Volcanic Refugee

Day 4

2010-04-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

We started for coffee at Starbucks - why not?
At 8:30am on a volcanic sunday the streets seemed pretty empty, though there were quite a few folks dragging bags. More refugees like us. There was more matter on the cars, but it was hard to tell if it was smoggy stuff, ash, or pollen.

We left the hotel at 2:30pm, after working for a bit and walked down past the park to the Jubilee line. The great lawn was greatly covered with seas of humanity, all seeking a couple last rays before the ash cloud blotted out the sun (which will happen any day now!). We got to the station and trundled up towards Rayner's Lane without seeing that the Met Line was down for the day. At Wembley we took a bus and then at Rayner's, we decided to walk the last 2 miles (not so smart). Dragging out bags as we went, we certainly looked like refugees!

The hotel is seemingly better than The Barn, but the internet is questionable in the rooms and the high street is less inviting than Ruislip. The hotel did offer to help us find a laundry service so I am in for that! When we walked in, the desk clerk just looked at us and said - "Volcano?" and shook her head.

sigh.

Day 3

2010-04-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

Well, today being Saturday and being stuck in the city, we went for a walk.
Nord had never been sightseeing in London, so the plan was to show him some sites.

The day dawned bright and breezy and so we set off about 9am for some coffee towards paddington. Coffee and a bad bagel later, we were traipsing down towards mayfair to show Nord the palatial American Embassy and United called. I chose not to answer it, as they only ever call with bad news (I later discovered it was indeed that).

We continued to Green Park, Buckingham Palace*, St. James Park, the color guard at the War Museum (no changing of the guard today at the palace), Big Ben*, the London Eye*, the Globe*, Southwark bridge, Borough Market, Monmouth Coffee+, Tower Bridge and Tower of London*, Bank of England*, the Lloyd's building, the Gerkin*, Ropemaker Square, Fix+ off Old Street, the Bindery (closed and shuttered), Shaftsbury, the whole enitre length of Oxford Street on a Saturday, and then back to the hotel for tea.

[legend: * - tourist shots of Nord; + stops for Coffee ]

We had a soft goat's cheese (Shawley), baguettes, and fresh tomatoes from the Isle of Man for lunch in the plaza by the HMS Belfast on the Thames.

on the way home, down oxford street, into the sun, it was clear that there was a haze and we could no longer ignore the fact that there was a haze over the sun. The air smelled burnt, but there was no particulate actively falling. We had to admit, we were not going anywhere soon.

When we got back, I figured we walked 15.5 miles. After a restorative cuppa tea, I called United back and lo and behold - the first flight now available would be the 22 - thursday, 7 days in. Our plan may be to hang here until we are done with our work.

Day 2

2010-04-16T16:11:00.001-07:00

All flights were canceled for today, but we knew that yesterday. We checked out of our hotel out in the burbs with an eye to being close to the train at Paddington. Everything was filling up fast for the weekend, but we used Priceline to latch on to anything in the area we could afford. Anything.

The only thing we could find was the lowly Hempel – a small 5 star north of the park. After a week at the Barn Hotel in Ruislip where the hot water didn’t work and you had to heat water to shave with in the kettle, where the walls were so thin that the guy snoring next door could be heard with the window’s closed, and where cute fuzzy mice frequented the lobby after the bar closed, the Hempel was going to be an unfortunate step down. The staff was quite pleasant when we checked in, though you could see they kind of looked down at us – at all of us refugees that were checking in.

I checked flights tonight – the first Saturday flight is already canceled. That means the first Sunday flight back is as well.

Still no particulate.

Day 1 Thursday April 14

2010-04-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

Our flights were canceled today. All flights were canceled today. The UK airspace was shutdown and nothing came in or went out. It did remind me a lot of 2001 in that you could stand outside and there was nothing going over. Then I was at home under the landing approach to MHT and 5 times a day, I missed the sound of the airplanes that flew over. Today we were staying in Ruislip on the final approach to Heathrow and the 1 plane every 5 minutes was missing.

It was clear today and breezy. I expected a grey snow, but nothing fell.

The first flight we could get out was to be Sunday afternoon. Sunday, if and only if the planes flew in on Saturday.

Business Class + 1

2008-01-15T19:48:00.000-08:00

Today started inauspiciously. The fog seemed less, but I already knew my plane was not in Krakow. The driver took me through the city rather than the highway, probably because of the time of day. This driver was the same one who picked me up from the airport and dropped me off last time, so I guess I have become a regular with him. Reminds me of Serge. Any rate, the city of Krakow certainly does not start at 5 or even 5:30 on Tuesdays in the winter. There was no one about and even the trams were empty (they start at a quarter to 5).

