|
With
only four days and a short plane ride standing between me and my
fishing trip weekend bachelor party, I was a happy fellow.
I had finished my last day of work after being on a project in
San Juan, Puerto Rico for four weeks and I was ready to get
home.
My flight back to Canada was
leaving San Juan, Puerto Rico at 11:00 am on Tuesday, Sept. 11.
Yep, that's right, Sept 11. So I left my apartment at 8:00 in
the morning and dropped off my rental car. The guy there took
the car back then we jumped in the courtesy van for the airport.
On the way we were listening to a Spanish radio station and they
were talking about an airplane which had crashed into a tower in
New York. Then they said that a second plane had crashed into
another tower which obviously sounded a bit suspicious. I
arrived at the airport and checked in as normal. Then I went
through to the American Airlines Admiral's Club to check out
what was happening on CNN. Just as I sat down to watch I saw the
first of the towers collapse in a mushroom of black smoke then a
while later the second one collapsed. At this point all the
flights to the US were cancelled. My flight was going back to
Dom Rep where I was going to spend the night then leave for
Toronto via Miami on Wednesday morning. The lady at the
reception counter assured me that the international flights were
still flying. Before long they announced that all flights
were cancelled and the airport was closing and everybody had to
go and collect their bags and leave. Oh oh. Not looking good. So
I went down to get my checked bags and they all
appeared...except for the one containing all my clothes. So I
searched the airport for about two hours trying to find the
bastard but it never turned up which actually later turned out
to be a blessing in disguise.
So I picked up my remaining bags,
one of which contained about 40 pounds worth of Ana's shoes, and
left the airport and took a taxi to a hotel so I could make some
calls and try to figure out what to do. I first called Ana to
let her know I was okay then we both started checking into every
possible airline and cruise ship but there was nothing leaving
from Puerto Rico except the ferry which runs to Dominican
Republic. As well, at the time there were still flights
arriving to Canada via Cuba so that was enough to put together a
plan. Ana had the girl in Shell in Santo Domingo buy me a
ticket for Dom Rep - Havana, Cuba - Toronto. Yeah, a
plan!! So I stayed overnight in San Juan then the next day
I took a taxi to the bus station, which was located in the
middle of a very dodgy looking neighbourhood. The bus
eventually left from there and drove three hours to the west
coast of Puerto Rico where the overnight ferry leaves from. I
bought a ticket for the ferry and boarded without problems. The
ferry experience was probably the highlight of the trip as I had
my own little cabin and bed and was able to enjoy some cold
Presidentes in the huge bar which was onboard. I arrived
in Santo Domingo the following morning (Thursday) at 8:00. I
then took a taxi to the Shell office and picked up the airline
tickets as well as stopping by a friend's apartment and picking
up another heavy bag which we had left there before going to
Puerto Rico. We then raced out to the airport and I checked in
for the flight to Cuba which was on time. The airport in Santo
Domingo was practically deserted as there were almost no flights
coming or going. Maybe this was an omen.
We arrived in Havana on time and
everything was looking good until they took all the transfer
passengers to a special area to wait for further instructions.
Oh oh. That doesn't sound good. I
soon found out that the connecting flights to Toronto had been
cancelled and there were no more flights that night. Shit. So I
went to the accommodation counter and made a reservation at a
government hotel in Havana. The airline people told me to be at
the airport the next day before noon to try and get on another
flight. About then I figured it was about time to play the
"wedding card" so I told them my wedding was Saturday
and they somehow had to get me home. Sure, it was a little
lie, but times like this call for drastic measures. After
telling my sob story I left and bought a telephone card so I
could call Ana and tell her what was happening. When I finally
figured out how the phones worked I did manage to get through to
Ana which was a relief. But as I was talking to her the bag
which I had picked up in Santo Domingo sort of fell off the top
of my pile of luggage to the floor and made a crashing sound. Oh
oh, that didn't sound good. I then saw some brown liquid
leaking out and was overcome with the smell of rum. I had
forgotten that we had put a 60 ounce bottle of rum in there
which had just broken and soaked all my stuff. At that point,
frustration began to set in. I spend the next hour in the
bathroom emptying out the bag, throwing the ruined things out,
picking out shards of glass, and trying to wash up whatever was salvageable.
The whole time this little Cuban washroom attendant was
listening to me and was clearly intrigued to be learning so many
new English obscenities. When that mess was finally
cleaned and I was stinking of alcohol I took a taxi into Havana
and found the hotel and immediately sought beer and cigars to
try and soothe my frazzled nerves. The hotel was a total dump
and it seemed that at any moment the building could quite easily
collapse and put me out of my misery. Unfortunately, it stayed
standing.
