Tag: travel

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Es una aventura

What prompted the sharing of this anecdote was an exercise I did with one of my Spanish tutors.  He was using a book of exercises that included an anecdote that about a person going to Paris on vacation, arriving at the airport only to realize they had forgotten their passport, causing them to miss their flight.  Due to the delay the rest of their trip plans fell through too.

The idea being to relate a similar anecdote so I orally told him one about the time we arrived for a domestic flight at STL airport, and Señora had misplaced her driver’s license.  Fortunately, after much ado, they let us on the flight.  We had a friend get Robin’s passport from the house and overnight it to us in New Orleans for the return flight.  C’est la vie..laissez les bon temps roule.

Since he also wanted me to practice my writing he assigned me to write another anecdote for my “homework”.  The Spanish version is at the bottom for a couple of you nerds.  Here is the same story in English, but it is not a translation.

Trip of Adventure

For various reasons that are not important to the arc of this story, my ex’s mother gifted her Continue reading “Es una aventura”

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¡Guau! ¡Honduras!


At the end of this article you can find pictures from our trip to Honduras.

Guau is the Spanish spelling of the English word, wow. Señora and I just spent six incredible days in Honduras and the best word to describe our experiences is guau.  Both of us were saying guau all the time as we were in the mountains most of our trip and the scenery was absolutely stupendous. And the people were generally kind, friendly and very welcoming, perhaps so, as we were, for the most part, away from the more common tourist areas.  My Salvadoran tutor tells me that he likes the Honduran culture more than his own due to the friendliness and openness of the Hondurans, known colloquially as Catracho or Catracha.

The primary purpose of the trip was to visit one of my online Spanish tutors, Saúl Rios and his wife Sarai Paz, this young couple, both just around 30, make their living as Spanish tutors online.  Saúl is on a platform called iTalki and Sarai is on Prepay. It is always hard to judge these things, but they seem to be making a living better than average for their country.  Saúl is Mexican.  As I remember the story he was on vacation in Honduras, met this Catracha young lady, fell in love, married her and has been there ever since. Ironically, as will become clear in a minute, Continue reading “¡Guau! ¡Honduras!”

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From Wow to Ouch

flickr-3470761412-hdI am leaving the house for work, driving along suburban streets to get to the Interstate that takes me downtown.  In front of my pick-em-up truck appears a red tail hawk flying about eye level in the same direction of travel as myself. The hawk flies with me for a few second. It then veers off to the right, swooping up and disappears in a tree.  I thought, “Wow.”

I stop watching.

Suddenly, out of the corner of eye, I see the hawk drop out of the tree.  It is headed rapidly towards the ground. It has my attention again.  At about six to 12 inches from the deck it snags a small bird out of the air, rises with its prize, and disappears again.  I thought, “Ouch.”

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Hurrying into the office

Short, young, round woman jaywalking across a 4 lane one-way street in downtown St. Louis.  She attempts to hurry with her feet hardly clearing the pavement and her knees barely bending.  If it were not for the feminine form it would look like an old man’s shuffle in high speed.  The curb appears at the end of her rush from traffic.  Somehow she manages to make the shuffle leap the six inches up, but this acrobatic maneuver  throws her center of gravity off forcing her body forward much too fast.   She manages to regain her balance. Her travel slows to a normal gait.  Surely she is heading into the office congratulating herself for beating the odds of against downtown traffic once more.

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Amtrak Could and Should Do Better

I think I understand why Amtrak is having business problems.USA-superliner-train-seats

I would love to be able to take a train a lot of places I visit.  First and foremost, there are not passenger trains to many places.  If there is the travel time is much more than it would be by car and the real kicker is that the tickets are more expensive than driving.   At least that has been my experience every time I have checked for an upcoming trip.

We recently returned from a wedding that was held in downtown Chicago.  We took Amtrak from St. Louis to Union Station in Chicago there and back.  The tickets for the two of us ran around $245.  Gas for the trip would have ran from $100 to $150 depending on which vehicle we took and how much additional driving we did.   However overnight parking in downtown Chicago would have cost us at least $60 per day.   To the above figure add $120.  Because we were splitting cabs with other attendees to the wedding, cabs probably ran another $20 or $25 while we were there.   Double that if we had not split.

Our train was due to leave St. Louis Friday morning at 7:55 a.m.   The Texas Eagle was behind schedule.  Continue reading “Amtrak Could and Should Do Better”

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Troubadours Transcending

I have this new theory about musicians like Ellis Paul, Kevin Welch, Jimmie LaFave, Pete Morton, etc.  There are tons more.  I just mention these folks because they are on my mind from seeing them concert recently or listening to their CDs.

These folks never make it super big like say a Garth Brooks or a Reba McIntyre.  I would think having that much success and fame would be as much a burden as blessing.  I’m sure the money and adulation are wonderful.  But then you have everyone wanting a piece of you, wanting something from you.  I personally would find it a huge pain to walk down the street and have folks continually coming up to me, snapping pictures etc.  But then I value my privacy.

Musicians in the first category have a relative degree of success.  They can make a living doing what they love to do.  From having talked to a few of them, I know it is love for most of them.  They get to enjoy the company of liked minded individuals.  They get to travel as much or as little as they want in the support of their craft. At least the ones I have seen have mostly been in small often intimate venues with interaction between the musicians and the audience.  Most of the musicians really seem to enjoy this.   Of course, this is from the outside looking in, but they seem to be milking the most out of essential nature of life. Many that write their own lyrics seem have an amazing insight into the human condition, the human emotional state, a certain degree of wisdom beyond the norm.

My theory is this:  They are old souls.  This is probably their last go round in the physical plane.  They are on a farewell tours of sorts.  I really cannot think of many better ways to do such a tour.

Heck of a theory for an old agnostic.