Ownby's Travel Day

We asked forward Brian Ownby to take us through what turned out to be quite a travel day from Miami to Trinidad to Tobago.


We woke up early and therefore we were all very excited to sleep on the plane. Once we hurried to check in all of our bags, the team bags and all the people, it was time to… wait in the terminal for a little while.

We finally got on the plane to Port of Spain and sat there for a while. I don’t know what happened because I fell asleep as soon as I got to my seat. Then when I woke up we were still on the ground. That’s when I knew it was going to be a long day.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the flight. My neck was sore from the chair and I just could not fall back to sleep. I tried everything – listening to music, everything.

So, I turned on my computer to watch a movie and realized I didn’t charge it all the way. Ten minutes into Stepbrothers my computer shut down. So then I went to my back up plan and pulled up my PSP to play FIFA.

Shortly after that, they came around with drinks and food. I was soooo hungry, so this was good news. Much to my dismay, I found out that the food cost money. We ended up not eating anything for the four-hour trip. I don’t think we realized that it would be so long before we got to the airport in Trinidad.

We landed and went through immigration. That took forever and we weren’t sure if one player was going to make it through because he had left his passport on the plane. Finally though, we were all legal visitors in Trinidad & Tobago.

Now, I had filled out my immigration form in pencil because I had given my pen away to someone else for their form. I had been so excited to be at the front of the line only to find out I had to go all the way to the back to re-do it in pen.

We found out we missed our original flight because of our delay, so we sat around for about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get to Tobago… it was so hot and muggy at the airport we were just sweating. Once we figured out our next flight we went to get food and I went straight for Church’s Chicken. It took forever to get that meal, and by then I was starving.

I didn’t think I’d get on the next flight because my name is low in the alphabet. But all of the sudden Marcus came over and told me I was on! I looked at the boarding time on my new boarding pass and panicked! I thought I was going to be late so I gave some of my food away to other players. I went through “security” in the “domestic terminal” and it was kind of funny. I kept my drink – the guy made me take one sip to prove it wasn’t a deadly liquid and then let me through. Needless to say it was much faster than U.S. security.

I sat down on the tiny plane and I was in row 14, which I thought would be all the way in the back so I walked through the entire plane. I got back there and realized that it only went up to 13 and that for some reason I had the very front seat. It was odd because I was facing backwards and staring at everyone the whole flight. It was a little awkward sitting and directly facing this guy who just kept talking.

The flight itself wasn’t bad. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t lean back and the guy across from me couldn’t stop talking, but, it must have been the shortest flight I’ve ever been on – 20 minutes is a pretty quick trip.

We finally arrived at the hotel, and it is beautiful. Unfortunately there is no internet in the rooms, so that’s unfortunate. I tried calling the front desk to ask about it and then my phone stopped working halfway through the call. So, then we had to get that fixed. Overall though it’s a beautiful hotel and we are excited to be here.

By the time we settled in and ate dinner, I was so hungry. All I wanted to do was eat. I was having a nice time, enjoying meal and next thing we knew there was screaming and chanting coming from the pool nearby. Apparently El Salvador has settled in nicely and they were quite loud. But now that we’re here and unwinding, we are getting rested up and ready to go.