I left the hotel as soon as
possible on my hunt for tobacco and cerveza. I
bought a cigar from a shop, lit it up, found a nice patch of
pavement, then started puffing away and thinking of where I
would go and consume some beer. Just then a Cuban guy
passed by and started talking to me. After a few minutes
he still hadn't tried to con any money off me so I took him for
a decent dude and asked him to go for a beer. He took me
to a locals bar and I started buying us ridiculously cheap
rounds of Cristal (Cuban beer). But after four bottles he said
he had to quit because he had a problem with one of his organs
(we were talking in Spanish and I didn't know the word he was
saying but it must have been spleen or liver perhaps). Once we
left the place and we got to an empty part of the street and he
pulled up his shirt to show me. He had a plastic bag covering a
pink pulsing organ which was hanging out of his side. He said
that he had been hit by a car and for some reason they had to
remove the organ from inside his body and he had to protect it
with these medical plastic bags. Pretty weird, but after four
Cristals maybe my eyes were starting to play tricks on me.
I bid him adieu and went back to the seedy hotel and fell asleep
in about half a second.
I got up the next morning
(Friday), ate a disgusting breakfast of dry bread and super
sugary juice. I was sitting across from this prostitute
and her fat German boyfriend who I reckon had a bad case of AIDS
judging from the sores all over his body. Euwww. I didn't
stay for a second cup of rank coffee.
I packed my things and took a
taxi to the airport, all the while thinking there was a good
chance I would be back home in Canada in mere hours. What
a fool! When I arrived at the airport I found out that the
15:00 flight to Toronto had been cancelled but there was still a
chance the 18:00 flight to Montreal would go. I begged one of
the airline employees to help get me on that flight and she did
help me after I told her that my wedding was the next day. There
was that little lie again, but I was getting dangerously close
to missing my bachelor party!! How could I miss my
bachelor party?? Especially since it involved such a motley crew
of hard boozing family and friends doing all sorts of damage to
their livers and digestive systems in my name?
Well, the 18:00 flight didn't go
which made me wonder if I would ever get out of there. I
couldn't bear spending another night in a seedy government hotel
so I managed to contact the owners of this bed and breakfast
place And and I stayed at once before. I took a taxi to their
place and was very happy to be somewhere familiar. She even
washed my filthy clothes for me which I was desperate for since
the only clothes I had was my emergency stock which I always
have in my carry-on bag. But they were not just dirty,
they were still reeking of the rum that they had been soaked
in. Once all my clothes were in the wash I realised this
was the first night of my bachelor party weekend so I put on a
pair of swimming trunks and one of Ana's shirts and went out for
dinner by myself to celebrate, looking extra gay in the
process! I found a restaurant nearby and laced into an
extra large platter of rice, beans and chicken then followed it
up with a couple beers and a cigar. I tried not to think
what the Olson boys were getting up to that night...
Well, next crappy day, same
routine. I got up, rounded up my freshly washed, though
not quite fully dried clothes, and took a taxi to the airport
around 6:00 in the morning. This was Saturday and there was
still a chance that I could make it back for one day of the
fishing trip. Of course when I arrived at the airport I found
out that my flight was cancelled yet again and there was no hope
at all of anything leaving that day. AAAARRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Desperation set in and I was running around the airport trying
to find a flight anywhere as I couldn't take being stranded in
Cuba any longer. I found out that there was a flight going to
Nassau, Bahamas that afternoon so I bought a ticket and decided
I would have better chances from there. Besides, even if I
couldn't get to the States from there at least I could go to
Hammerheads and get completely shitfaced on Kalik
which would be a decent bachelor party consolation prize!
The flight actually left on time
and arrived in Nassau airport which was a total mess and full of
angry, nasty people trying to get back to the States. Once I got
there I explained my pathetic situation to a guy at the first
class counter and the great man gave me a standby ticket on a
flight to Miami that afternoon!! It helped that he remembered me
from all the flights I used to take from Bahamas the year
before. After that I called my good Bahamian friend Ruthie
and she picked me up and we went for a delicious meal of grouper
fingers and conch salad at Traveler's Rest. I also succeeded in
downing about four Kaliks
in the space of thirty minutes which was not a bad effort,
though well off my peak. The only reason I didn't drink more was
that I could not risk getting kicked off the plane for being
drunk. On the way back to the airport we stopped and picked up a
crate of Kalik
which we somehow managed to cram into the remaining space in the
bags. Ana later mentioned that she was missing a couple
pairs of shoes but I didn't know anything about that.
