At SF airport, I find it full of cops. There is an ‘orange’ status alert, but the police are not saying anything. They don’t seem to be doing much either, as if orange alerts are common place.
Post 9/11, US airports are not a great place for a nervous flyer. I remember thinking when I arrived about six weeks ago that if I didn’t have a US passport, my greeting here would involve having a finger print scan and being questioned by disdainful immigration officials as if I was a potential suspect.
I had to drop the car off before midday, but my flight is not until six o’clock, so I pass the time and kill my pre-flight nerves by chatting to guy at the sushi bar and ordering successive mini bottles of wine. ‘Be careful’, he tells me after ordering my fifth. However, I find that I have drunk just enough wine, because once on the plane I zonk out, waking hours later unsure whether we were in the air or not.
I am not going home though. This flight is the first of a five leg journey (including four flights) to Bequia, an island of six square miles in St Vincent and the Grenadines. The final leg of my journey will be a surprise visit to my parents who are staying there for a few months.
My next flight is from JFK airport to Barbados. This second flight is another four hours plus, but seems to take much longer as I had settled into thinking that four hours doesn’t take that long having woken up half way across the USA on my first flight. When we land in Barbados, it’s raining.
I am staying overnight in a hotel a half hour’s taxi from the airport. It’s one of those ‘all-inclusive’ resort hotels by the beach. It is not in one of the more celebrated parts of Barbados, which is why it is quite cheap, and it is populated largely by young Brits abroad drinking cocktails at the pool side bar, despite the grey skies. However, I am far too tired to join them, despite my room’s patio opening onto poolside, and I doze the rest of the day away.
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