Day 1: Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Arriving at BWI Airport (another not-so-good place in Anne Arundel County) in the mid-morning with my dad, I was a nervous wreck. I knew that MFP's name had been misspelled on his plane tickets, and I had spent long, tear-filled hours with the travel agent and both AirTran and Air Jamaica the previous week trying to rectify this. MFP arrived a few minutes later coming off the light rail. We got in line at the AirTran counter, my father being with us for moral support, and waited. One AirTran employee, a short, fortyish female brute with streaked hair, was in front of the counter doing crowd control. She snapped and barked at every single passenger that came through the line. When we passed her, she asked where we were transferring and to what airline, and when I told her, she snapped, "You have to pick up your bags in Fort Lauderdale [the layover point]. We don't have an agreement with Air Jamaica." I would bet my life savings that she was either divorced or had never been married.

We got to the front counter and my heart was pounding. We handed over our tickets and were checked in without a problem. Praise God! One down, one to go. We went through security, and took our seats at the gate. The flight to Fort Lauderdale was uneventful and I slept through a lot of it. Arriving in Fort Lauderdale was my first time ever in Florida. The Sunshine State welcomed me with the stench of cheap cheese pizza, which came from a food stand in the airport. We picked up our bags (praise to God that they were not lost) and headed to the Air Jamaica ticket counter (stupid AirTran, they don't have an agreement with Air Jamaica, so we had to go to the ticket counter AGAIN.) We're not out of the woods yet, I thought. We handed over our tickets and again, no problem (PTL #3!) . We went through security again and flew to Montego Bay, where we had dinner on the plane.

A porter carried our bags to the shuttle van and then DEMANDED a tip. I was so intimidated that I gave him an American five dollar bill, which he greatly appreciated. We climbed into the van and journeyed an hour and a half to Sandals Dunns River in Ocho Rios. I noticed some things immediately about Jamaica:

1. They drive on the left side of the road, like in Britain. As our driver put it, "We drive on the right side, which is the left side." Get it?

2. Jamaica is in the same time zone as Maryland, but they do not have Daylight Savings Time, so the time was an hour behind home.

3. I knew prior to going there that Jamaica is a Third World country, but nothing could prepare me for the poverty I saw during the van ride. Of particular significance was a town called Falmouth. If you took the area around Johns Hopkins Hospital, pulled it apart into pieces, and dropped it in the middle of the tropics...that's Falmouth. It made Bridgeville, Delaware look like Beverly Hills.

4. They do have McDonald's, not that I cared.

We arrived at the resort around maybe 8:30 local time, and were greeted by staff members who gave us cold towels. Then we had to sign and fill out some forms, and were then escorted to our room, which had a king-size four-post bed and a view of the gardens and driveway in front of the main building. We found a letter on our bed from the wedding coordinator telling us that we were to meet with her at 9 the next morning. Then we ventured outside. MFP wanted to get something light to eat, and following him, we ventured into one of the resort's five restaurants, an Italian place. But a well-dressed local whose name tag identified him as "Collin" asked us to leave because I was wearing flip-flops, which were against the dress code. So we ventured to an outdoor bar. I very much liked the idea of having ad lib access to alcohol, so I ordered two whiskey sours, one right after the other, and was soon drunk as a skunk. MFP looked concerned but didn't say anything. After this we went back to the room and erected a barrier in the bed out of extra blankets between us. I slept very poorly. Whether it's Sandals Resort or an Econo Lodge in Breezewood, I always sleep very poorly in hotel rooms.

To be continued.