Our first real day was Friday, and the only scheduled activity was to meet with the travel lady at 9:15 in the lobby. This woman, named Gloriel, spotted us right away as we walked in, but while I was expecting more of the Maui-style travel agent on wheels, all Gloriel basically had was herself, no brochures, just a cellphone. She was pushing the "Bajan Roots and Rhythms" dinner theater package, which was close by and not that interesting to us. I'd thought it sounded similar to a luau, but she said it was more like a Vegas show, with a wide variety of local food. Beth was more interested in the Oistens fish fry, a much more informal street-vendor type affair that we'd read favorable accounts of in a couple of places, but we didn't end up going to that either, as Beth got tired of flying fish pretty quick and would've involved schlepping there and back in a cab.



Gloriel did sign us up for a couple of things we wanted to do, a day-long bus tour of the island that focused on the nature attractions, and a snorkeling cruise. That took care of Saturday and Sunday, leaving us Monday as the leftover day, and Friday as the day to get oriented.



Getting oriented didn't really take that long. We walked through St. Lawrence Gap all the way to the main road and a little ways down that, and all the way back, probably a good three miles. Peeked in some shops, scoped out some restaurants, bought a few things at a grocery store, but that was about it. Ended up going for lunch at the restaurant of one of the hotels on the way back, where we could eat right by the ocean in a very uncrowded restaurant (most places along that stretch aren't open for lunch). We got back to the room about 2pm, and Beth wanted to check out Bridgetown, so the hotel had a shuttle running three times a day and we got in on the last trip, which also had the quickest turnaround, leaving us only about an hour and a half to "explore" the city. This turned out to be plenty of time, most of the department stores weren't that interesting, although we did buy a bracelet for Chloe from a street vendor, but otherwise we walked around the Parliament buildings and the Catholic church and part of the Careenage.



The Parliament buildings actually look like another church, with their Gothic architecture, but aren't open to the public obviously. The grounds of the church were completely covered in burial crypts, many of them above ground, presumably they have the same water table problems they have in New Orleans, although I didn't read that anywhere. At one point we came upon a side street with an open air market with a bunch of vendors set up and Beth wanted to take a picture of the area, but one of the vendors told us not to. In general, Bridgetown was very crowded (Friday is apparently their busiest day), school was just out so there were lots of kids in uniforms cutting through town to catch the bus home, the streets are very narrow with even narrower or sometimes non-existent sidewalks, and the heat and humidity didn't help, so it was not the best city to wander around in.



The shuttle bus picked us up right on schedule and used a number of side roads to get back to the hotel. After sweating all day walking around, we headed for the pool and had the first of many rum punches, then walked out to the beach and pulled up a couple of chairs to watch the sunset. In fact the only time we ever set foot on the beach was at sunset. Most of the people had gone, there were a few hardy souls standing in the surf (most of the beaches on the south coast are tough for swimming because of the current), a few people tried to strike up conversations to sell us t-shirts or aloe or whatever (no drugs), but we gave them all the brushoff without any trouble. We did chat with one lady from Memphis who was there as part of some church organization that had brought a bunch of troubled kids with them to help local kids build stuff or something. She was worried because the surf was pretty high that evening and her husband and some of the other adults were standing out in it letting the waves knock them over (don't get much of that in Memphis, I guess). She also had somehow gotten the notion that the Barbados water wasn't safe to drink, and said that when she had alluded to this to a waitress the woman seemed insulted. We assured her that everything we'd read said the water was above reproach (although most restaurants would offer a choice of bottled vs. local water).



One of the things we did buy during the day was a phone card so we could call Julie's and talk to the kids for a few minutes. It turned out to be a very few minutes, since a $12.50US phone card lasted for about 8 of them. After a day and a half at Julie's the kids were already caught up in the whirlwind of activities swirling around them and had adjusted fine to their surroundings (although Chloe had cried for 45 minutes straight after she got to school on Thursday, but we sort of expected that). Since it was so pricey and the kids didn't seem to be too lonesome for us, we decided we could forgo calling them again.



One thing that took some getting used to with this trip was that we could basically have dinner whenever we wanted, rather than eating at 6:00 and spending the evening watching tv after berating the kids to fall asleep. So around 8pm for dinner we tried out Luigi's, which was only about 100 yards out the front gate from the hotel and was recommended by Frommers. This was pretty much the only restaurant we ate at that wasn't on the water, so they tried to make up for it by playing Italian arias in the background and showing a video of Italy on a little tv out on the porch. The place was mostly empty, but we were served by someone who actually looked Italian, and the food was very good, so we were satisfied anyway. After walking all day and lots of pasta for dinner, there was little hope in staying up late that night.