We left the city and got to the airport with no delay and the driver was able to change my 50 zloty note so I gave him much of it as a tip. He seemed genuinely surprised which surprised me, but made me feel good. The airport was mostly empty and many of the faces were long. It was clear no one slept there, but we were still outside of immigration. I got to the counter got my seats, though the system ate my eTicket number and they had to hunt for it. I figured that was because I actually had gotten a Business class upgrade for the MUC to IAD flight and now, I would lose it, either due to the weather or the loss of the eTicket number, however the travel god was smiling today. I got a good seat on the bus and got to see the sun rise over the polish countryside. All I saw of the outskirts of Katowice was a mall (Fashion Center) and an industrial site with smokestacks galor. Katowice airport is really nice. I didn’t need to check in, and there was no one in immigration, so the few of us there walked right through. Later, I saw others of us waiting there in line getting their papers stamped, so I guess, in a way, I never left the country….hmmmm…..

We all got on the plane, all got off – I love the way they work Munich. The plane docks next to the United flights. You get onto a bus and they truck you to the other end where you get to climb 5 flights of stairs (or take the elevator) and walk all the way back. Good exercise before a transatlantic flight. I was sitting in the back of BClass and got to watch this young mom with far too much luggage and a baby get on and then try to kick her stuff down the plane. No one offered to help or even make eye contact. When she got to me, I grabbed her gunk and took it down to her seat in the back of the plane. The stewardess looked at me as if I had two heads.

My seat in BClass turned out to be next to a pair of missionaries with a 7 month old. No idea what they were missionarying, they were not forthcoming with that, other than they had been in Romania for the past 3 months and though the baby traveled well (he did) it was really his first flight (so how did they know). The guy was from the south and must have weighed in at 300. She seemed to be mostly Romanian. BClass seemed to be empty at first, so I asked if there was somewhere else to sit, mostly because I have been sneezing up a storm, but still partially cause I didn’t want to find out the baby really was not a good traveler, but then it filled up – probably with other upgrades.

When lunch arrived, it was clear there was no way this huge guy and his wife and their baby were going to be able to have a BClass type experience (is that important), so after a flurry of activity the steward came to me and asked me if I would mind sitting in 1stClass. Um, how do you answer that?

Turns out 1stClass had 11 seats and 1 person. I got to spread out and play with the laydown seat. They still had me eat that gunk from BClass ;-) but the experience, oh the experience. (and actually, lunch was steamed cod with a light sauce and cous cous. Both of which were really done well. That type of food is amplified when it is reheated damp. Too bad all airline meals are not like that. I was sorry when I got to the end of this one. Note to self – the fish in Krakow was not as good as the airplane, don’t eat fish in Krakow.

Dog in the Fog

2008-01-14T19:46:00.000-08:00

Today, Krakow was fogged in. I mean completely. It was so bad, the airport was closed all day. All flights in and out seemed to be canceled. What a travel nightmare. The hope was that the fog would lift and magically planes would appear to take us home tomorrow.

I met with a group to discuss their interests and needs with respect to a new methodology. They had been to the Openview Partners conference and heard a case study, related to it as that the host company had had the same problems that they did and managed to successfully over come them with the methodology – pretty compelling. There problems were inability to deliver releases on time, inability to estimate well enough, and inability to meet business expectations.

The hope is that we can find some way to translate what we know into a language that they can use – their team is not strong on English and no one is apparently doing even generic training in Polish.

Had dinner at the Calvary off the market square. They were empty and though the food did not seem to be as good as I remember it last time, it certainly was not bad. Had a faux English Polish beer – ‘dog in the fog’

Jan 13 - The Great Finale

2008-01-13T15:07:00.000-08:00

Today was the great finale for the Orchestra of Christmas Charity's in Poland. On this day, apparently, all across Poland, they go out and beg/ask for donations in exchange for a sticker. Last year they raised $9M for children's charities. On the Market Square in Krakow today, they had a concert - early in the day it was folk music (with great costumes and instruments) and this evening it was more rock. Then, it ended at the way too age appropriate time of 8pm with a short fireworks display. The fog dropped and everyone went home.

We ate at Miod Molina and had probably the best pirogis yet and we discovered what warm traditional polish cheesecake was: a warm ricotta type cake with a slightly carmelized top and a soft almost custardy interior. We also drank a bottle of Trapiche Malbec - one lable was in english and the back in polish.

Jan 13 - Krakow

2008-01-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

Today was overcast, foggy, and a little dreary - just right to pay our respects at Auschwitz and Birkenau. I have posted the pictures to ( http://picasaweb.google.com/mgelbwaks ), but here are my observations :

Auschwitz is much smaller than I envisioned. It was also much more orderly and far less horrific than I expected. It was easy to see that the place was haunted but; whether it was because the cleanliness and order that was present or the lack of physical deterioration, it was just too sterile. The tour guide was great though. She was relentless with her scorn and contempt for the allies: bottom line position "The allies knew from '42 and did nothing. we asked them to bomb the rail junction and instead they destroyed light industry 10 miles away, and then they sent us the surveillance photos. They knew and did nothing. My country died here, and they did nothing." Unfortunately, all I could offer, under my breath of course, was my common and frequent lame excuse - "I can not apologize enough for my country, then or now."

One intersting side note: while I was sitting in the parking lot waiting to leave, I noticed birds - there were actually no birds inside the camp, only outside.

