasmine and Rick had been sent to a separate area for oversize or suspicious luggage so that her bags could be x-rayed. This area had a long line and a separate exit, so by the time they made it to security, R&J were sure that A&T were already through and waiting on the other side. Scanning the crowd constantly was doing no good, as the girls didn’t appear. Asking staff members if they had seen them was no help either, as no one knew anything about anything. Once through security (which took an hour) they searched for A&T to no avail… Finally Rick said that they must have decided to look for them over at the departure gate. Jasmine was sure that they wouldn’t have left the building without her… but with no means of verifying that, they headed over to search the other terminal. After checking the departure gate for them, a search of the terminal proved fruitless, as Jasmine wracked her brain for anyplace that they might have been interested to stop. Finally after walking the terminal a number of times Rick went and waited at the gate certain that the girls would show up. Jasmine continued walking through, sending mental vibes. With only 50 minutes before the plane was to leave, Jasmine finally asked the departure gate staff to start paging the girls. Of course they didn’t hear it, stuck in the no man’s land between immigration, customs and bag drop off. Thankfully the girls arrived at the gate with minutes to spare… and even managed to grab something to eat.
On board the flight to TO the three of them decided that they needed a drink to settle down, so wine was the order of the day.
With ice!! Since on the flight from PaP, the steward was an ice nazi, declaring that it was bad for your teeth and refusing to serve it.
While in TO we found a little café to sit and eat a final meal together before Amanda headed back to Winnipeg and everyone else boarded a flight to SK. After such a long day everyone was running on empty and just eager to get somewhere to go to sleep. Thankfully flights were running fairly close to on time and no one ended up missing a flight or losing luggage.
So now it’s off to sleep on home soil.
Lots of love,
TRAJ