Since our flight wasn’t leaving until 12:30 pm, we took our time puttering around in the morning, got the kids off to the bus, it was rather unusual not having to rush around to get to the airport at the crack of dawn. Even before we’d left the house, as it turns out, Chloe was already in her classroom, crying her eyes out, although she’d been fine when I got her and Justin on the bus that morning.



When we left we had to swing by Julie’s to drop off one last batch of stuff, so I got on the pike a little later than I’d wanted, but still with plenty of time to spare. Of course there was a huge mid-morning traffic jam that made it take longer than it should have, but still we got to Logan with ample extra time. The other nice thing about afternoon flights (from Logan anyway) is there aren’t that many of them, so there was hardly anyone in line to check in.



The flight to San Juan was just about 4 hours and was completely uneventful. Beth struck up a conversation while waiting at the bathroom on the plane with an older woman named Donna who was coming back from visiting her grown children, and actually had a house with her husband in Barbados. She had plenty of recommendations for places to go, although most of them involved having a drink and looking at the view. I got the impression she wasn’t hurting for cash.



Once in San Juan, it was about 4:30 and there were a couple of hours to kill. The airport is about the size of the Providence airport, so there wasn’t much going on there, and we were already checked through to Barbados, so we walked around for a while and walked outside for a couple of minutes just to say we did. Beth had discovered on her way through security at Logan that the wire in her bra was setting off the metal detectors in a big way. They were thorough but not difficult about it, and again we weren’t in a hurry and there was no line, so it was more of an annoyance than anything else. She had also brought along some special knitting needles that don’t look like railroad spikes, having been told that these would pass airport security, and they did. In San Juan, since we’d left the airport we had to walk back through security there, and with the exact same results. If anything they were even more thorough at poking around with the wand (it was a woman doing it both times), so Beth resolved to try something else on the way home.



Since there was only one American flight from San Juan to Barbados, the lady we had met on the first flight was on the second one also. This plane was quite a bit smaller, a twin-propeller that held about 50 and wasn’t full (the Boston – San Juan flight was extremely empty). I had been trying to figure out the last couple of weeks given the relative distance between Boston to Puerto Rico and between Puerto Rico to Barbados why it was going to take over two hours for the second leg of the flight, but lo and behold it’s because the plane can’t go that fast. Since it was a small plane, you got to walk out onto the tarmac and up the stairs, just like we used to do at Capitol Airport. If you hadn't checked your bags already, they'd take them right there for you. The sun was setting as we took off, and within minutes was completely dark, Beth could see a few lights here and there from other islands out the window, but otherwise it was a featureless void until we touched down at Grantley Adams airport at about 8:30 pm.



Barbados' only airport is under construction, and late at night the terminal looked more like a loading dock. Immigration is a couple of people sitting behind wooden booths that look like they've been painted about 20 times. We got our bags and found (by asking, since there were no signs) where to wait for our pre-arranged ride to the hotel. It was a cab, but at least the car was nice. It appears that in Barbados anyone can drive people around and call themselves a cab, and there are no meters or anything so its all rather informal as to how much a ride costs. The cab driver warned us about the dangers of the sun there, he saw lots of people who got fried their first day and couldn't move the rest of the trip. He said it was particularly hot and humid this time of year, even the locals thought it was too hot. While we were driving, it started pouring outside, but by the time we reached the hotel, not only had it stopped but it hadn't rained there at all.



After we checked in, it was about 9:30 and we hadn't eaten anything but airplane food all day, so we grabbed a late dinner at the hotel restaurant, just splitting a sandwich and a salad, not very Caribbean, but it was fine. Then it was time to crash.

For some reason I'm having major troubles getting motivated to write anything lately, so I'm going to sit here and make myself expound upon the trip to Barbados that Beth and I just returned from tonight, and you'll just have to suffer along with me. If I'd been really organized (and wanted to spend my time on a tropical island sitting at an internet cafe) I could've been logging this info as it happened, but since I decided to spend a few days completely away from the internet, if not the outside world in general, it's now or never to write it all down before I forget everything (like the Worldcon, which just seemed like too much trouble to write about, so I just posted pictures instead).



