I like to be in America: Santiago - Panama

In the wee small hours of the night, we blearily staggered with all our gear, over to the airport. Frankly most of this day is a blur, but there were some definite highlights. With thumping hearts we tried to wait patiently, to see if we could get on the flight with William.

Even though Will was with us, we were still nervous about getting onto the flight, but we had nothing to fear; having friends ( or sons) in high places, so to speak, really does count. For the first time ever we travelled business class, and very nice it was too. Especially as it was in a brand new 737-800. It even smelt new, or maybe that was just the leather seats in business class. (Did I mention we flew business class?)

Alex, our own personal flight attendant, spoke excellent American English and looked after us business class passengers very well.

We celebrated by having a glass of bubbly even though it was two o'clock in the morning. That settled us down. I greedily ripped open my little goody pack with toothbrush, socks, eye mask, lip balm and moisturiser. (It was just like Christmas.) We had a light supper, fruit,cheese, cold cuts, roll , spread our blankets on our enormous seats, laid our heads on our posh pillows ( they weren't really) , flipped up our leg rests and laid our heads down to sleep.

Well we tried to. Six hours on your backside is still six hours - a long time!

And it was exciting. Lots of firsts happening. First time being flown by our son, first time in Business Class, first time meeting our first grandson - no wonder I couldn't sleep, not to mention the spectacular thunder and lightening storms happening outside my window.

I'm not sure what time we landed ( and a beautiful landing it was too, I might add)

in Panama, as there is a slight time difference, but it was still earlyish morning and we only stayed an hour and a half, without leaving the airport, before going through the whole process again to head towards Miami.

My son, the pilot.

Bubbles to celebrate

Plenty of leg room in business class

This didn't come out too well. The sun was just coming up, we were between two layers of cloud, and that dark bit in the middle joining up the two layers, was a massive thunder storm. Every few minutes, that tube would light up as the lightning danced about inside.

Well some of us got some sleep.

Captain Ricardo and First Officer John (Apparently they think William is a surname so they call him John)

Fasten your seatbelts, folks - I'm taking this baby for a spin. (Will is looking slightly anxious)

There's not much room up the front and the windows aren't all that big either.

Me and my boy. Our plane is behind us.

After a relatively short flight from Panama to Miami (about 3 hours), business class again, we finally reached our destination. We were met at the airport by Julie's dad, Joel. They live about an hour or more from the airport, so it was awfully kind of him to drive all that way for us. Joel and his wife Catherine are French, but have emigrated to Florida as they enjoy the warmth.

"It's such a relief," I declared, "to finally be somewhere where people can understand what you are saying!"

"Now you know our pain," sighed Joel. I admit, it wasn't entirely tactful of me, but it did make me wonder what it would be like to permanently live in a country that spoke a different language to your native tongue. What courage and tenacity that must take. And too, I had forgotten, that the second language here is Spanish. I think most of the people who live in Florida have come from somewhere else.

Joel delivered us to the Palm Aire Country Club Condo that he and his wife used to own. They recently bought a house (with garden and pool) further up the coast at Deerfield Beach, and sold the condo to their son, who is living in Texas. It's been rather convenient for Will and Julie and now us as well. It's beautifully done out in Catherine's gorgeous enviable, elegant French style, which includes a lot of white - a LOT of white. We are awfully mucky monkeys, so we did have to take a great deal of care not to track our grubby footprints across the lounge.

And waiting for us there was what we had travelled half way around the world to meet. Our tiny little grandson of 3 weeks. And oh, it was well worth the effort. He's pretty adorable. (I'm not just saying that.) Long, long fingers and toes, dimply chin, gorgeous baby skin and those edible little folds on his wrist and knees. He's perfectly happy to be passed from grandparent to grandparent to father to grandparent - no such thing as too much attention, according to him. And how special to see our little boy, so gently and lovingly hold his own son. Sigh. A wonderful moment, that's for sure.

Julie had cooked us a lovely lunch which we all sat down to eat, including Philippe (although he didn't actually eat anything, just enjoyed the company). Because Tom was coming down from New York with his girlfriend (who we hadn't yet met), the next day, Julie, Will and Philippe went back to Deerfield beach that afternoon, leaving us to our own devices.

We wandered down to the Publix (sorry but I still think it looks like pubic) supermarket a mere 5 minutes away, to stock up on our supplies. Not many people walk around here. I guess it's because of the temperature and the humidity and also there are not that many walking paths. As there were so few people out and about, we noticed a perfectly normal looking bloke bike past us. When we got to the supermarket, there he was, squatting in a corner of the carpark doing poos! Ewww gross! He must be one of those simple characters that seem to be everywhere. When someone greeted him from across the carpark, he pretended to be talking on his phone - not even sure if it was a phone. Takes all sorts, I guess.

After a simple supper we retired early and with some relief sank gratefully into our bed.