Off I Go

It has been fifteen years and several world orders since I've traveled internationally.
When last I left the country:

• You didn't have to arrive two hours early.
• I travelled with a box cutter (for art projects).
• Shoes could stay on at all times.
• Liquids were acceptable accoutrement. 
• I didn't have to stop off in Miami for five fucking hours. 

It has been a long strange trip it's been.

I have not spent this much time in Florida since the seventies.

Rather, I have not spent any time in Florida since the seventies. I've been to DisneyLand twice, DisneyWorld never. What sort of East Coaster am I? Off-track is the sort of East Coaster I am. Let me maintain a semblance of direction here.

I was heading for Central America, but I was delayed, interminably, by rain, in Miami.

I'd awoken an hour before my alarm, at four in the morning, about four hours after getting to bed. I went to pick up my mother, so she could drop me off at the airport, two hours in advance of the flight. All the timing worked fine. I sat amiably at LaGuardia until twenty minutes before the flight (meaning I could have arrived one hundred minutes after I had, but whatever). I was able to work on some projects, get some writing done, do some planning for the trip, do some studying... it was all good.

I slept a little on the flight, until some turbulence got me back to studying. Then poor wifi left me unable to do research, so I was back to trip planning with a guide book, until a bumping landing received a round of applause from a pleased parcel of passengers. I guess I was asleep until the landing, so I don't know why it merited applause (maybe there was a story worth telling there...).

I had maybe half an hour for my connecting flight, but then I suddenly realized THAT'S what I needed to be there two hours early for, so I started sweat-running to the gate, only to arrive in time to get an email telling me that the layover was to be extended.

And extended.

And extended.

And -

There was no wifi available, so no studying for me, and a limited number of plugs, so power was going low, but I was able to make due, and able to further plan what I'd do when I'd finally arrive down south.

It was coming down outside. They say that Florida is hot, but it's a wet heat, humid as all get out. This was a true humidity out there. Oi.

Finally, round the time we were expected to have arrived, we were allowed to board the plane. Then we sat for another 90 minutes. Finally, a gorgeous flight over the Florida Keys and then Mexico. There is beautiful country beneath us. <a name="flyover">Had I know there were so many lovely places to look down on, I'd have left New York to flyover places years ago.</a>

Finally, well over twelve hours after awaking, I was arriving where I was meant to be.

I snuck through the Welcome Center and Customs, took a taxi into town - where I'm pretty sure I got taken for a ride, and found myself in the Ramada Belize City Princess.

When I got to my room, it was already occupied.