Vacation, last day...
2003-03-10

Our last day of vacation was kind of up and down. My cold by then was in full fledged stuffyness mode and my stomach was a bit shaky too. Knowing I was going to be on a bus for like four hours (with no bathroom BTW) I skipped breakfast. M.E. ate and we met our group in the lounge to wait to be called to exit the ship.

We were delayed a few times, but finally we got to get off, claim our luggage and go through customs. The lines were huge but managable and the cutoms people friendly and efficient.

We all met outside the building and got sheparded to a bunch of waiting tour busses for our attempt to kill time, a trip to the Puerto Rican rain forest.

As our luggage disappeared into a van we were all seated on what looked like a glorified school bus. Our drivers name was Chippy and he told us he was a bad driver. He didn't lie. At one point the buss was in a full 4 wheel skid in the wrong lane through a red light. My life didn't flash before my eyes, but it was close.

Then there was this whole rain forest thing. I'm not sure who's idea that was, but if we had given it some thought, we might have gone bar hopping.

None of us had hiking boots, or rain jackets. This was unfortunate because the primary activity in a rain forest is rain. It is a big long walk through the woods in the pouring rain.

We did get to see a poisonous snail and a lady with an oxygen tank smoking a cigarette. On the way back to the airport we almost were in two more accidents. It was loads of fun (insert sarcasm here).

The airport was orderly and except for Ken apparently looking like a terrorist, things went smoothly. There use to be a nice bar/restuarant on the other side of the secure area, but apparently it is no more. We ate really bad hot dogs served by the slowest people in the world. Perhaps they were related to the poisous snails?

Our flight left on time and was uneventful. We had a snack and a few drinks and we got to Atlanta with plenty of time for our connecting flight. It was seriously over booked. Had I known, I might have taken up their offer to spend the night and $400, but we got on and waited and waited.

After an hour of sitting doing nothing, the pilot comes on and says the plane is over loaded and they need to rebalance the luggage. This consists of taking all of our bags and putting them on a little train and driving them away. Nice.

Apparently the airlines knew we were all pissed because the drinks were free. This did not make things easier for the luggage guy at the airport when 50 or so screaming passangers were in his face at 2:00 am. We also parked in the worng garage and were charged $177 to park. BLAH.... My head cold and changes in cabin pressure also mucked up my ears and they hurt so bad at one point that I thought I was going to cry. it took them two days to get back to normal.

I got to bed a little before three and still made it to work on Monday. Aren't I amazing? Maybe just stupid. The luggage was waiting on the front steps when I got home from work. Except for the laundry, our vacation was complete. I should have stayed in St Maarten.

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