After the workout, I had a terrific breakfast. Only my breakfast was included and T was still sleeping. I think I ate enough for four, I was so excited to see a vast array of fresh fruits, pastries, eggs, bacon, sausage, yogurt, cereals, juice, tea, coffee and water. There were even made to order omelets and waffles. There was french toast and potatoes and other things I can't even begin to remember. It was rather pricey though at $22 US dollars, so mom and T ate at Burger King when he finally woke up. We were able to get a late checkout of 1:30p.m. and the front desk secured our luggage for us.
After breakfast we went and played around in the pool. Unfortunately the sun had other plans, but the pool was refreshing and I found it great exercise to stretch my ever increasing leg muscle injury. We left the hotel and took the shuttle to one of several malls in Trinidad. I'm definitely not a shopper, but we walked the stores and ordered pizza for lunch. We made arrangements with the shuttle to pick us up at 4:45p.m. to return to the hotel for Alana to pick us up to tour Trinidad. Unfortunately the shuttle man was to pass the message to his replacement and we found ourselves abandoned at the mall. I went back into the mall and mall information personnel called a taxi for us. It's amazing how clueless I felt without a cell phone in a foreign country. It definitely wasn't a welcoming feeling.
We arrived back at the hotel to find Alana and her son waiting for us. I was hoping to take pictures of Trinidad but didn't really have much opportunity. It was almost 5:30p.m. when we left the hotel and time and sunlight were not really on our side. Alana drove us around but struggled with what to show us in Trinidad. She took us to the main part of the city where we saw traffic at its best. What I wanted most was to take pictures of Trinidad with a panoramic setting. Alana showed us houses of cricket players that we had no idea who they were. When I asked about scenic views she mentioned Fort George but it would have been too dark by the time we got there and my camera doesn't take night pictures well. So we decided to give up the sightseeing and find somewhere for dinner.
I didn't realize that making a dinner selection could be so difficult. We were hoping that Alana had a local favorite place that she enjoyed. Mom was hoping to hear a steelpan band. We didn't find either. Alana struggled with finding somewhere unique to eat and we ended up at restaurant that seemed more mainstream. I know in my town there are definitely local places that I take out of town family and friends to, but this didn't seem to be the case for Alana. Dinner took a while and my chicken was raw when it arrived. The food was good, although rather expensive. I was shocked to see a man in all black with a machine gun across his chest walk by the restaurant. Alana said he was police.
After dinner, we decided we wanted to find an ice cream place before returning to the airport for our flight back home. The flight was at 1:30a.m. Alana's son had passed out in the back of the van and Alana was having a difficult time finding ice cream so we told her she could just head back to the airport. While I would have loved to actually have seen more of Trinidad, our experience was a good one, albeit brief. Our flight out of Trinidad was delayed half an hour, so it made things tight with our connecting flight in Ft. Lauderdale.
We had an hour to transfer our baggage, get through customs and security and make the connecting flight. Mom was a wreck and I'm not sure how many times I told her to "stop". We made it to the gate with five minutes to spare before boarding the plane. We arrived back to Detroit at 9:40a.m. on August 23, 2008. How wonderful to be back in the comfort of home. Home sweet home!
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