Friendly Strangers

Had dinner and drinks with Garth - my high school friend who lives here on the island and works as a dive master - last night and played “remember when...??” What's funny about getting together with someone you knew a long time ago in a very different place is that each of you vividly remember different things, sometimes about the same event. I discovered this when my family met up again in Guatemala after 20 years and pieced together a lot of events by someone remembering one thing and others remember the rest of the stuff and a lot of “I can't believe you don't remember...!!! You were right there! In fact, you said...!!! How do you not remember that?”

And really, that game can be played ad infinitum. Four years of high school is a lot of material to remember. Eventually we went to a rotisserie chicken place down the street for dinner and had to wait for a table. Then the first open one was usurped by an older couple that arrived after us. But in true island fashion, you just look at each other and shrug and order a beer and prepare to wait for the next table.

However, this couple saw us looking around and decided to offer us the two empty chairs at their 4 top so we accepted and had dinner with them. Shirley and Grant are sailors and divers who sail their boat up and down the north and south American coastlines for 6 months of the year and spend time at their house in northern California – or traveling around the US in their RV – for the other 6 months. They exchanged island stories with Garth and we all talked about south east Asia and south America.

Roatan is a popular place for sailors and Garth says that occasionally a boat will dock in Roatan and be looking for crew. They offer an all expenses paid trip where ever the boat is going – around the world, sometimes – in exchange for your labor on the boat. I know I live a level of gypsy life but sailing around the world is a whole other level of gypsy -hood. One in which I can see the appeal but I can't really conceive of living all those months on something as small as a boat. It's like touring but never getting off the bus.

They were great dinner company and the island being as small as it is, I expect to run into them again. Garth suggested a place for breakfast this morning called “Cream of the Trop” so i showed up there this morning. Cute little gelato place painted in really bright colors and staffed by one busy woman running about serving 10 people breakfast simultaneously. Some of her customers – despite the fact that they can see she's the only person there – seemed impatient and again I just wanted to ask what kind of schedule they are on here on the island that they can't wait another 5 minutes for their coffee. Once they left, I fell into a conversation with Serena – the owner, manager, cook, gelato maker – about that kind of weird impatience and she and I hit it off immediately.

She's an expat who runs her own IT business remotely from the island and just recently opened up the gelato store. She said she's had about 4 consecutive hours off in the past 3 months since the store opened. I told her it sounded like tour :) Then Greg, the expat owner of the local sports bar down the street, stopped in for breakfast and we all chatted about life on the island while she made his breakfast and her own and then sat down and hung out with us for awhile.

Apparently their morning tradition is to have breakfast together and then play video games in the store while she gets up and down serving customers and taking her turn at Guitar Hero and Virtual Fighter. I played Guitar Hero with them and did quite badly playing cool songs by Foghat and Heart and had a great morning just drinking coffee and hanging out.

I'm gonna go diving this afternoon and see how that goes. Looking forward to getting in the water... Pictures later.

Roatan

Roatan. We flew in over the island and landed, taxiing down a strip of land right next to the water. There's nothing like arriving on an island and seeing the ocean from your plane window. The flight had been half full, at best, and it's the first time I've ever flown and not gotten the requisite “here are the exits, put your seatbelt together like this and if we land on water, here's how you will hope to survive” lecture. Lectures I generally ignore but I always check for 2 pieces of info: A. Where is the nearest exit door and how do i get there. And B. I reach under my seat and check for the inflatable vest or make sure I know how the seat comes apart so the cushion will float. That's it. I'm pretty good with a seatbelt so I'm not worried about that.

Plus, i was sitting in an exit row and no one seemed to care. Didn't get any questions about my ability to lift a 7 year old child (the estimated weight of the exit door if i have to open it manually) or my age (can't be a child, dontcha know).

I'm not sure what to make of the lack of lecture or concern on a Continental flight. Had it been Island Air, I would chalk it up to “Island style” otherwise known as “laid back” but this was an American airline post 9/11 and I definitely had to take my flip flops off during the security check so they could make sure I wasn't smuggling bombs, or anthrax or scissors, so... who knows.

So I read the exit door and figured out how to open it, checked for my vest, then kicked off my shoes and followed the pilot's instructions to “sit back and relax” while he took me to Roatan.
Once we arrived in Roatan, we went through customs. In my experience, customs in every country is a hassle but it's never a hassle in the same way. And it's always amusing, but again, never amusing for the same reasons. Unlike Cambodia where they auctioned off passports for varying amounts of cash or China where there are 5 levels of security to leave their country, in Roatan they figure one plane load of people needs one customs official.

One customs official on Island time...

There was a bonus official there to corral everyone into the office and tell them to stand in line, and then split them into two lines, but there's still only one official checking passports.

And two lines of people.

So the one line is moving – albeit slowly – and the other line is stationary and waiting patiently for... another official? To be told what to do in the second line? To be let back into the line they just left so they'll get out of the airport sometime today?

So, of course, I'm in this second line and I'll say this for travelers, they will stand in any line for any amount of time if there appears to be something happening at the head of the line. But when nothing happens for an unspecified amount of time – for Americans that magic number appears to be 5 minutes – the natives get restless. And start grumbling to their neighbors. And making remarks about the star bellied sneeches in the first line that SHOULD be letting the second line cut in since apparently that's the system around here...

The couple in front of me were Canadians who live half the year in Roatan and half the year in Canada and have two adopted babies with latino names and felt somewhat apologetic about the grumbling so they tried to play nice to the grumpy women behind them but then they finally shrugged and said, “we love our island but know for sure that when you cross that yellow line up there, you are definitely in another country.”

And all along I'm thinking, where in the world do you have to go in Roatan that's so important you can't wait for 15 minutes in line? What are you missing? Whatever it is, I guarantee you, it's all going to be there in half an hour.

Take a deep breath. Welcome to the island.

12 days of Oz

I'm not going to spend the time to figure out how to embed this video. I'll just link to it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4choyUv-ko

We had a competition in the company with all the traveling shows. Each one put together a "show centric" version of 12 days of Christmas and we won!

It's funny. you'll enjoy it. watch it. thank you.