Got up at 4:30am. Got to uncle's house at 5:30 and then to airport by 6. Met up with other family members at airport. Surprisingly, some were late, having not woken up in time. Those of us who hadn't slept at all could not understand this. Our flight to Miami took off between seven and seven:thirty. I didn't know those complimentary American Airlines "Bistro" bags at the gate were to be our breakfast. I missed out, while the others had their bagel, raisins, milk, and juice. Arrived in Miami at around ten but saw little of it. Boarded flight to St Martin at ten:thirty, departed at eleven. Once again I had a window seat, displaying tantalizing views of the blue Caribbean water. Touched ground in St Maarten at around one. I assumed there'd be a time change, but since the Caribbean does not recognize Daylight Savings Time I found I'd reset my watch for nothing.
Three Air France airplanes had landed before us, so the customs terminal was quite full. On the other side, at luggage pick-up, we learned a suitcase was still behind in Miami. A taxi-van took us to the Windjammer dock. Our driver tooks us through the island. We saw Pizza Huts and KFCs amid the shacks and tropical-style buildings: 7-Eleven became 7-Alive, and all along the way were the ubiquitous yellow Robbie$ lottery stores. We had paid extra to "stowaway" the night before the cruise. We could not board till five, so we set our bags on ahead and spent the afternoon walking around the town...until a launch took us over to the Polynesia.
We had our chance to find our rooms, check out the ship, and have dinner (a kind of goulash over rice, with a side of macaroni shells). My uncle had created t-shirts, scanned from the catalog photo of the Polynesia, which he wanted all of us to wear at dinner. "Ah," said the captain, "I see someone's been playing with the computer." I slowly began to meet my fellow passengers, learning names I would sadly quickly forget. At nightfall, a reggae band came on board (left-click for a RealAudio sound effect) to perform on the top deck. The threat of rain sent them down to the quarter deck, where they performed pretty much every song of Bob Marley's Legend album till around midnight.
Got up at 4:30am. Got to uncle's house at 5:30 and then to airport by 6. Met up with other family members at airport. Surprisingly, some were late, having not woken up in time. Those of us who hadn't slept at all could not understand this.