Birkenau was far more expansive than I expected, particularly after Auschwitz. Birkenau was constructed as a solution camp. Auschwitz as a concentration camp. The germans figured out the process running Auschwitz in the early years and discovered that inorder to achieve their ultimate goals, they needed different facilities, and so constructed Birkenau for that purpose. Auschwitz held maybe 30,000, but could only process 1000 a day. Birkenau held in excess of 100,000 and could process 10,000 a day. The devastation was incredible and unexcusable - do note, without the rail junction, Birkenau would not have happened - and it would have taken a year to rebuild the junction (maybe).

There were birds at Birkenau, but there were also rats and insects. There were no people. All the people were left at the rail junction.

Jan 12th - a walk in the park

2008-01-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

I spent much of the morning walking the eastern side of old town Krakow, working off the effects of a night flavored with too much buffalo grass. I have decided 2 things

Krakow is full of two types of people - tourists and those who are vainly trying to ignore them. No one said so much as a word to me in 3 hours of walking, though eye contact was certainly there.
There is by far much less dog crap in Krakow than there is in Buenos Aires. The streets were fairly clean and the sidewalks certainly devoid of poop - not something that can be said about BA

I ended up near the Blonia park marveling at the Kopiec on the hill. It loomed so large and looked so far away. When I got back, I looked at the map and realized that I was hardly far at all. It may be one of my greatest disappointments in that I did not get up the hill.

For January, it was quite warm - I watched them squeegy the ice rink with a zambonie.

Someone's Grandma

2008-01-11T08:28:00.000-08:00

I got yelled at by someone's grandma this morning - not sure why, it was in Polish.

I was riding the tram on the way to the office, just looking out the window. The tram stopped and the door opened and I found myself looking down at someone's grandma. She had a crutch in one arm and a shopping cart in the other and she looked at me and I looked at her and she just started yelling at me.

Ultimately, I stepped down and grabbed her cart and puled it into the tram and then turned to her and guided her buy the elbow up into a seat. She pulled her cart next to her and looked away. I have no idea if this was the right thing to do or even if she merely followed the cart into the tram so that I didn't steal her groceries. I turned around a stop or two later to see if she would smile at me or even thank me (though I am not sure I would recognize that) and discovered she was gone.

Chapter 5

2005-10-29T07:32:00.001-07:00

Meagahn was getting good at sleeping on airplanes. She didn’t wake up until the plane actually hit the runway. It had been a relatively short flight - a little over an hour. As the plane turned off the runway and on to the taxiway Meagahn realized that her leg was completely asleep. Every time she moved it, it tingled and throbbed. I hate when this happens. She bounced her leg up and down, trying to drive the tingles from it. Concentrating on this new task, Meagahn missed seeing most of what was outside of Puerto Montt. The prospect of gamely limping off the plane did not appeal to her much and so she figured she would make up for the sight-seeing later. What a dweeb I am…

The plane docked at the gate and the seatbelt bell rang, giving them approval to get up and rush off the plane. The whole scene was getting a bit tiresome. I’d hate to have to travel like this for a living. When I grow up, the traveling I do is going to be much more dignified! As Meagahn got up, her foot was still tingling, but at least she could feel it. She put weight on it and the pins and needles shot up her leg. She picked up her backpack and turned into the aisle. The first step caused her to grimace.

“To be honest, it hasn’t been that bad – we are local travelers now and there is no Security here.” Mr. Donalds said to her, misunderstanding her expression.

“Uh, great – I’m looking forward to the time off!”

She limped down the aisle off the plane. Not only did her foot fall asleep, but she was sore all over from sleeping all crumpled up. Gee, what I wouldn’t give for a hot steaming shower right about now.

Once out into the gate area, Meagahn realized how small this airport really was. It was new and clean and everything, but there were only half a dozen gates and from any point, you could see the entire rest of the airport. They re-gathered their stuff and followed the crowd to the baggage claim area. Theirs was the only flight in at the moment and everyone was gathered about the single carousel. It took much less time here to get their bags and seemingly, no one had gone through her stuff this time. Stacey had gone off and grabbed a cart and everyone piled their bags upon it. The people seemed to be taking their stuff out through a set of sliding translucent doors. She couldn’t see what was on the other side, but every time the doors opened, she could hear the loud noises of large crowds.

With the bags mounted up on the cart and everyone ready to go, Mr. Donalds announced “OK, let’s move on out. I’m going to see if we catch a break here and find an ATM, why don’t you guys find the taxis and see if we can get one to the hotel.”

“What’s the name of our hotel again, Dear?” Mrs. Donalds asked.

“El Presidente! Of course, nothing but the best!” Mr. Donalds responded as he started the cart to the sliding doors.

“I’m with you dad!” Brian shouted as they moved out.

