When the alarm went off at six this morning, I thought I was going to cry. I haven't used an alarm in more than two years now. These days, I get woken up by, "Mommy! I need to go pee pee!" Believe it or not, that's much more pleasant than the screeching of an alarm clock.
I showered in a complete fog. I haven't cleansed myself before noon in two years either. I almost wished for one of those old people shower chairs or something to steady myself. After I showered and got dressed, I took out the trash with my hair still wet. I'm pretty sure it froze from the door to the trash can. It was about 18 degrees.
We made it to the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in time to pee and eat some disgusting Chili's food that I could have made faster if I caught a free-range chicken myself, choked it, plucked it, chopped it up and cooked it. So much for the assumption that airport service should be fast.
We shared our flight with RaiNKhaN, who made the final table at the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event. You can read about him a bit
here if you'd like. RaiNKhaN sat in first class, while we sat in coach. So did a Furman student who plays in some of the underground games in our area. The
PokerStars Caribbean Adventure will be his first live tournament. He seemed pretty nervous, but he was certainly giddy.
We sat on the runway burning fuel for what seemed like an eternity. I looked out the window at one point and saw a line of planes that stretched further than my newly-Lasiked eyes could see. I thought to myself we were probably choking a few trees or endangered animals or something.
Almost as soon as we sat down, my husband and I pulled out our shiny new iPods. Soul Mate immediately fired up
Fargo while I shuffled through my song selection to find some good get-rowdy music.
Our U.S. Airways plane was cramped, even for short-legged ole me. We were seated in an aisle with a girl who probably went through about two packs of mini-tissues during our trip. When she asked to borrow a pen to fill out the immigration forms, I gave her a chewed-up one whose origin I can't trace (I don't chew my pens). When she returned it, I "accidentally" knocked it on the floor with my notebook. I'm not taking any chances, people. I don't need typhoid fever on my break from winter, 'kay?
When the petite male flight attendant closed the first class curtain, I had to laugh out loud. It's mesh. As in shower curtain that looks like mosquito netting. What's the point? I guess they want to further taunt you into paying for that upgrade. Lookie here! Here we are, serving the first class customers first! Here we are! Giving them free drinks! Oh, and look! They don't have to stay seated! They can walk around up in here all they want! In a minute, we're going to have a dance party. You can see us, but we'll pretend like we can't see you!
The Nassau airport is in a state of disarray. I doubt it was ever in "array" in the first place. Nothing here is. The signs said to excuse their appearance while they try to make improvements for us. I don't even know where they would begin making improvements, there are so many needed. They've chosen to go with the restrooms, apparently, which I suppose is fine by me. I like some clean facilities. However, those mo-fos really need to work on the baggage situation. I've been here three times. Each time, it's been total chaos trying to reclaim our bags. It's like a fucking free-for-all. There seems to be no rhyme or reason where they choose to put your bags. The carousel may or may not come to some gear-grinding screeching halt at any given moment, and a mountain of bags may or may not fall on your feet. Some dude may or may not come over and start throwing shit around, tossing the luggage wherever-the-hell. You just have to wander around aimlessly until you find your stuff. Welcome to paradise, bitches.
And then, the cab situation. Oh, don't even get me fucking started on this. Oh, I'll get started anyway. This is my blog, right? Anyway, the cab line attendant points us to this van-cab. We follow. When we start to climb in, I notice some odd stuff. First, the middle row is folded forward and is at a very odd angle. We struggle to get in with no help from cabbie dude. Second, his music is blaring. Really blaring. He doesn't seem to notice when my husband has to scream our destination to him. He doesn't turn it down until he decides to use his phone to have some completely unintelligible conversation a few minutes later.
Soul Mate gets on his Crackberry and starts surfing the internet while I start looking around. I notice the interior of the cab is covered in some black substance. It's everywhere. The ceiling. The frame. The seats. All over the seats. Glad I wore that white shirt. Everywhere. I wonder to myself if we weren't in a vehicle that had been submerged in water during the last hurricane and toxic black mold began to overtake it before someone decided to transport gullible tourists in it. When I asked how the fuck we ended up in the total piece of shit cab, Soul Mate suggested there had been a fire in there at some point. "See, that's soot," he said, although neither of us could see where there had ever been flames. There was nothing burned, even though everything was certainly a wreck. Soot or black mold. I don't give a shit what it is. Neither is appropriate for a mode of transportation on an island whose primary industry is tourism. I think I would have been happier riding on the back of a donkey. At least I wouldn't be inhaling toxic fumes.
