Day 11 - On Being a Writer

On Being a Writer

One of the reasons I came to Bolivia was to write. I know I could just as easily write in Kaufman or Ennis.  A good writer should be able to write anywhere.  Right?  But I felt I needed something more.  A little bit of inspiration.  A little less responsibility.  Bolivia has been in my heart for a long time, so I hope I can make it work.

For years I have spent part or all of my summers writing, and sometimes even Christmas break, but then the school year would get in the way.  Those who are teachers know what the first weeks of school are like.  There never seems to be enough time.  Even after years of planning, even knowing what you will teach the first days and weeks of school, there never is time.  I often found myself staying late or coming to school on the weekends.  I would say the first month of school I averaged 50 or more hours a week. 

That meant anything that I started to write in the summer got put away by mid-August.  Sometimes it would be put away for months even years.

I have a novel I am working on now.  It is maybe 95% finished.  It is the story of the Trojan War, but without the supernatural mess found in Greek mythology.  I love history and I love Greek mythology.  When I was a kid, I devoured every book on Greek mythology I could find.  One day, about 20 years ago, I decided to write down everything I knew about the Trojan War and put it in order as best I could.  I have concentrated on just four characters.  If you read Homer or the ancient writers, one character will be a hero at one moment and a crying baby the next.  There is no consistency of any character.  So I have tried to make my characters more consistent; make them believable to a modern audience.  Without the supernatural, it could an event that really happened.

This summer I have been working on one major thing, changing the book from 3^rd person to 1^st person.  Sometimes I discover grammatical errors or spelling errors.  I hate when I read a book and discover an error.  I don’t want someone to find that in my books.  Part 1 is finished and Part 2 is seeing a finish in just a few days.  Then I plan to reread it two or three times more looking for errors.  That is the most time consuming part of the writing process to me.  But I think before July is finished, so will my novel.

My friend, Denise, told me about publishing on Amazon.  I have tried to publish the old fashioned way, finding an agent and him finding me a publishing house.  I spent a lot of money doing that.  A few so called agents ripped me off.  Besides, if you don’t have the name, publishing houses won’t publish.  They want someone who is known.  Amazon has moved into the publishing market, in hopes of carving out a sizeable niche.  You that are readers, know you buy from Amazon.  Maybe by the end of summer, Amazon will have my first book.

One of the reasons I came to Bolivia was to write.  I have more ideas that I’ll tell you about later.  But my plan is to write in the morning, teach in the afternoon, come home around 3:30 or 4:00 to rest a bit, take a nice evening walk, and write a bit more before bed.  The nice walks help with the inspiration.

So that is my idea.  What do you think?

Day 10 - A Typical Sunday

Day 10

A Typical Sunday

Today I woke up several times in the night.  The wind was fierce.  I could see my curtains blowing.  I have no need of a nightlight in my apartment.  The streets are lit and Downtown is just outside my window.  So there is always enough light to see and I could see my curtains blowing at 90 degrees.  I debated closing the window, but I like nothing better than to be wrapped up in blankets.  Besides, it won’t be winter here forever.

But I couldn’t go back to sleep after 5:00, so I read my bible a bit.  I have two reading plans on my iPad, the New Testament Epistles and one on praise.  That is good for a Sunday morning.  For breakfast I had a couple of cuñapé and a left over piece of chicken.  And as I was getting ready for church, I discovered my bathroom sink is clogged.  Hmm?  Will have to go find a plunger now or draino, if they have it here.

Last week I took a radio taxi to church, one from the barrio of the church, so they would know shortcuts.  But that won’t help me know how to get there by myself, and my school is a few blocks away, so I need to learn the way.  I had a general idea of how to find the church, so I grabbed the first taxi I saw. 

“I have to go past kilometer 6,” I told the driver.  The first part is easy.  Santa Cruz is built around consecutive rings, encircling the center of the city.  I live just past the 1^st ring, el primer anillo.  So I am counting, “1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.”  Five rings each about a kilometer from each other.  After the fifth, I was looking for a pedestrian bridge, because I know a little past that is the gas station, where we take a right.  About five blocks later is the church.  It usually costs 20 Bs. (7 Bolivianos = 1 dollar), but today he wanted 30 Bs.

