Bill Gates, Donald Trump.... LET ME IN

Whew. Well I’m here. It was quite a long day. It really was fine except for a McDonald’s filet o fish replacing a double cheese mix up in Dallas. And of course the immigration fiasco in Port of Spain…

I started my day off well, I got to the airport in St. Louis in plenty of time, said goodbye to Mom and headed off toward security, where I was sure that they would make me take my camera out of my bag and explain to them what it was. But they didn’t, thank God. And I was on to my first flight of the day, St. Louis to Dallas. No problem. I got to Dallas, had to take the “Airtrain” to another terminal, and decided to pick up some lunch. This is where the Filet o Fish fiasco happened. Actually not that big of a deal, it probably didn’t ever really reach fiasco status. And then I was on the next plane, this time a 777 instead of a MD80, and on my way to Miami. I liked the 777… it had a bit more room than the other two. I got to  Miami, had to do a quick terminal change, no big deal, and then I called a few people and said some goodbyes, as telephone is probably not happening for me for a while. I was on the plane, a 757, bound for Port of Spain, Trinidad. 757s suck if you’re taller that 5’4” by the way. The flight was fine. It was actually pretty cool to fly over Puerto Rico and see all the lights. There were a ton of baseball diamonds lit up. (cue grandpa voice) It reminded me of my playing days.

We touched down in Trinidad, and I was feeling pretty good, but then there was a bad omen. The health inspector was not there to meet the plane to collect the proper paperwork. So we waited at the gate for 10 minutes. Minor in the scheme of things to come…

I went to the line marked visitor at immigration, waited, and waited, and waited. And it was finally my turn. So I went to the officer, gave him my passport and slip, and told him what the purpose of my visit was. He looked at the slip, saw I was staying 88 days, and decided to have his supervisor call the place where I was to stay. Which, as it turns out, is not actually where I am staying. But anyhow, they took my passport and told me to wait. So I waited. And waited longer. And longer. And longer. And finally the guy told me that he needed someone from the University of the West Indies (located on Trinidad) to call and tell them I was legit. Which is a problem, because I only had one name of someone from the University of the West Indies, and it I only had her office telephone number, and she has no idea who I am…

So after making frantic phone calls via skype, (thank God I had my computer and there was some sort of free internet), I got a hold of the person who was picking me up (thank God she didn’t leave) and showed the immigration people that I did indeed have a return ticket to the US in December, and dropped a couple of names, the let me into the country.

But only for two weeks.

I have to go back to immigration and show them the proper paperwork, and to be honest, I am not really sure what the proper paperwork is. So hopefully they do not kick me out of Trinidad in 2 weeks.

Bed time.

View from our front porch