trinidad is ranked 5th on the reporters without borders world press freedom rankings
that`s nice to know.
Archives For October 2003
if this trip is cursed.
it`s wednesday midday. i still have no cash to pay my departure tax, either from trinidad or from jamaica. i have no emergency cash for the trip and last but by no means least i have no ride to the airport.
my ride is sick, meaning combined with my financial difficulties i have no way to get to the airport. it`s amazing how many friends i have without cars. sigh.
i have a low yield headache, i think it`s partially hunger and partially frustration.
and i`m not even going to start pondering how much worse this can get. because with my imagination…
well let`s just say anything can happen.
my mother is seemed to believe that every trip to jamaica would be permanent and we would take, if my memory serves me correctly, 3 large suitcases; and they would be heavy.
keeping this in mind, as an adult, i tend to minimalist packing. the only way i have more than carry on luggage is if i`m going for more than a month. and even then it tends to be a very empty duffle. the problems start on my return. my one weakness, books. more on that in a minute.
for short trips, it`s usually the clothes i`m wearing, a pair of shorts, couple of boxers, extra pair of socks, couple of t-shirts and a nice shirt [never know when you have to go out] and my flip flops [an essential for someone like me who loathes shoes]. and if it`s somewhere with climate change, my two favourite sweaters.
over the course of my trips i`ve invested in two jackets, i only have one with me now, which is in all actuality a winter jacket and i would only take with me if i`m sure it was going to snow at least three inches.
for longer trips, extra jeans, more socks and a couple more shirts and t-shirts. i`m a firm believer in laundry, there is no need to pack clothes for every day of your trip. there are few places i can go and not find somewhere to do my laundry.
now, back to the books. i love books, i love owning the books i read, so what usually happens on most trips [especially london] is i find bookstores, new and used and buy replacements and gifts and collections and stuff that catches my eye and in the end it all adds up. the bag that was light and easily slung over my shoulder when i arrived is now the weight of a small child and almost solely the domain of trolleys and airport porters.
among the issue i`ve developed travelling with my mother are suitcases and check in times. i`m a knapsack, duffel bag kind of guy, easier to spot on luggage carousels and easier to pass off as hand luggage. i am also the 2/3 hours in advance first at the counter kind of guy. although there was this one incident…
for one year i was the web consultant for our local airline and i was taking a rush trip to ny. i got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport and missed my check-in time. although i did have someone from the airline, pre-board me, i realised by the time i got the airport the gate would be closed, or so i thought. i got to the airport, get up to the desk to change my departure to the next morning, only to find out that the flight was delayed, still on the ground and waiting for me to depart. the joys of travelling suitcase free were never more apparent as i dashed through the airport to get onto the plane.
i like to travel. i`ve been travelling since i was 2 weeks old. every year til i turned 16 we, my mother and i would travel to jamaica. i`m only travelling for two days, but i`m so excited.
henry rollins has a spoken word piece called airport hell, i can relate. i`m a fairly seasoned traveller. if it`s a short trip, i only carry hand luggage, i have all my paperwork filled out to present at the desk, wait for my section to board, no stress. i hate people who wait til they get to counter to start filling their shit out or start digging for the ticket, i just want to smack them. same thing for getting off the plane. they give you the forms on the aircraft, how hard is it for you to fill out the immigration and customs forms before you get off the plane. no, just wait til you and your brood get to the counter to fill out all their forms. simple. fill out the forms, put it on the page with your picture, present it to the official, that way you can be out the airport quickly and efficiently.
as a child i had a very bad reaction to airline food. i would eat on the plane, the wheel would touch the ground and up it would come. it got the point where my mother and grandmother would cook food for me to take on the plane. i remember coming back from jamaica one year and my grandmother made me curry goat, as i opened the container the smell permeated the entire aircraft. there was this woman behind me telling the stewardess that she`d have whatever i`m having. as i got older or maybe the quality of the food has improved, i no longer hurl on landing.
the flight from trinidad to jamaica is a 5 hour flight, that leaves in wee hours of the morning. we used to call it the bus stop flight, we would spend most of the day trekking up the caribbean. a typical flight would have us stopping in barbados, antigua, st. martin, puerto rico and then onto jamaica. and with the exception of barbados and antigua you couldn`t get off the plane anywhere. i think there is only one stop now.
i can`t wait.
join us next time for `how to pack`
Technorati Tags:
travelling, airports, flying
as defined by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:
Extreme privation; suffering.
A cause of privation or suffering.
today i arrive home to find this letter from the us embassy in barbados in my mailbox:
Dear Sir,
This office has received a letter from the US Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement requesting a letter from your petitioner explaining the hardship your absence will cause her.
Please forward the same to this office as soon as possible in order for your application to be processed
well the good thing is that means that our application is being processed.
we`ve been married for 682 days and seen each other 15 days.
is that enough hardship?
i`m not going to start this tonight. focus on the positive.
Technorati Tags:
bureaucracy, DHS, immigration, hardship
and thanks to PT, i can feed my addiction.
i`m actually at her house to upload a job, but i figured i`d take the time to check my mail, update my blog, catch up on what i missed.
i never realised how much time i spend online until i have no access. i went two whole nights without talking to vic. which in terms of what we`re accustomed to is a life time. i`ve always know how grounding talking her is but the last two days have been a sort of hell, i needed to talk, i needed comfort and i couldn`t get it.
i`m going to have to figure out something quickly, i can`t keep showing up on PT`s doorstep every morning.
i`m off to pick up my ticket for the trip next week. ciao
you`re bound to get up with fleas.
i got fucked again. i don`t know why i expected it to be any different. apparently i misconstrued the conversation i had with the director. he never agreed to keep me on a freelance basis. he said it was on per project basis.
right. i would have remembered that conversation, i`m sure i would have remembered.
and coupled with this, i arrive home to discover because i paid my phone bill late i can only receive calls. and to get full service back i have to pay the next bill. well that`s not happening for a while. so i`ll be liberating connections wherever i can. so my updates are going to be a lot more sporadic.
i`m going to shoot pool and try to relax, at least i have my days to myself again.
well not really, i just had [shock of shocks] things to do that didn`t involve me being online.
i got up early this morning to watch f1 and it was worth every minute of sacrificed sleep. i spent most of today, putting the finishing touches on a corporate identity manual, then i went to a bar b que, that my ex brother in law had.
that`s pretty much been my day. nothing exciting, nothing out of the ordinary.
i`m going to be trying to find and plan a very cheap itinerary for a possible trip to turkey at the end of the month.
hope your weekend was enjoyable.
i just got this off metafilter:
The election of Arnold Schwartzenegger to governor of California seems too broad for satire, and it`s now lost to us forever as a throwaway joke in a short story. The Infinite Matrix asked a few SF writers, editors, and physicians for pithy comments, and this is what we got. Some are pithy, some not. more
vic and the boy chick are off playing soccer [or football as i know it] and i find the thought of her being a soccer mom, very arousing.
it`s one of the things about victoria that appeals to me. she`s multifaceted. she`s not just one thing. she`s a mother, my lover, my wife, a friend, our accountant, a healer and all of these things she does exceptionally well.
the power and ease with which she does all these things are truly an aphrodisiac. the wanton, lascivious woman who makes me scream out her names, is the same woman i`m honoured to co-parent with, is the woman i can just on the couch and read with. she is all of these things, separately and together it makes her the woman i married.
what more can i ask for. i`m proud, honoured and blessed to have vic in my life.