Tom's version of the past few days.

Pop quiz! What do you know about Guyana? Do you know it’s in South America? Do you know that’s where Jim Jones, Leo Ryan, Jackie Speier earned their places in history (infamy)? This isn’t the French Guiana that Ray Stafford remembers from his rocket launches. So, what’s this got to do with Becky’s blog about Graduation, Italy, and her house in France? Well…..glad you asked that question because we started out the adventure with a little bump……

The dudes in Air France DID make out my original ticket in my passport name, same for Becky. Unfortunately for me, the Dudes in Air France’s mileage club, of which I’m a member, thought they should use the name on my mileage clubapplication and transferred THAT name to my final boarding information. The Dudes in the US Government really don’t like that – all names have to match up. Thomas Simpson needs to be “Thomas Simpson” and not “Tom Simpson” that the mileage dudes tossed in. And that meant Becky got her boarding pass, got on her flight to Nice, flew to Nice…….by herself. I got to hang around the ticket desk for 3 hours getting that sorted out,getting the Mileage Club name corrected, watched her airplane take off, and then headed to Queens, NY – a suburb of JFK airport, to spend the next 2 nights while I waited for my next available seat to Nice.

And THAT brings us to Rockaway Boulevard in Queens, scene of the Econo Motel where I’m staying. It’s the middle of the Guyanese neighborhood  in NY and if you know (or learn) some Guyanese history you won’t be surprised when I tell you these are mostly Indian Guyanese immigrants. India had a ton of indentured laborers shipped off across the world in the olden days – Fiji, South Africa, Guyana and more.  There are tons of cool Guyanese grocery stores (that sell tapioca, Becky), restaurants that feature Island cooking and Roti, and when you hear Bollywood-infused Rap coming from the hipster Guyanese immigrant cars – at full throttle - Awesome! You know you’relivin’ in the USA – especially when the family running theEcono Motel are from Bangladesh. We had a lot of conversation about winter, snow and ice that was their 2014 experience.