With somewhat of a shock, the entire family stopped short as soon as they stepped out of the doorway. There was a large crowd, evidently there to meet family and friends coming off the plane. This crowd was three or four people deep and had gathered in a semi-circle about 20 feet in front of the door. Standing next to the door was a guard in full military dress with an automatic rifle similar to the ones in the Santiago airport. The 20 feet was evidently the berth of respectfulness that the Chileans afforded their armed airport guards. There was no rope or barrier or anything else to stop them from marching forward and entering the airport. Meagahn wondered if this principle would work in the United States. What was more shocking was that no more than 20 feet on the other side of the crowd were the doors to the street, and that was it. The entire airport. Meagahn could see a line of taxis outside the door.

“Dad, there are the taxis. I did my job – got the money yet?” Stacey called out with a smirk.

Mr. Donalds pointed to her left. Against the wall was a sign that said ATM. “Brian, can you hand me the guide book, I need to translate that sign.”

“Let’s all stay together. We will walk that way and get some money and then walk this way and get a cab.” Mrs. Donalds said with a bit of a laugh.

The Donalds family moved through the crowd and waited their turn for the ATM – it had a long line of 1 person in front of them. Mr. Donalds stepped away and held out a sheaf of bills. “100,000 pesos. We are rich!” He handed everyone a crisp 10,000 peso note and put the rest in his pocket. “OK, so you are not as rich as me, but don’t say I never gave you anything! Onwards!” and he march off to the outside doors and the taxis.

Meagahn stashed her diez mil peso note in her pocket and followed along, bringing up the rear of the group.

It was much warmer here than it was at home, but it was hardly “summer”. It must have been 60 something. The sun felt warm and Meagahn quickly felt that she was over dressed; however, it was not quite what she would have called shorts weather. It was just past 11am and the sun was darting in and out of some fast moving clouds. Maybe this afternoon would be better, she hoped. Looking at the sky, Meagahn almost ran right into her mother. The family had stopped abruptly again, with her dad surveying the line of taxis. It was clear what was going through his mind – all of the taxis were small asian cars like little Toyotas or Nissans. None would fit the entire Donalds clan and their luggage. Just at that moment, a little micro bus pulled up to the curb and a group of people started tumbling out with their bags. Mr. Donalds smiled and started forward again. Just as he reached the curb though, a man who was corralling the taxis ran forward and started saying something in really fast Spanish. Mr. Donalds kept smiling and shrugged his shoulders. The man pointed to the line of taxis and then the bus and then the taxis and kept talking. Mr. Donalds shook his head and gestured that he did not understand. He also gestured to the family and the pile of luggage. The man shrugged his shoulders and kept talking and pointing.

“Excuse me. Can I help?” Another traveler had walked over, clearly overhearing the man and realizing there was a language barrier. “He is the Taxi Captain. He can not allow you to jump into this cab as it is an arrival cab, not a departure cab.”

“But, we can’t fit into any of those. None of us speak Spanish, so we need to travel together.”

“I see. Excuse me.” Their fellow traveler turned to the Taxi Captain and rattled something off in Spanish and accepted something back. They seemed to be negotiating. Meagahn watched fascinated.

The man turned back to Mr. Donalds. “OK, we have solved the problem. We will make this arrival taxi a departure taxi. Be sure to tip the captain well. Enjoy your stay, you are going to be in for some wonderful weather over the next couple of weeks.” He turned again and walked back to the cabs, got in one and left with a final wave. As the family waved back, Meagahn heard her dad swear. I have to watch my mouth? She turned back to look at her dad and saw that he was watching their van drive away with out them.

“Great. Masked stranger rides in and saves the day.” He turned and walked back over to the luggage cart and started pushing it back to the taxi stand, resigning himself to their dubious fate. Meagahn, still gaping after the van saw it loop around the airport drive way and come back. Meagahn hurried after her dad and tugged at his sleeve. She pointed to the van which was now looping back to the end of the taxi line. It stopped at the back.

The family had now reached the taxi queue and waited for the two people in front of them to get into taxis and speed away. When they got to the head of the queue, the Taxi Captain stepped off the curb, blew his whistle twice and the van zoomed up around the queue and screeched to a halt in front of the Donalds. The captain smiled broadly as he opened the door and helped Stacey and Mrs. Donalds in. Mr. Donalds loaded the bags with the driver into the back and then followed Brian into the van. The Captain held the front door open for Meagahn and she returned his smile, which was still broadly showing his teeth. As he got into the van, Mr. Donalds pulled out his wad of pesos and peeled off a purple note. It was not one of the 10,000 peso notes, but Meagahn could not see what it was. Obviously it was enough, as the captain beamed even more brightly.

Hardly waiting for the doors to close, the taxi accelerated with great gusto sending Meagahn searching for a seatbelt. Getting it snapped just as they squealed around the corner onto the main road, she grabbed the handle that was mounted on the dash in front of her. No one spoke. Meagahn assumed her father told the driver where they were going while they put the luggage in the back. She certainly hoped he did, at any rate.

Mrs. Donalds spoke up and asked the same question, out loud.

“Uh, actually, no. I didn’t tell him anything. Meagahn?”

At that point, the driver said “¿A donde?”

He repeated it louder when he did not get an answer, throwing the words over his shoulder.

