10 Minutes with Danielle: Trinidad Diary: Day One (Confiscated Camo at Trinidad Customs & Eye Candy)

One of like two photos I took today–will play better “tourist” tomorrow

I was getting ready for bed and had the idea of documenting my time here in the Caribbean with my gal pals Jessica from Glamazons Blog, Lexi from Lexi with the Curls, and Christina from LoveBrownSugar with an unofficial diary of sorts. Not sure if I’ll be able to keep up with it every day, but here’s to taking a shot at it…lol.

Jess and I are the first to arrive—we flew American Airlines to Miami with a connecting AA flight to Port of Spain, Trinidad. The flight went off without a hitch and a flight attendant on our first flight took a liking to us and snuck us some wine gratis (gotta love a gal who gives you complimentary drank, honey). When we got to Piarco airport in Trinidad though came a bit of drama. The line for immigration looked like the zombie apocalypse came to T&T. It took us a little over two hours to get through meanwhile my poor cousin was outside waiting for us. The immigration agent made the process very nice though once we finally got to the window. Then came local customs. SIGH. So anything camouflage print is against the law in Trinidad and Tobago. And in case you haven’t noticed, I love me some camo print, girl! Lexi had actually warned me ahead of time so I made sure not to pack my camo pants or shorts but I did wear my camo print winter coat I got from Gap on super sale (thanks, Baby Shopaholic!) because it’s the only winter coat I have that can get me from NYC cold, can be smoothed down flat enough to fit in my already crowded bags, and I figured it’s a coat so no one could seriously think I’d be wearing a camo coat in hot ass Trinidad.

We get to local customs and a pretty nice agent told me (and like 15 other people) we didn’t turn the form over and fill out the other side. I go to do it and come back and get another not so nice agent who had a THICK heavy accent that Jess couldn’t understand. You wanna know this guy asked her if she spoke English, asked how old she was, and then asked why she couldn’t fill out a simple form? THAT’s how you greet someone coming into the country? So here I go with my American-self telling him don’t talk to her like that—she doesn’t understand the Trini accent. Then he starts to berate me saying he was going to let me through with my camo coat (he did reason also that it was a coat and I would be crazy to wear a winter coat in 90 degree Trinidad) but because I’m giving him “attitude” I had to go through some other place and then THEY took my coat. I was annoyed, but what am I gonna do? I also tried to reason that I’d be crazy to wear a camo coat PLUS I would need it when I got back home to cold NYC. They didn’t care. The guy even told me if I left money in the pockets, he’d take that, too. I thought he was joking but when I laughed and looked at him, he was dead serious. Womp, womp. The coat was like $30 but I’m more annoyed at the way we were treated. And now I have to get from JFK to home without a coat when I come back.

But not to let a rocky experience through customs get us down, I caught up with my cousins who I haven’t seen in ten years since I last came to Trinidad. I’ve always felt that Trinidad is home to some of the funniest people in the world—like laugh until you can’t breathe and your stomach hurts kinda funny and many of them are in my family. So we spent the day working (remember a blogger’s duty almost never shuts off) and talking to some of my family. The heat made me sleepy so I wound up taking a late afternoon nap (which is why I’m up at 2:19 AM AST drafting this post) so didn’t do much for the day. Tomorrow we’re off to Tobago to pretty much lay on the beach all day—hope they have wifi nearby ;)

Things that were the most helpful today:
*My family here in St. James—my grandma for being the sweetest and most helpful 89 year old you could wish for, my cousin for being so accommodating in getting us from the airport pickup from hell, my other cousin for having an amazing personality and being so fun to hang around, and my little cousin (ok not so little) for driving me around St. James trying to pick up AM Bush tickets even though they weren’t available for pickup yet.
*What’s App app which allowed me to “text” people without using CDMA or data—very helpful in communicating with the rest of the Caribbean Crawl crew still back in the States
*Wifi which is the brain and the heart of how all my precious technology is thriving. May it be bountiful and unlimited and never waver.
*Knowing that Scandal airs live here on ABC so I can watch this Thursday’s return while I’m hopefully sipping on a cocktail in Tobago
*Um, the plentiful male eye candy out here. *fans self* guuuuurl, I’m out here waving left and right and “Hello, good night”-ing some of these guys out here. Do not be surprised if I don’t come back right away ;)

Until tomorrow—please Gawd.