6:00PM
Departure Lounge, Norman Manley International Airport, Jamaica
Airports are every bit as grand and awful as I’ve read about in books and watched in motion pictures. In fact, because my principal experience to air travel has been through the lens of fiction, I’ve come to regard the such tediums as luggage checks and line-waiting with the same fondness a dowager would have for her ill-mannered puppy. In fact, I have to resist the urge to pet the drug-sniffing dog as she passes in all her golden, furry glory.

4:10AM
Departure Lounge, Piarco International Airport, Trinidad
Standing in lines has lost its allure. Waiting around has ceased to be romantic. Air conditioning and fast food are now a sore sight for my eyes. Perhaps around the same time as I developed frostbite in my toes (covered in candy purple polish so you can’t prove or disprove the cyanosis), I joined the ranks of international travellers who regard airports with the kind of disdain reserved for gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. A misfortune I managed to avoid when I ran outside the airport into a light drizzle just so I could stand on Trinidadian asphalt.

7:00AM
Outside Grantley Adams International Airport, Barbados
It’s too warm for the oversized sweater I donned in Port-of-Spain, and by now I’m old hat at airport bathrooms. The time in Barbados is fifty three minutes faster than the time on my watch, but no matter the time zone I’ve been awake for 24 hours. I’m tired and my bags are heavy, but I’ve arrived.

Let the good times roll.