The Journey
The week before we left was spent purchasing last minute items, spending time with family, and packing, not only what we were taking, but also what we were leaving behind. Four suitcases, a backpack, and a small bag later, we were ready to go.
August 28th: After about 1.5 hours of sleep we woke to get ready and leave for the airport. Luke's parents and Josh took us to the airport. Around 3 am, we arrived at the airport in Minneapolis, MN, and said our goodbyes. The airport was fairly empty, so checking our bags, going through security, and arriving at our gate didn't take long at all. That's when the waiting began. After awhile, we boarded our 5am flight to Charlotte, NC. Thankfully, there wasn't a long layover there, so we soon boarded our next flight for Miami, FL. We arrived safely in Miami for our 6 hour layover. We were tired, but excited about our new adventure and excited to see the first home we would have together. We watched Netflix, ate Chinese, sipped Starbucks, and colored until finally, it was time to board our flight to Barbados. It was an odd feeling, knowing we were flying over the ocean. I'd never flown internationally before. In fact, the only time I'd ever left the continental US before was a trip to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls before you needed a passport to get there. Needless to say, as excited as I was, I was also pretty nervous, especially about going through customs. On the flight, they gave us a customs form to fill out.
Our flight landed in Barbados at 10pm. We exited the plane outside on the runway before entering the airport to stand in the customs line for an hour. That was our first experience with island time. It took forever! Thankfully, we made it through without any issues, and they didn't even check our suitcases. I'd had visions of much worse!
We had paid our hotel in Barbados to pick us up from the airport, but they were nowhere to be found. We asked some of the other hotel drivers what to do, and they told us to take a taxi and get the hotel to reimburse us in the morning. That's exactly what we did. It was dark, so we couldn't see much of Barbados as we rode to our hotel, but it was very odd driving on the opposite side of the road.
Our hotel was nice! It was air conditioned and right on the ocean, the only downsides were the noise from the bars nearby and the lack of safely drinkable water. After about 24 hours of being awake, we finally were able to sleep!
August 28th: After about 1.5 hours of sleep we woke to get ready and leave for the airport. Luke's parents and Josh took us to the airport. Around 3 am, we arrived at the airport in Minneapolis, MN, and said our goodbyes. The airport was fairly empty, so checking our bags, going through security, and arriving at our gate didn't take long at all. That's when the waiting began. After awhile, we boarded our 5am flight to Charlotte, NC. Thankfully, there wasn't a long layover there, so we soon boarded our next flight for Miami, FL. We arrived safely in Miami for our 6 hour layover. We were tired, but excited about our new adventure and excited to see the first home we would have together. We watched Netflix, ate Chinese, sipped Starbucks, and colored until finally, it was time to board our flight to Barbados. It was an odd feeling, knowing we were flying over the ocean. I'd never flown internationally before. In fact, the only time I'd ever left the continental US before was a trip to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls before you needed a passport to get there. Needless to say, as excited as I was, I was also pretty nervous, especially about going through customs. On the flight, they gave us a customs form to fill out.
Our flight landed in Barbados at 10pm. We exited the plane outside on the runway before entering the airport to stand in the customs line for an hour. That was our first experience with island time. It took forever! Thankfully, we made it through without any issues, and they didn't even check our suitcases. I'd had visions of much worse!
We had paid our hotel in Barbados to pick us up from the airport, but they were nowhere to be found. We asked some of the other hotel drivers what to do, and they told us to take a taxi and get the hotel to reimburse us in the morning. That's exactly what we did. It was dark, so we couldn't see much of Barbados as we rode to our hotel, but it was very odd driving on the opposite side of the road.
Our hotel was nice! It was air conditioned and right on the ocean, the only downsides were the noise from the bars nearby and the lack of safely drinkable water. After about 24 hours of being awake, we finally were able to sleep!
August 29th:
The next morning, we ate the rest of our snacks, since breakfast was not included, and the hotel arranged for us to be taken to the airport. Liat is the Caribbean airline company that we flew with, and their baggage rules are different from flights in the US. We booked our same two suitcases that we had before (one was 49.5lbs), but we had to book our two suitcases that had previously been carry ons. We had to pay extra for those and had to decide which bags were priority, since our extra suitcases might not make it on our flight. Our carrying could only be 15lbs. We made it through security again, and waited for our flight to SVG. It was confusing to find out when we were boarding because multiple flights leave from the same gate, since it you board the flight outside. We finally boarded our tiny plane, and finished filling out our customs forms. A short time later, I caught my first glimpse of St. Vincent. I couldn't believe how different it was from Barbados. Barbados was mostly flat, while St. Vincent is very hilly.
We landed safely at the smallest airport I've ever seen. The inside of the airport was just as small with no air conditioning and signs everywhere that said that there should be no cell phones, pictures, or video. We made it through customs, and waited by the one small baggage claim. The first bags we saw were our non-priority ones, so we were very hopeful that all our luggage would arrive. Praise the Lord, it did! We found out later that it's very rare to have all the luggage arrive at the same time that you do. The customs officials didn't make us open our luggage, so we exited the airport to see smiling people with Trinity School of Medicine T-shirts and a sign with Luke's name on it. They helped us with our luggage, loaded us into a van, and gave us a welcome bag with an island phone, food, and the keys to our very first apartment.
We were so grateful to have made and safely, and so excited to see our first place.
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