December 4th, 2007 . 10:15 am . By: Buzz Carrick

Time to pack and hit the road.  I hope everyone enjoyed the short trip to T&T.  The last game notes will be up later today.

Day Five: Monday, December 3rd, 2007

8:30 AM - Up again.

9:30 AM - Breakfast back in the main restaurant thankfully as it means fresh omelet and juice.  Some hot team and the paper to top it off.

10:30 AM - I watch CNN and pack.  Trinidad as a whole has been carefully watching the vote in Venezuela, as have I actually.  Being 5 miles from there, Chavez is a concern for most aware residents here. You can’t help but pick up on the interest.

11:30 AM - I grab a soda and go sit on the hotel veranda one last time to take in the breathtaking view.

11:45 AM - Cab to the airport.  Traffic is again horrible as there is a big construction project on the parkway to the airport.  It’s like driving on Preston at 5 pm with half the road shut down.  It takes the cab an hour and fifteen minutes to go about 15 kilometers.

Strangely the cab is also a left side driver car. The cabby bought it in Miami and had it brought down. 

We talk about a lot of stuff and at one point I ask him what season it is, winter, summer?  He says “wet.”  Wet and dry are the two seasons they have.  The average temp, according to my driver, year round is 24 degrees which is 75.2 F.  He does tell me it gets “cold,” a frigid 20 degrees… Celsius.  That’s 68 to you and me.  Burrr.

Yeah, right.

On the way to the airport we pass the CONCACAF HQ.  Did you know it was in Trinidad?  I didn’t either.  Certainly I knew Jack Warner was from here, but not that they were running CONCACAF from here. It explains a lot in my mind.  Anyone else think that the US and Mexico need to eventually wrest power of CONCACAF into their own hands?

1:00 PM - Arrive at the airport and check in, man I love that business class line.

1:15 PM - Church’s Friend Chicken for a sandwich.  It was that or KFC.  Seriously those are the two places to eat in the terminal.  Sandwich combo for $26TT… i.e. $4.

1:30 PM - Into duty free where I pick up some nice scotch and some local rum I had recommended.   

I head up to the gate and approach passport control to leave.  Opps, how come I didn’t know I needed $100 TT in cash to leave?  *sigh* 

What a huge mistake this is.  I have to go back out through duty free, back out through customs (and yes stand in line there), and out into the main terminal to find a cash machine… that only dispenses US money.  What the hell?  Now I have to go find a money exchange and get the $100 TT converted. 

It’s the little things that can really jack up a travel day.

Now, of course, there is a line at the passport control and security.  Not a good start to the day.

2:00 PM - I go into a little shop to get a coke and I knock a bottle of BBQ sauce off a shelf and break it with my bag when I tired to turn around.  This is getting worse by the minute.  I’m like a bull I suppose, but seriously it’s a tiny shop.  The bottle costs me $16TT and goes in the trash.  It’s also a duty free bottle so I have to fill out some damn customs form for what is essentially garbage. 

I also now smell like BBQ, which could be worse I suppose.

2:15 PM - I sit at the gate with Morrow and we talk about some of the players the team saw down here and who they might be interested in.  The names he liked are not that different from the ones I liked but it wasn’t an official on the record conversation so you get nothing from me.  Morrow says they will look at a couple CAP player with serious interest and will also bring a couple of the T&T players in during the spring and see how it goes.

2:45 PM - Morrow calls over a player or two and they move off to have one on one talks about their progress and position before the break.  The team will have exit physicals on Tuesday and be released until the new year.

3:30 PM - We board 30 minutes late.  No problem as we have a 3 hour lay over in Miami.

4:00 PM - Take off and this time I do have a window.  It’s quite fun to look over the island as the plane climbs.  I see a bunch of T&T I need to check out next time I come here.

5:30 PM - Dinner on the flight, jerk chicken and fish salad.  Nice.

6:45 PM ET - Land in Miami after a 3:26 hour flight.

7:05 PM - Through immigration and wait for my bag to come out so I can stash my duty free booze in it.  You can’t carry your duty free to your next flight because after immigration and customs you are outside airport security again and they have this no liquids rule.  Inconvenient that.

7:20 PM - Customs and then I recheck my bag for the flight to Dallas.  A couple of the players try and hustle to see if they can catch an earlier Dallas flight that is delayed.  Sadly for them they don’t make it, but I get the comedy enjoyment of watching them try and run around the massive Miami airport.

8:00 PM - I arrive at gate D48 and get myself a bagel.  I also log on the computer and catch up on some email and business.  I really hate the Miami airport, its big, run down, an convoluted.  It doesn’t feel like the US to me.  I never feel like I’m home when I come through this airport, it’s like I’m still in Europe.

9:30 PM - Board the flight to Dallas.

10:00 PM - No meal on this flight.  Unless you count the seat back of the chair in front of me that comes all the way back, fast, the second the planes leaves the ground and almost smashes me in the face.  Ok seriously the seat doesn’t need to come back that far.  Certainly not in first class where the seats are huge and comfortably anyway.

In flight movie is “Evan Almighty.”  I have no qualms about laughing out loud, and by loud I mean LOUD.  Hopefully I didn’t disturbed the people in front of me too much.

OK, so hopefully I did.  Jerks.

A word of advice from a very frequent flyer.  The seat is not just about you, there is someone behind you.  Have some courtesy when you fly. If you have to lean back, just lean back a little.  Or if you really do have to come back all the way, for gosh sakes come back slowly and stop trying to break my computer and spill my drink by slamming your seat back at 100 miles an hour.  Otherwise you might find my tray going up and down, and up and down, and up and down… and not in a soft and easy manner.

Unfortunately it’s a bumpy ride back to Dallas, something about headwind according to Captain Bubba up front.  He even has to slow the plane down due to the head wind, something about fuel.  Oh, great. Thanks for that announcement.

12:00 Midnight CT - Land in Dallas and taxi to the gate.

12:15 PM - I grab my bag and happen to find a remote parking bus the second I walk outside in the 40 degree temp.  Talk about sweet timing.  That late at night you can wait 30 minutes or more for the remote bus.

12:30 pm - I’m at my car and heading home, so that’s it.

I hope everyone ejoyed the trip, I know I did.  As usual a little begging if you will forgive it.  If you like what we do you can support our FCD overage with the pay pal button up top.  Every $1 counts.

The team will not be training until February, but each player will be given a off season work out program.  Some will follow, some will not (and it may cost them a career).

The event up next for 3rd Degree in our 24/7/365 FCD coverage of FCD is the College Cup from Cary, NC, in about two weeks (Dec 14-16).  After that is the MLS Combine in Ft Lauderdale (Jan 11-14) and the MLS SuperDraft in Baltimore (Jan 18th).  We will of course stay on top of any trades, movement, rules, news, and anything else we can think of FCD related this winter as well as continue what I feel is our un-parallel draft rankings.  I hope you’ll stay with us.

Categories: Travel Log.

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