I checked in and proceeded to US
immigration where they made me completely empty my spring loaded
bags after not liking my answer to "Where are you coming
from?" which went something like "Cuba, but I didn't
mean to go there, I'm really coming from Puerto Rico but I had
pass through Dominican Republic to pick up a bag...". At
this point I didn't care - I had a ticket in my hand that was
going to the USA, a nice Kalik
buzz, and that was all that mattered.
The flight left late and when it
arrived in Miami I found out that there was actually a flight
leaving to Montreal in thirty minutes that I may be able to
catch if I ran. My god, I could still make a day of the bachelor
party! So I got my bags and ran like hell to the American
counter where I was faced with a crowd of about fifteen thousand
people and complete and utter filthy chaos. I pushed my way
through the first class line and begged the lady to take me
first. I was then informed that I was minutes too late and that
flight was closed and there were no more flights to Canada that
night. Aaaarrrggggg!!!!!!!
Beaten, humiliated, and
exhausted, I made my way up to the Admiral's Club to see if they
could help me and also to take a nice big dump in a clean
toilet. I waited in line there for about forty minutes then
finally got to the front and explained my situation to the nice
lady there. I was in stunned disbelief when she told me she got
me the last seat on a flight to New York with a connection to
Toronto the next morning. I should have been thrilled, but
at that point I didn't have the energy to get excited. I
wasn't even that happy when the lady gave me a $30 food voucher
for dinner that night at the hotel.
So I went and sat in the lounge
for a while and called Ana to give her the good news. I then
went and polluted their nice lavatory which was an absolute
pleasure. I had a coffee and doughnut then gathered my bags and
went back out through the airport to take a taxi to a hotel. The
airport was total chaos, unlike anything I have ever seen
before.
I arrived at the hotel, got my
room, and ordered the best steak on the room service menu which
ended up tasting like Goodyear rubber and cost me $40. I tried
paying with the $30 voucher but they told me the voucher was
only good for food in the airport. Bastards, kicking me
when I was down. This was the big bachelor party night and here
I was all alone gnawing on a foul piece of overpriced meat
without a beer. Definitely one of the lowest points of my
otherwise charmed life.
Awoke the next morning at 5:00,
had a delicious breakfast of bottled water, and went to the
airport. If it was bad the night before, it was worse now. The
lineup to American Airlines check-in was about 300 meters long,
no kidding. I had to walk across practically the whole bloody
airport just to find the end. I kept asking people in line,
"Am I almost at the end?" and they laughed at
me. So I kept walking and walking in stunned
disbelief. When I finally got to the end of the line (and
the airport), I was relieved to find that American Airlines
staff were walking through the whole line and calling flights
are they were ready to check in. After a while mine was called
and I proceeded to the check in. I checked in, went through
security where they looked through everything except my bowels,
then I went to board my flight. The gate area was completely
tranquil, totally unlike what was going on in the check-in side.
The flight left the gate on time.
During the taxi out to the runway the plane passed about 80
ground workers who were all standing in a line waving American
flags and saluting the plane, as it was one of the first planes
headed for the recently re-opened La Guardia airport in New
York. As we passed them the captain came on and said,
"America loves you, we love you, God bless New York and God
bless America!!". People on the plane started shouting,
"God bless America" and laughing and even crying.
Christ, I didn't know what to think! I was just glad I was
on the way home.
The plane flew into New York
right over top of the smoldering ruins of the crumbled towers.
Nobody on the plane said a word. They were all just quietly
staring at the wreckage. The plane landed safely and I found out
that the connection to Toronto had been cancelled, as we
expected, which is why Ana had already booked a rental car for
me at the airport. All my bags came out and I jumped on the
shuttle to the rental company. I got my car and hit the road for
upstate New York where Ana and Toddy were going to pick me up.
The car trip was pretty good and I got to see a good deal of the
state of New York. I arrived in Rochester after a 6.5 hour drive
and Ana and Toddy were there to meet me. Their drive from
Brantford was only about 3.5 hours and would have been shorter
except that when they went across the border the US guard asked
Toddy where he was from and he said, "Skippy". The
guard said, "Pardon" and Toddy replied,
"Skippy". Follow me inside please, son. So Toddy had
to go into the office and fill out some paperwork and pay him
some money for some kind of visa or something which slowed
things down.
The trip back to Brantford was
okay. I was so happy to finally be with Ana after 6 torturous
days of airports, hotels, taxis, bad food, and stress. We got
back around 11:00 pm that night and let me tell you I was happy
to finally be there.
I have probably missed out a lot
of things that happened to me en route, but if I try to tell you
every piece of bad luck I had, I will never finish writing this
little story.
Mr. Osama Bin Laden, thank you
for teaching me the value of persistence..... |