However, if I had ridden on the back of a donkey, I wouldn't have gotten to have Bizarro Experience Numbers Two and Three. I've been here three times. I couldn't find my way around, but I have a pretty good memory. Especially when it comes to landmarks. I started to feel like we weren't on the same track we had taken on my previous trips. Next thing I know, the cabbie pulls over to some random spot and picks up some chick. She mutters something completely unintelligible, hops into the cab, and asks my husband to move his foot and his shit so she can adjust her seat. Who the fuck is this, anyway? We never really found out, but I'm certain it was a hooker.
We appeared to be the last pick-up in this guy's day (except for the hooker, of course). We later learned that at least one of his unintelligible phone conversations was the ordering of food...for the two of them. Fish and chips and lamb something-or-other. The beeatch didn't stop moving once she jumped in. She's digging in her bag. She's pulling out a mirror and picking at her face. She looks at her face from every angle. I'm pretty sure she was looking at us instead. The look on my face said it all, I'm sure. At one point she started laughing and muttered something completely unintelligible to freak-show driving the cab. She asks for his phone and starts making phone calls. She's yelling that she's starving. She's picking at her face again. She's saying she'd rather be six feet under in a grave. She's picking at her face again.
When dude pulls over again, I think they're about to roll us and throw us out of the fucking cab. I'm running over all the ways I can kill this bitch before she kills me when dude pulls into a gas station. He says nothing as he parks the van, saunters up to the counter, saunters back to the van and puts twenty bucks of gas in. Take us much time as you want, sir. We have nowhere to be. We're just rich, white American tourists, right? I'm already sick of that attitude, and I've been here about four hours. It is so prevalent here. We are here to work (of course, we'll have fun, too, but this is a work trip). My husband's clients are spending an assload of money on this island for the next eight days. And yet, we will be treated like shit on the bottom of a shoe the entire time we're here, because the service people will get their 15 percent no matter whether we are satisfied with how they do their jobs. It's outrageous to me, and yet, this place is packed year 'round with people who are willing to shell out thousands of dollars to be treated like this. Never come to the Bahamas if you're expecting Vegas-calibre service. Never. Unless it's free and in January, and then I highly recommend enduring it, especially if it's 18 degrees or lower where you are right now.
My husband and I both wondered aloud where all that money goes, though. Where does it go? Millions upon millions of dollars spent here, and everything outside the resort areas looks like shit. Terrible roads. Terrible buildings. Shacks. Cars assembled from random parts of random brands. Clearly most of the people who live on this island never see their share of the money people spend here. If they're not paying their people, and they're not spending it on infrastructure, where is it going? Someone's pockets, I'm sure. But whose?
Let's stop with the social commentary and get back to the story, shall we?
Check-in at Atlantis was less painful than in years past, but we later learned that our desk person forgot a crucial step in the process. She failed to get a credit card, so after a hundred attempts to access the internet and two phone calls downstairs, we learned that we actually had to come down there to deal with the issue. Since my husband has work to do, I went down to handle it. The girl took my card and came back and told me that I couldn't deal with this issue since the room and card are in my husband's name. So, I walked four and a half miles back to my room, sent my husband downstairs, and commenced to ironing my husband's shirt like a good little wifey.
Several minutes later, my husband called me to say that another desk person told him that it was all taken care of and that he didn't need to go down there at all. So he hoofed it all the way back up here, making a stop for two Kaliks on his way.
Our room is much better than the three rooms we had last year. Our first one overlooked a trash heap. Our second one was a smoking room and smelled like a bar at 3am. Our third one was OK. This year, we can see a bit of the ocean, so that's cool.
We nearly got blown off our balcony when we went out on it after checking in. The surf is really high, and it feels like it's 40 degrees here. It's apparently in the 60s, but you'd never know it by the way everyone's dressed. Except for a few crazy fuckers who were out in the water, everyone else was dressed like winter in Buffalo. The forecast says the weather should improve by Saturday. Let's hope it's right.
So, this blog will be on the road for the next week. If you want to keep up with the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, check in on the
PokerStars blog. If you want to read about the side-story, check back here and
over here.
In spite of the usually-terrible service here, we will work really hard and have a really good time as always. We've already seen a few familiar and smiling faces, and we're expecting to see many more over the next seven days. And, maybe we'll even see the sun, too. Who knows?
Oh, and for a look back at last year's adventures, try these links:
Mommy's Big Adventure, Part One
Hilarity Continues
Mommy's So, So Tired
I'm Too Old for This ShitLabels: Atlantis, Bahamas, PCA, PokerStars
