9-14-08 afternoon and evening entries (from hand-written journal)

3:05pm (Eastern)
We are on our flight to Miami now, with about 1 hour to go until landing. We definitely made the right choice booking the American flight, as both our Continental flights and connecting flights through Houston have been canceled. I need to talk to someone at Continental about canceling re-scheduled flights as well as getting the refund I am now entitled to. I think I'll try to take care of that tomorrow when I get to the airport for my flight home. I still don't have a ride home from the airport due to the change in arrival times, but I will call people when we land in Miami. Speaking (well, writing) of the hotel, I would like to formally thank my Dad for looking into, booking, and offering to pay for my hotel room in Miami. I had limited internet access, and could not have easily done this on my own. On a similar note, I would also like to thank Mr. Flacks (Adam's Dad if you're not aware) for looking into the alternative flight options for us. Once again, doing this on our own would not have been easy with the limited internet access, and it was greatly appreciated. I think I'll wrap this us for now, but I'm sure I'll have more to write about tonight after going through my first experience with American Customs when re-entering the country.

Until later,

Ryan

10:02pm
I can't believe how exhausted I am. It's 10pm here, but after a week on Belize time, it "should" only feel like it's 8pm. Regardless of the time, bed sounds great right now.

I was amazed at how quick and easy it was to get through customs today. I had been talking with Adam, who has traveled internationally a few times previously, and he told me I would be asked a lot of questions, and they would rummage through my luggage. None of this happened. At passport control, the man at the counter lectured me about taking better care of my passport (it got a bit beat up on the Tikal trip) but that was really it. I handed customs my filled out form, they stamped it, and sent me on my way.

This was the point Adam and I parted ways. His plane to LAX left at 6:30pm, and I wanted to get to my hotel room.

Once settled into the hotel, I called my parents and chatted with them a bit. Then I went to find dinner. The only place within walking distance was the restaurant in the Embassy Suites. I had a really good bacon-wrapped sirloin and two ridiculously over-priced pints of Killians (I wrote how much they were in my journal, but honestly can't read what it says). After this, I came back to the hotel and worked on canceling my re-scheduled flights through Continental. I was surprised it only took 15 minutes on hold to talk to someone. This morning, people at Belizian Shores were telling me they gave up after 25-30 minutes. I let Rebecca on the other end know I had made different arrangements for travel after these flights had been canceled, and wanted to completely cancel the re-scheduled flights and be refunded for them like Continental states is their policy. She informed me she put in the request, and the refund should be processed within 3-5 business days.

On that note, I'm calling it a night. It will be so nice to sleep in my own bed tomorrow!!!

Later,

Ryan