Because my flight left early in the morning on April 8, I wanted to be in Billings the night before so that I didn’t have to drive in the middle of the night with hundreds of deer lining the road for their nightly rite of passage gauntlet. I drove from Livingston on April 7 and arrived at the Super 8 in Billings. My hotel room there was really nice, and to me it appeared to be a business suite with a king bed, but it was listed at the hotel as a standard room with a single king. I certainly didn’t complain!
I went out to eat at the Golden Corral and talked a bit with my good friend Adam while I was there. The waitress tended to forget about me. Maybe it was because I decided to sit in a corner near a window? Afterward I watched Clash of the Titans in 3D. I thought it was a pretty good movie. I hadn’t seen a 3D movie before, and I haven’t been in Bozeman or Billings to watch a movie for months, so this was my only opportunity. After the movie I went back to the motel and checked in online for my plane.
April 8 started at 3:00 am for me. I took a shower in that luxurious (at least compared with what I’m used to) bathroom and headed on to the airport. There everything went smoothly—security, baggage check, etc. The plane left the airport around 6:00 am, on time. My first connecting flight was in Denver. It was a little tricky because I had originally booked my flight on US Airways, but my first flight was with United Airlines! So when I got to Denver, I had to get tickets for my remaining flights. From there, I went to Charlotte, North Carolina. I had to rush to get to my flight because the plane landed about 15 minutes before boarding time to the next connecting flight. I got there in good enough time. From Charlotte, I went to Fort Lauderdale. There in Florida I had to get on a flight to yet another airline: BahamasAir. I hadn’t eaten a solid meal that day, so I went to a pizza place that was already closed by 7:00 pm. That didn’t make any sense to me, but whatever. I ate next door and ate something Cuban. I never really had anything Cuban before—not bad. It’s a good thing that I ate near the gate I would leave because the flight started boarding about half an hour early. We also arrived in Nassau about half an hour early. Since I’ve never gone through customs before, I thought it would be a hassle because of my ignorance. It was actually really easy since my luggage was missing!
After filling out a report I went to the hotel by taxi. That was interesting because not only did he drive on the left hand side of the road (as people normally do in the Bahamas), he also drove on the right! There were a couple of close calls on the way to the hotel. I looked up front and noticed that the speedometer didn’t work; I figured we were going about 50 miles per hour or so. I wasn’t sure what the limit was, but we passed everyone we saw! Since his speedometer didn’t work, I figured that his odometer didn’t work either. So when I asked him how much I owed him at the hotel, I surmised that he just gave me a guess: $27. I gave him a large tip. Maybe he’ll use it to invest in a new speedometer. I later found out that $27 was a competitive price from the airport to the hotel.
The hotel gave me a room on the fourth floor facing the ocean and one of their pools. The only problem was that I couldn’t get rid of the view; the curtains wouldn’t shut! Since no one could fix it then, they gave me a different room on the same floor. The room was almost exactly the same layout: Two double beds in a fairly small room. It was adequate, but still needed some tender loving care. The carpet appeared to be old and either needed to be cleaned or replaced. The closet smelled a little of mildew because there is no air circulation in it. Suffice it to say, I didn’t keep very much in the closet because after living in Louisiana, I know how mildew just destroys everything. One chair in the room had a two inch tear near the bottom.
The bathroom is small too. I had to be careful to put the toilet seat down before I fumbled to grab a hand towel after washing my hands because the towel rack was right over the toilet. The bathroom doesn’t have a bath/shower combination, but only a shower. At home, we have a half bath in the garage where I take my shower and the shower there is about half the size of this one. At least I was not bumping against the walls like at home. The towels were stored in the shower area. They could stay dry where they were, but I didn’t take the chance.
April 9 I woke up about 8:30 am EDT (which is about 4-6 hours earlier than I wake up normally) and had some breakfast while I surfed the web. Everything is much more expensive in the Bahamas than it is in Gardiner. Wi-Fi for an hour was $10. My luggage still hadn’t arrived, so I went to my room and had a nap for a couple hours. I later went to the front office to discuss my baggage situation with the people there, and then went for some lunch at the Fish Fry, a section of town with a lot of restaurants.
I ate Conch (pronounced “Conk” in the Bahamas) fritters at the Twin Brothers restaurant. Yummy! I’ve never eaten conch before. The meat is of a leathery texture, but tastes like a light seafood. While I was there, some guy with a king outfit came out of the driver’s seat of a taxi and walked in. That was pretty funny to see.
When I got back to the hotel about 3:30 pm, my luggage was just arriving, and it’s a good thing I was there! I think someone misspelled my name, so they didn’t know whose luggage it was (even though I made it clear that I was looking for luggage. How many people can lose luggage in a couple days?). I asked them about the damage, and the response from the guy who brought it was, “It’s damaged?” The lady at the front desk asked the same question, but she couldn’t see it from her angle with the desk in her way. At least nothing appeared to be missing. According to the airport, I have to deal with the damaged luggage when I’m ready to leave the country.
After taking a shower and finally changing clothes, I sat on a bench near the beach watching the birds and cruise ships. It was definitely a restful evening. For dinner I ate at Ichiban, a Japanese/Bahamian restaurant. Now I paid $45 for a lobster dinner, and I will say that it was fabulous. Wow. They gave me butter to dip the lobster, and sour cream for the baked potato. Honestly, I liked the sour cream better than the butter on the lobster. Yum-my!
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