In an effort to convince the driver to not look behind him, but rather in front, Meagahn said, with her best accent “El Presidente? En Puerto Montt?”

“Oh, Americanos. OK. We go to Presidente. 7000 pesos. 15 minutes. Nice weather, no traffic. Good view.” He spread his right arm across in an expansive gesture. Meagahn could see the speedometer and she was furiously trying to convert kilometers to miles. She figured they were bouncing along at about 70 miles an hour, but because of the size of the van and the width and the condition of the road, it certainly felt like a lot more. The whole experience had this rollercoaster effect. It was at that point that she realized that she was holding on so tight that her knuckles were white.

Relaxing just a bit, Meagahn looked at some of the surroundings. They were passing warehouses and what looked like fabrication shops for marine parts. There were a lot of really thick ropes and huge engines sitting in the fenced yards in front of the buildings. Up ahead, the road suddenly became tree lined and the warehouses were replaced by little houses with chickens in the yards. She turned her head to look to the front and gasped as she realized they were coming up behind a large truck rumbling much more slowly than they. Their speed differential was amazing. She looked at the speedometer again and saw it was still where it had been – about 120km. She looked back to the front just as the van jack-rabbited into the other lane and passed the truck, ducking back into their lane as a taxi zoomed by in the other direction. The whole interchange lasted fractions of a second. When it was done, Meagahn noticed she was clasping the handle again, knuckles as white as a piece of paper.

“Wee, who needs space mountain!” Brian squealed.

“Ugh,” Mrs. Donalds groaned.

As the taxi rushed pell-mell down the road, the countryside began to become more residential and then all of a sudden it was urban. Not the urban she was used to, but a very dense urban with lots of really small houses with really small yards, some of which were attached to really small stores. The taxi began to slow down, mostly because people tended to just walk out into the streets. The other thing she noticed was that there were a lot of dogs walking around. Most of them looked really mangy and the entire area looked very poor. At first she didn’t understand why there were so many kids all over the place, but then it dawned on her that it was their summer time and there was no school. Then it dawned on her that it was Saturday and it didn’t matter if it was summer or not. Mostly the kids seemed to be just hanging around. No one looked up as the taxi sped through, albeit more sedately and controlled now.

They bumped down a steep hill and stopped suddenly at a red light. They made a quick right turn and then a left and Meagahn could see the ocean out in front of them. The biggest clue was that sitting between the buildings, about three blocks away, there was a huge ocean liner smack dab in front of them. The light changed and they zipped down those three blocks. The taxi was idling at an intersection, waiting for a break in the traffic (Meagahn assumed this. There was no light and the driver was watching the cars as they went by. Of course he was not signaling, but the street in front of them was a divided road, on what seemed to be a breakwater at the edge of a huge bay). The traffic broke and the taxi leapt forward, lurching around the corner and screeched to a halt with the front wheel under Meagahn on top of the sidewalk. Meagahn was literally looking into the plate glass window to the lobby of what must have been the hotel.

“We’re here!” Mr. Donalds shouted, pointing to the left at a trio of dolphins mounted on a granite block in the median between the two lanes of traffic. On the base were the words “Apart Hotel Club Presidente” in the oddest script-like font Meagahn had ever seen chiseled onto a piece of granite. The driver had already leapt out of the car and was unpacking their bags onto the sidewalk. The Donalds were stumbling out of the back and so Meagahn pried her hands off of the handle and opened her door, and practically rolled onto the sidewalk, narrowly stepping on a dog that was sniffing around. He was even more mangy than those she saw on the way in. The back door to the taxi slammed and the driver appeared at her side shooing the dog away with very exaggerated gestures.

Mr. Donalds had gone to the back of the taxi to make sure all their bags made it out and pealed another bill off of his wad. It was one of the pink 10,000 bills he had handed out earlier. He handed it to the driver who made a very exaggerate gesture of pulling out his wad of bills and slowly started looking for change. Mr. Donalds quickly said “Non, Non, Gracias.”

The driver bobbed his head and smiled as he said, “Thank you very much” with a very thick accent.

Stacey turned to her dad and said “Great work dad. Little French, little Spanish. Next time, try English.”

Realizing that, though she sounded rather acerbic, it was in good fun, Mr. Donalds did not get upset. Rather he turned to her and said, “If you don’t like my approach, next time you pay the bill!”

“Let’s all grab our bags and go in …” Mrs. Donalds said turning to the pile, which was not there anymore.

“Perdone Señora, ven conmigo.” Said the porter who had already packed the bags onto the hotel’s luggage cart and was standing in the doorway holding it open for them.

They followed him into the lobby and he gestured to the front desk. Mr. Donalds walked up to the desk and gave them his name.

“Certainly, Mr. Donalds. Please fill this out. We will need your passports.”

