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Tuesday Day 1:
OK. Here we go.
We got to sleep early, as we had an early rise at 2:30 AM, for a 6:00 AM flight to our connection in Atlanta. We must do a better job of planning our UBER trip to the airport, as we arrived at the terminal at 5:00. Since we are returning on a different airline, we couldn’t check in online, so we had to go to an agent to show our return ticket, per the online instructions. Fortunately, the airport wasn’t busy, so we were able to walk straight to the counter. After it was all said and done, the agent didn’t even ask to see our return tickets, and just checked us in. I always must request a full body pat down and medical bag hand inspection, so it takes a little longer to pass through TSA. The agent that screened me says, haven’t I done this for you before…must have given him a lasting impression, and it was completed quickly. We arrived at the gate and we were boarding, so we made it to our seats quickly. The cloud cover at Atlanta was to the ground. We broke through the clouds and were literally on runway in 45 seconds. I knew we were close, but not that close…I thought we might be delayed taking off to Aruba, as the clouds just kept getting thicker as we waited at our gate. About 30 minutes before departure, the skies started to clear a little and we departed on time. It was a little bumpy, as we climbed the first 5 minutes, but after that, it was a smooth ride all the way to the island. We each watched a couple of movies and the time past quickly. We ended up landing 20 minutes early, but we had to sit on the tarmac for a bit, waiting for a plane to shove off our gate. We were at the duty-free store within 15 minutes and picked up a couple bottles of vodka. It was almost half the cost of what we’ve seen around the island. They were 1.75L bottles and when we passed customs, the agent simply asked how many bottles we had, and I correctly replied 2, and off we went.
Our good and gracious friends, Robin and Stu, picked us up at the airport and chauffeured us to our condo; so very nice of them. They know firsthand what it’s like arriving at your condo on travel day, so they dropped us off quickly, and we’ll get together after we’ve had a couple days to settle in.
Miraculously, our car cover was completely intact from the islands winds, so I unwrapped it and but the battery on our charge, while the wife started to unpack our stored belongings. We have the system down to a science now, and we're literally moved in in a half hour or so.
We headed to Super Foods for our first load of groceries. It wasn’t that busy there, so it was a quick run. There were a few things that they were out of, so we’ll head to Price Smart and Ling’s tomorrow, to fill the gaps. We headed to our now traditional first night’s dinner atLing’s Chineses restaurant. It’s local, fast and reasonably priced. We had a platter of chicken chop suey for two. Total came to $13.71 plus tip. The owner now comes over and greets us every time we come in. Us old foreigners must stick out like a sore thumb.
We headed back to the condo and let the family know that we arrived safely and crashed. So glad that we are here and that travel day had come to an end.
Link to Photos
https://photos.app.goo.gl/W6ikc9QJwhaWoFqo6
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Originally Posted by Pegmeister