Beth and I started talking idly a few months ago about going somewhere for our 15th anniversary, and ended up settling on the Caribbean, and finally on Barbados. Our first thought was the Bahamas (specifically the Atlantis resort, as Beth had seen some of it on the Newlyweds show and thought it looked interesting), but some further investigating showed that that wasn't really our type of vacation (i.e. not much to do other than gambling and beach-bumming). As it turned out, they were also pummelled by Hurricane Jeanne this weekend, so it's just as well. Also thought about the Cayman Islands, but again there's not much going on there besides the resorts themselves, and, since Grand Cayman is just a big sandbar in the middle of the sea, no one lived there until 1950 or so, so there's no indigenous culture or anything. This train of thought led to Barbados, which has been populated since the Portuguese stumbled upon it on the way to Brazil 400+ years ago, and while it's pretty well built up, it's not very touristy, at least not in the offseason.



For us Barbados was a great choice, the hotel was fabulous, the beaches were varied, there were lots of little nature-type things to see, there were some good restaurants. But make no mistake, Barbados is not a thriving island paradise, but rather a hot, humid, grubby little place that is perpetually under construction and always looks half finished. Starting with the airport, which boasts pictures of what it plans to look like in the future and plenty of construction barricades but little evidence of anyone actually building anything. And then our hotel, which was at the far end of an area called St. Lawrence Gap on the south coast, which starts out promisingly with some colorful, brightly lit restaurants lined up behind wide sidewalks fashioned by making the road a single lane, looking very festive at night, but the further down you get the more you start to see empty buildings, overgrown lots, hotels with pieces of trees piled up in the parking lot, and sections of road blocked off and torn up for construction but no one in sight working on them. And Bridgetown, the capital, jammed full of people, but with narrow, broken sidewalks, few street signs (signage in general in Barbados doesn't seem to have caught on yet), and a harbor that can only accomodate a few boats at a time. If you're looking for a disneyesque experience, you won't find it here.



But all these things are also part of its charm, and what makes it seem like a real place where people actually live, rather than something manufactured for Americans who feel the need to escape reality for a while. Maybe for that reason, most of the tourists there are from the UK, and they seem to feel right at home even as their lily white skin is being fricasseed in seconds under the tropical sun. While I would suggest there probably is no "real" Aruba, say, or Grand Cayman, and the "real" Jamaica or Haiti isn't a place you'd want to spend any time in or even feel safe in, you can't help but see the real Barbados unless you sequester yourself inside your hotel and don't go out for any reason (which is definitely an option at most resorts). And while, unlike Maui, I wouldn't ever entertain the notion of living there, it's engaging enough and unique enough of a place to make it an interesting experience, and a culture that we were able to directly interact with yet barely scratched the surface of. Not having been to any other islands there, I don't have a frame of reference for it, but my guess from surveying the literature about the rest of the Caribbean is you have islands that are either very tourist-oriented (the afore-mentioned Aruba and Caymans), islands whose residents predominately live in abject squalor such that you couldn't really enjoy yourself at your posh resort (Haiti, Jamaica), islands that are so small or behind the curve that they're basically unspoiled but primitive (Grenada, Nevis, Bonaire, etc.), and islands with a dominant American influence that make them seem like an extension of Florida (Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Virgin Islands). Barbados doesn't really fit any of these categories.



In fact its lack of American influence is maybe what endears it to the Brits but keeps it from being a primary American destination (plus it's almost as far south in the Carribean as you can get). Things like lack of signage, roads that go every which way (not to mention driving on the left), and some fairly lenient natural preservation laws bespeak at least a different attitude than what we're used to here. Most of the literature proclaims the people of Barbados to be the friendliest in the world, but I don't know that I believe that. While most everyone you pass in the street will look you in the eye and say hello, there were still plenty of people in the service industry who were disinterested, sullen, or just plain unhelpful, and while in most places you wouldn't think twice about it, here this flew in the face of their friendly image and made you feel cheated. The general pace of things (which goes for most islands, I would imagine) drives some people crazy, but in general things ran on schedule and started on time. And since Beth and I are anglophiles anyway, the British influence there was part of its appeal.



That's the overview anyway, for a start, let's see if I can get the details of the trip down next before I forget everything.

Another Worldcon is in the books, and if I can get over this cold I seem to always acquire after spending five days cooped up in windowless conference rooms with a bunch of people who don't get out much, I'll try to type up a more thorough rundown of what goings-on were worth mentioning. In the meantime here are some pictures of some of the august personages I happened to be in the presence of.