“Um, OK.” He turned to his wife who pulled the five of them out of her purse and handed them over. The woman at the desk took them and walked away, back into the office. Mr. and Mrs. Donalds exchanged glances that to Meagahn seemed at least a little concerned. However, by the time Mr. Donalds had finished filling out the form, the woman was back with the passports and photocopies of them. She took the form and the copies and filed them under the desk. She then took out two keys and handed them to Mr. Donalds. “We serve breakfast from 6 to 11. On the 8^th floor of the tower, through that door. Please leave your key with us when you go out, and enjoy your stay. Take the elevator to the third floor. Josef will show you to your rooms.” And she gestured to the porter who was still standing with the bags at the elevator.

Josef had called the elevator and now held the door open for them. As they entered the elevator, he smiled and then pushed the cart through another door and disappeared.

The Donalds all stepped into the elevator at once. It was miniscule. Obviously the porter was going to take a service elevator somewhere, because there was no way the cart would fit into this one. The elevator door closed slowly and the car rose even more slowly, almost groaning under the weight.

“I hope there are stairs.” Meagahn said.

“Yeah, smells like you haven’t taken a shower in a couple of days.” Brian smirked back at her.

“Oh yeah, you too, buster.” She replied with a grin and poked him. The sudden movement caused the elevator to jostle back and forth. “Whoops, not a good idea.”

After what seemed like a very long time, the door opened and Josef was standing there with the cart. Obviously the service elevator was faster too. They followed him down the hallway and he opened two rooms for them, showing them how to work the door between them. Meagahn let her parents sort out the luggage and the doors and all that and walked over to the window and stared out at the boat in the harbor. It really was huge. She couldn’t quite make out the name on it though. There were a couple of little boats that seemed to be going back and forth from the ship over to someplace down the way. While she was squishing her face to the window to try to make out where they were going, she heard Brian exclaim from the other room “Hey, there’s a roller coaster!”

Meagahn turned her head in the other direction and saw indeed, there was a small coaster set up on the edge of the water. Matter of fact, there was an entire little carnival there. It didn’t yet seem to be operating, but it was there none the less.

As the doors to the rooms slammed shut, Mrs. Donalds addressed her family. “Let’s unpack a bit and clean up. I don’t know about you, but I would certainly like to take a shower and change. Anyone else?”

After a short shower, Meagahn felt much rejuvenated. Toweling her hair dry, she stood in front of the window and looked out into the bay. The little boats were still moving back and forth between the Cruise Ship and the land. She could imagine them shuttling passengers as kind of a continuous horizontal elevator to the land.

She turned around and flung the now damp towel on her bed. Gonna have to remember to hang that up.

“OK, why don’t you pick that up and hang it somewhere so it will dry.” Mrs. Donalds was sitting at the little table towards the back of the room, reading the guide book. She didn’t even look up as she said it.

How does she do that? “Yeah, sorry Mom.” Meagahn picked up the towel and hung it on the closet door. She walked over to where her mom sat and looked over her shoulder. “What are you reading about?”

“Puerto Montt is a large city.” Mrs. Donalds quoted from the book. “I am trying to find out what we can see this afternoon. There is a little fishing village down past the end of Puerto Montt called Angelmo. It is supposed to be nice and there are supposed to be lots of handicrafts available. I thought we would walk down there and keep us all somewhat active till dinner. Then we can all go to bed early.”

“Hey, can we got to the carnival and ride the roller coaster?” Brian shouted from the bathroom.

“How about we take a walk and then on the way back, we check it out. They don’t seem to be operating yet anyways.” Mr. Donalds called back as he walked in from the other room.

“I want to check out the pool.” Stacey added.

“OK – here is a plan. It is noonish now. Let’s walk down to Angelmo and check out the sights. We will grab some lunch somewhere and then come back. Those who want to swim can swim for an hour, those who want to ride the roller coaster can do that. We will then go eat around 6-ish. Deal?” Mr Donalds asked.

“OK” came the chorus, more or less together.

Once everyone showered and had dressed for travel, the Donalds set back out. Meagahn was torn between taking her sweater and roughing it. In the end, she decided that it was summer here and she should be warm enough. As she stepped out the hotel door though, she instantly regretted her decision. The breeze from the water was cool and immediately raised farms of little goose bumps on her arms. All the other people she saw walking around were wearing sweaters or light jackets, but rather than cause the expedition to wait, she decided to bear with it and tell herself that, indeed, it was summer and enjoy the fresh air. Brrrr.

They crossed the street and walked down next to the water. They walked past the carnival and Meagahn noticed that the carnies were just now starting to set up for the day. She did not see any hours posted anywhere, or at least did not understand them if they were posted. Tickets seemed to be 150 pesos each, but the symbol they used was the dollar sign. It was a little confusing to her. As they continued down the road, Avenue Diego Portales, they passed a busy bus station. There were coaches and little busses pulling in and out, with lots of people milling around. Judging by the number of people and their backpacks, mostly older than Meagahn and younger than her parents, say 20 something, the Puerto Montt bus station seemed to be a main connection point for those hiking up or down the country. It made Meagahn think of the drawing in her journal. So this is how they get to the frontier, but where was the gateway to the wild south? Meagahn looked around, half expecting to see fog shrouding the south behind her, but the sun was reflecting off the water was glinting on the windows for the buildings. The city seemed to spread out in a crescent shape along the bay. It rose up from the water to the top of the hill. Unless there was a lot on the other side of the hill, there was no way this could be a “big city” as promised by the guide book. To her, Boston was a small city, with a million or so people within the belt way and several hundred thousand in the city proper. New York was big. Manchester New Hampshire, she though, though billed as a city, was really a large town. There was a large downtown area, but the population density was low and there were only about 100,000 people there total.

