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My Strange First Day in Antigua
I ended my summer of traveling around Europe in Ireland, where I spent eight days, exploring Dublin as well as renting a car and driving around the beautiful island nation. From there I decided to head west back towards home in the United States.
I booked a direct flight from Dublin to New York City, unsure whether I would stop there for a little while or else fly somewhere else. After doing a bit of research on flights as well as Covid restrictions for various Caribbean islands, I settled on the island nation of Antigua & Barbuda. There was a direct flight there from New York’s JFK airport. I needed to provide a Covid test to enter Antigua, but I needed one for the US as well. I reserved a flight departing the day after I landed in New York so that my Covid test would still be valid.
For those who are interested in prices, the seven-hour flight from Dublin to New York (actually Newark, New Jersey) was $325 plus $70 to check my backpack. And the four-hour flight from New York to Antigua was $180 plus $30 for my backpack. My hotel near the JFK airport was $165, and that was about the cheapest thing around. This was on a Saturday on Labor Day weekend, the day after flooding in the city due to Hurricane Ida, plus the US Open tennis tournament was happening. Fortunately I’d managed to find a pretty good deal on accommodation in Antigua. I found a small one-bedroom…
