OFF WE GO !!!

2.30 am Sunday morning . Time to go to pick up Morag and head off to Glasgow airport. Fairly smooth run through apart from the M8 closed in the middle of Glasgow and a short but confusing diversion. Arrived just before everyone else started to arrive. Check-in was fairly painless as I had used the on-line check-in facilities.

The flight to London was quite quick but felt a bit sick on the way down so a cabin crew member gave me a travel sickness pill which seemed to help. Gatwick . That's where the problems began.

First of all we arrived early so our stance wasn't free , we were directed to another one but when we got off there was no wheelchair assistance and we had to cross to the other terminal, which we did as fast as we could, when we got there the (very unhelpful and grumpy) person on the desk told us the the flight booking was closing and that we were lucky we were getting on !!!! "didn't you know you had to be here 90 minutes before the flight?" that would be a no !!! when we explain about the wheelchair assistance not turning up. we were told that the assistance were up on the next level. lift broken - two flights of stairs - very helpful !! the rest of us were told to run or we wouldn't make the flight.

Gate 19, a 5-10 minute jog was full of people when we got there, we checked in and Morag, Steve and Alison arrived a few minutes later by buggy. we all made it !!

Then we waited, and waited , and waited. all told in the lounge and sitting on the plane, we left over two hours late but at least we were on our way!! the cabin crew were really nice and seem to be giving us food every 5 minutes but it still felt much longer than the 10 hours.

we arrived in Cuba 2 1/2 hours late and were met by David (pronounced daveed) who is our interpreter. he met us off the plane and took us through customs were we were marched to the front off the queue to our total embarrassment and the other tourists consternation, who had been standing in the queue for some time.

we collected our baggage and were taken out to the minibus. Here we met our driver and Landy our official from the Cuban communist party. A quick stop at an hotel to change our money into Cuban dollars and then on to our "communist party facilities". it was a small complex of rooms which were really comfortable and we each got a room to ourselves apart from steve and Alison , who we requested a double room and Danny and David who i guess were unlucky!! the only criticism that we have so far is that they feed us too much - 3 courses for breakfast, lunch and dinner. so we had to ask that they give us something light for lunch. Monday's lunch included lobster, which was a bit unexpected. the puddings are a bit strange too, the first night we had mango coulée with a slice of Edam-type cheese in it. it was a bit bizarre to say the least although separately delicious !!

we have a little get together in the bar after dinner to talk about the first couple of days events and our role in them. we reckoned that the meeting with the central committee tomorrow will be formal, although we are not sure the format of the meeting. we opt for smart formal dress, ie kilts suits etc.