“Hey Mom,” Meagahn called catching back up to her family. “How many people live here?”

“I’m not sure. It doesn’t look that big, but I was told almost 150,000 when you include the little towns around like Angelmo.”

“Wow, that’s bigger than Manchester.” Brian exclaimed.

Gee, Brian is smarter than I thought. I didn’t realize he knew that. Meagahn was genuinely impressed that her brother got that comment out faster than she did.

“So where is everyone?” Meagahn asked.

“Well, I imagine that there are a number of folks off on vacation, since it is their summer holidays. Some are at work, and the rest are doing chores. What would you be doing the last couple of weeks before school?” Mrs. Donalds responded.

“I’d be at the Mall,” Stacey replied.

Mr. Donalds pointed across the bay at an odd looking Square building with big glass windows. “There’s your mall. I’ll bet that’s where most of the folks are.”

“Ooh, that’s really small. Our mall is much bigger.”

“Well, remember Stacey, we Americans are much more predisposed to more and bigger. Look at the cars, look at the buildings. There is much less wealth here and much less personal and private space. People own less, make do with less, but are not necessarily any less happy. They might not be any happier, but I will bet they are not any less.”

“Well, the hotel seems nice. It’s the same as an American one, though you can tell right off that it’s not America.” Stacey commented

“OK, how can you tell?” Mr. Donalds loved to bait them into these new-political discussions.

“Well,” Stacey began.

Meagahn tried to help, “The fixtures were different and the appliances had different brand names on them.”

“Good observation. But what about it?”

“Well,” Stacey began again. With a long pause she finally said “The appliances. I don’t remember ever being in a nice American hotel that had appliances. People stay in luxury hotels here and still cook their own food?”

“I don’t know, but the other point is that the Presidente is the only American style hotel in the city. If you remember the sign in front of the hotel, it is actually an apartment hotel. I would believe that people stay there for long periods of time. I’ll bet the tower is mostly apartments.”

They were walking through a little park on the other side of the bus station. Mothers with their little kids were sitting on the benches and the older children were playing on the paths. The park was really small, but it was open green space and seemed pretty popular. Well, at least here were some of the people. A couple of kids about 5 or 6 came rushing by in little pedal cars. They looked like the toys that Meagahn had seen in the museum as part of the toy exhibit from the 50s and 60s. As they walked beyond the part, she realized that not one of the people she had seen so far had had a cell phone. In fact, the phrase that she would have used to describe the entire scenario was “low tech”. She thought of all the parks at home. The parents and the nannies sitting or standing as they watch their energetic kids all would be chatting on the phone or looking at their PDAs or some other electronic device. Here, the people responsible for the kids were actually watching them.

The road turned in and the space between the road and the water began to fill with buildings and industrial looking buildings. As it continued to curve, Meagahn began to study the other side of the street. There were a number of shop fronts that seemed interesting. “Hey, on the way back, lets walk on that side.” Meagahn called, pointing to the shops.

“Sure.”

“According to the guide book, this is where they export woodchips to Japan.” Mrs. Donalds said pointing back to the buildings behind the fence they were walking past. And indeed, as they walked around the curve, a huge pile of woodchips grew out of the ground. There were large tractors moving the chips around and several large trucks with special trailers dumping more woodchips onto the pile. Meagahn could see the bulwarks of a large freighter on the other side of the complex. That must be the transportation to Asia.

They stopped a couple of minutes to watch the trucks and tractors go back and forth. As they were watching, Mr. Donalds said “Remember as well, it’s Saturday. Would you expect to see this amount of activity on a Saturday at home?”

Meagahn kept forgetting what day it was. That was why it seemed that there were very few people around of a business nature. But still, her dad had a point. At home, people’s wages were mostly high enough that they only had to work 5 days a week, but then again, there was all that temp work, like retail and restaurants where people worked every single day. And farmers, and truck drivers. In the end, Meagahn decided that it wasn’t all that far off from home, but she did wonder what the cost of living was here. I bet it doesn’t cost anywhere as much as at home.

As they started walking again, they rounded a bend beyond the woodchip plant and suddenly the street was lined with little shops. They were not so much store fronts as they were little wooden cubes with the front taken off and jammed full of handicrafts and souvenirs. As they walked by, each of the Donalds seemed to be drawn to something different and each would stop in different stores. The variation from store to store seemed to Meagahn to be extremely small. She looked at a pile of alpaca sweaters at one store and then at the next. They seemed to be of slightly varying coloration and pattern, but there either seemed to be 1 pattern that everyone’s mother knitted, or everyone’s mother bought them all from the same place. None of them touched her fancy, so she kept walking. She caught up with Stacey who was looking at sweaters at one store and had a pile of them on her arm.

