From One Extreme to the Other

So I think it is worth mentioning some of the details of our journey from the US to Jamaica. On the day we left Kansas City we had to wake up at 3am so that we could be at the airport by 4:15 when the ticket counter opened so that we could fulfill the requirement of checking in 2 hours early for an international flight. This meant that we were leaving our hotel before the airport shuttle began running. Side note: the whole reason we chose to stay in a hotel by the airport was so we could take the shuttle, that didn't really work out now did it. So we asked the person at the front desk to call us a cab. We ended up getting a fancy, schmancy Lincoln Town Car. It had warmed seats and everything, which was a really good thing since it was 27 degrees outside and we had shed all our sweatshirts and coats the day before so we wouldn't have to carry them back to Jamaica where they would just get moldy. So our last impression of the US was luxury and the bitter cold. Many hours and airports later we landed in Jamaica. Another side note: The pizza place in Concourse D near gate 50 of the Miami Airport is most fabulous. El lugar de la pizza en el Concourse D cerca de la puerta 50 del aeropuerto de Miami es lo fabuloso. As always we had encountered a few delays but luckily all our bags made it and we sailed through customs with ease. Then we had to do a little bit of convincing to get an airport taxi driver to take us all the way to our house without charging us an exorbitant fee in American dollars. Luckily we found a nice guy who only charged us J$300 (US$5) over the regular price. He did try to get us to pay the toll too but we weren't falling for that nonsense. As we were driving through Kingston in his beat-up "deportee" station wagon with the windows rolled down I breathed in the familiar scent of burning trash. We finally reached our final destination at 9pm and of course in true Portmore fashion our apartment felt like a sauna, even though it was only 82 degrees outside. After 17 hours (we lost an hour due to time change) and a temperature difference of 55 degrees we were definitely feeling the changes of being back in Jamaica.

- Kaelyn