My Trip To New York

I was leaving for New York last Thursday and I wanted to get to the airport early so that I could get an Exit row seat. They have a lot more leg room and the last thing I wanted was to be sitting next to some oversized, loud talking local. I arrived at the airport at about 10:00 A.M. for a 12:05 P.M. flight and got the seat I wanted. I went to look for something to read which served as a reminder of the state of education here in the DR. There were three DUFRY stores at the airport. That is Dominican English for Duty Free. But, more importantly there was not a newspaper, magazine, or book for sale at any one of them. Nothing to read for sale at the airport. What an amazing concept. I thought that I remembered, from previous trips, that they sold those things at the airport. They probably didn't have enough customers to make it worth their while so they discontinued carrying those things.

As I sat waiting there were several things that I noticed. As per always, there were 4 people in a hot conversation about flying and of course two of them, one a woman, were talking as loudly as they could. I would describe it as a modified shouting match, only it was just a conversation. I encounter this everywhere I go. People have no idea of how to control the volume of their voices.

I started to read on the Internet on my Blackberry and out of the corner of my eye I began to notice people arriving in wheel chairs. It was just one or two at first, but the number started to swell and about a half an hour later I looked up and found myself surrounded by people in wheel chairs. I have seen people in wheel chairs waiting to board a plane before, but I have never seen this many. There looked to be about 10, at least. I made a note at the time that this was a really excessive number and since I feel that most Dominicans think being sneaky is an admirable quality, the note mentions that there must be some advantage that they get by sitting in these chairs. Then I realized what it was. The people in wheelchairs are the first people allowed on the plane and they get to board in an unhurried manner. After all of the "wheelies" were brought to the gate they started to board the other passengers. My group was the first called and when I got to the gate I saw that they hadn't started to load the "wheelies". I counted and altogether there were 14 people in pictures. I took the above photo while they were still waiting. My phone camera does not have a wide angle lens, I couldn't get all of them in the picture, but trust me, there were 14.

It wasn't until we arrived in New York that I realized that I was on a "Plane of Miracles". People go to Lourdes or other Holy places to be healed. Apparently Dominicans take a flight to the US. During the flight, several people whom I had noticed in the wheel chairs suddenly were up and walking around the cabin. Dominicans hate to wait. They drive on the shoulders of a highway all the time and often use the shoulder (on either side of the highway) as a passing lane walk to the front of the line and always go through red lights. They clearly don't want to wait until the plane is unloaded for someone to bring them their wheel chair. When we arrived in New York I was one of the first people off the plane and I noticed that there were only 5 wheel chairs waiting. I asked one of the attendants and they told me that only 5 were requested. Apparently the others were cured by the flight.