“I can’t decide which ones to get, they are all so darling!”

“Why don’t you get them all?” Meagahn replied and handed her the 10,000 peso note from her pocket.

“Uh. Thanks.” Stacey said, somewhat shocked by her sister’s uncharacteristic generosity and snatched the bill from her hand before she could change her mind.

“Sure.” Meagahn replied, hoping that she was not going to get in trouble for feeding her sister’s voracious spending habit. How far wrong can she go with $12.50, Meagahn thought.

As she kept walking, she passed Brian and her mother. Brian was trying to negotiate for a couple of scarves and a hat. Judging by the smile on the proprietor’s face, he was not doing such a good job. Meagahn kept walking. The next store she came across was a leather goods stall. They seemed to have everything one could possible image, made from thick leather. There were belts and saddles and hats and bags and cases, and even jewelry boxes. As she wandered around and looked at the goods she spied a really dangerous looking pair of boot spurs. The spurs were long and pointy and seemed to be made of silver. Both the leather straps and the metal work were finely tooled. They were beautiful, but being a horse person’s horse person, just looking at them sent shivers up and down her back. She was just about to turn away when she felt something sit down on her head. It wasn’t heavy, but it startled her and she jump.

“Whoa, nelly! Settle there pardner. Don’t wantcha to come off and put a slug in ma side.” Boy, her dad really had a baaad western accent. Meagahn instinctively put her hands to her head to see what happened and as she did, her dad said “There’s a mirror over there, take a look.”

Meagahn, still not sure what it was, both felt it and turned to look in the mirror. As she turned she saw Lil’ Miss Annie Oakley staring back at her. Holding down the brim of an untooled leather gaucho hat (there was no fold in the middle), she saw herself looking just like the lead from the play Annie, Get Your Gun. She broke out in a broad smile and said “Ya know pardner, I reckon this be a keeper. Whaddya say?” with almost the same horrible accent her father used.

By this time, the store keeper had wandered over and stood watching them with a bemused look on his face. “Buenos Dios, Senor, Senorita,” he said.

“Como ..esta..Chapeau?” Her father tried.

The sound of hysterical laughter from the sidewalk made Meagahn and her father turn abruptly. “Dad, you are absolutely hopeless.” Stacey said, trying to control herself. “I need 12,000 more pesos. Mom said to ask you. I am buying a couple sweaters.” She added with her hand held out.

Mr. Donalds sighed heavily and dug out the money from his pocket and peeled off 15,000 peso and said “You’ll owe me, right?”

“Of course,” she said as she disappeared down the sidewalk.

When they turned around again, then man in the store said “It is ‘¿Cuanto es el sombrero?’, but it was a good try. It is worse when people don’t even make the attempt. American?”

Now fully embarrassed, Mr. Donalds managed a “Yes, from New England,” as he recovered from his blush.

“Ah, yes…” then man seemed lost in thought. “It is winter there now. Colder than a witch’s tit, oops, pardon young lady, I forgot myself. Let me introduce myself properly. I am Sam Alexander, from Northwood New Jersey. My parents sent me to Brown University to get me out of the city. Rhode Island was their idea of the country. I majored in environmental sciences and for my senior thesis decided to do a year in the Peace Corps here in southern Chile. Needless to say, I never went back. A year turned into 5 into 10. I still live in the same village and come down here to Puerto Montt every month to sell wares for the village. I make the hats.”

Meagahn and her father were not sure exactly what to say, so they said nothing.

After an awkward moment of silence, Mr. Alexander said “I don’t actually get to talk to many Americans. Most never make it down this far or are too hurried to stay and chat. It is nice to see I have not lost the language. For you young lady, the hat will be a gift.”

Not being able to think of anything more conversational, Meagahn said “Thank you very much. Would you like to join us for dinner? We have only one night here in Puerto Montt before we need to move on to the south.”

“I would love to,” Sam responded. “But only if it is alright with your family. I do not want to impose.”

Mr Donalds, finally re-assuming both his color and his composure agreed that it would not be an imposition. “Would you like to meet us at our hotel around 7ish?”

“You will find that 7 is early for dinner here. I will not be done here at the stall until about that time. How about if I join you at about half past and we will walk somewhere and be there just as things begin to open up. I assume you are at the Presidente, correct?

“Uh, yeah, how did you guess?” Meagahn asked.

“It is the only American style hotel in the city and all the tourists stay there. It is also one of the nicest places.” Another customer had come in and was waving their hand impatiently at Sam. “Excuse me, I must go. See you tonight, and thanks.” He said with a smile.

They heard him address the new customers with the same “Hola, sí?”

They also heard the customers say “HOW MUCH IS THIS BELT!” Meagahn watch them hold up a belt to Sam’s face waving its price tag at him. “IN AMERICANO.” Meagahn also saw Sam’s reflection in the mirror as he winked at her and said something in Spanish back to the couple. Meagahn and her hat and her father walked out to find the rest of the family.

Foreward

2005-10-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

To be continued...