Sat behind a woman getting sms messages for the first time in a couple of days. On her screen, “He lost his first tooth on Friday!”

Her reply started with OMG which made me smile. You don’t expect 65 year old women to type that.

She didn’t. She kept going: OMGoodness.

I found that even funnier

Getting off the ship took too long. Once off I went to pick up my luggage, went to find someone to tell them it wasn’t there, waited for them to look around where I’d already looked four times, waited for them to sort through luggage that was there but hadn’t been picked up, waited for them to make three phone calls then eventually suggested that I might need to decide between taking my luggage home and getting the airport transfer that would get me home.

That sharpened her mind and we went on a tour of the building. My luggage wasn’t in the green section, or the pink section, or the red section.

Into an area not yet open to the public and my suitcase wasn’t hiding in the blue section or the black section. No, some miserable imbecile had put my grey tagged luggage in the purple section, not the grey one.

At least the subsequent 30 minute wait for passport control was spent in enjoyable chatter with a Canadian lady.

Passport check was the easiest I’ve ever had in America – including even before September 2001. She looked at the photograph, looked at me, asked if I was going straight to Canada.

“No, I’m going home!”

She paused, glanced at me, looked at my passport, handed it back to me with a, “Thank you.”

On the transfer, which had waited for me, I looked in bemusement at the signs on every window, felt the need to write a response.

Dear TSA,
I’m on a bus from a cruise terminal to an airport.
I’m at risk of death from road accidents, adverse weather, robbery, rape and falling into a pond and drowning. I’m less at risk from terrorism than I am from bloody alligators.
Do please try and get a sense of perspective.

Passing through a less wealthy part of Miami the graffit suggested Justice for scotts. Nope, not a namesake.

At 10.45am i was told my 6pm flight wouldnt open for check in until 2 hours before departure.

I didn’t believe her. I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave myself just two hours to get through a check in queue, a bag drop queue, a security check, passport control and whatever length walk would be needed in the terminal.

In the meantime I found somewhere offering coffee and quesadillas.

After eating I walked back down the concourse. The screens had been updated to include the airline logo and gave the time they’d open: 2pm.

90 minutes later I had to stand up, the solid floor causing me pain from sitting on it. By then someone had built a fence, channelling people wanting to check in, a queue forming. I’d been sat right by the front of the queue so merely stood there instead, stood my suitcase up, paced in the gap between that and the check in desks. Travelling is ok if you’re travelling, it’s the waiting that hurts.

They opened the desks fifteen minutes early. I’d had to remove a kilo of chocolate from my suitcase (none of it for me) and cram it into my camera bag to get under the allowed weight, but luckily I’d tested and done that before the desks opened. Checking my bag went quickly and easily, the queue for security checks was obscene but moving quickly and 30 minutes later I emerged into the terminal.

I tried a bar but their menu lacked prices. After enquiring after them I understood why, did what the prices would’ve made anybody do, got up and walked out.

The terminal was noisy. I moved seats to avoid two women wittering behind me but that didn’t help. Constant tannoy announcements, repeated in another language, no fewer than three ‘Final Call’ announcements for somewhere in South America. Meanwhile there was a guy to one side of me watching sport highlights on his phone with the sound turned up, another to the right listening to some shit music, someone else somewhere in front of me watching something that sounded terrible. The constant barrage of noise was unavoidable, although a frustrated voiced ‘Will you shut the fuck up’ at the ceiling in response to yet another Final Call was interpreted by the guy next to me personally, and he turned the sound down on his sports highlights.

I’d have got up and moved but there was nowhere to go. There are no quiet places, unless you’re a woman breastfeeding, in which case a small shed on the concourse was available so that you wouldn’t upset people scared of babies having breakfast.

The man next to me got up, walked off with his partner. They’d had a quiet chat in a foreign language but it was also just time for their flight. I didn’t move quickly enough to get the ‘end of row’ seat, ended up with two new men beside me. One of them opened a laptop, immediately started playing a video. Headphones? Don’t be stupid. He had all the stupidity the world could ever need.

A temporary moment of blissful silence. Of course, that was relative, a low murmur of conversation, a small child screaming in the distance, one nearer making happy noises as he played. It didn’t last, the tannoy steaming straight back into action, some announcement in some foreign language or other, then repeated in English. “Only bags with carry-on can go in the overhead compartment, anything else must go under your seat.”

Lets hope for their sake that Virgin don’t try that one.