The Road to Church

I manage to make it about fifteen minutes before church started.  I was greeted by Debbie and one of the worship leaders, a lady named Erika.  She wants to learn English, so we made a deal that she speaks to me in English and I speak to her in Spanish.  I then met Debbie’s oldest daughter, Hosanna, who is visiting from college and who just completed a mission outreach to Thailand.

I don’t know a lot of people in the church, but most are friendly and greet me.  The men will shake hands, then pat you on the back, and shake hands again – love it.  A few hug.  One of the worship leaders, a black boy, named Noel, hugs me.  There are not a lot of blacks here, in fact, he is the only one I have seen.

The worship here is beautiful.  It starts with vigorous praise songs, a lot of clapping, and a few of the more spirited youths bounce a lot. But it always is followed by some worship songs.  I have to tell you, that always moves me, often to tears.  I truly forgot how much I loved the worship here in Bolivia.  I truly need this.

Pastor Percy preached a really good sermon.  His emphasis was on the Church of Laodicea in Revelation 3, but he talked about all seven of the Revelation churches.  We read all of Revelation 2 and 3.  Here are some the points that stood out for me.  "Consider how much you have fallen” in chapter 2.  We as believers often become complacent after we have been believers for many years.  It clearly says here this is sin in our lives.  In chapter 3 it talks about the Philadelphian Church being open to what God wanted.  This is our primary role as Christians to be open to God.  It is not our plans that matter, but His.  And lastly, the Church of Laodicea always makes me think of America because we are so rich that we don’t see how spiritually poor we are.  This will offend many people, but our churches are not alive like I see here in Bolivia.

I decided to go home differently.  I walked to the end of the street, about 5 blocks to the Doble Via la Guardia.  That is the same main road I took this morning.  It took ten minutes to walk the five blocks.  I crossed the road, carefully, because cars won’t stop for you. On the other side I looked for a micro (small bus) that would go to the Ramada Market, which is close to where I live.  It was crowded and I was standing.  It is not six feet high, so it was not comfortable, but at the fifth ring, about a quarter of the passengers got off, so I could sit.  By the time we got to the Ramada, I figured I could walk, since the traffic was slower than walkers. That only cost me 2 Bs. (remember 7 = 1 dollar).

The market was crowded, but soon I was on Iralá and almost home.  The wind was very strong.  I’m not kidding about this wind being strong.  I am a big guy and was almost blown over!  The trip from church took a little under one hour.  I will have to consider that when going to and from school starting in August.

Now I am home and writing you.  I hope your day is good.

Day 7 - Going Out to Eat

Going out to eat

Going out to eat in Bolivia and the United States are so different from each other.  It is probably one of the easiest examples of how different our cultures are.

In the United States, if you go out to eat with friends or family, say to Chili’s or El Fenix, they will seat you right away, unless they are full, but usually quickly.  As you sit, someone is taking your drink order.  A few minutes later they are back and asking to take your meal order.  As an American, you expect to be ordering your meal within five minutes.  A restaurant isn’t good if they make you wait.  After your order is taken, you want it within ten minutes.  Most places will get it to you that quickly.  As Americans, we don’t stay in restaurants that long, often finishing our food thirty minutes after we get it.  When we are ready to go, we are ready to go and don’t want to wait on the check. 

A restaurant in the United States, for most of us, is a forty-five minute to hour long experience.  If you stay longer, look around the room and note how many leave within that period of time.

Bolivia is so different!

So in Bolivia you go out to eat with your friends, for a good steak dinner, or one of the new cool restaurants around town.  They will seat you right away, but it might take ten minutes to get a drink order and a menu.  Once you have a menu, don’t expect the waiter to hurry to your side, he will stay out of the way until you call him.  Once you have placed your order, it is not time to wait hungrily, it is time to enjoy the company of your friends, because they are going to cook your order from scratch.  That might take thirty minutes or even an hour.  When you are finished eating, the waiter will leave you alone until you request the check.  They might take the plates away, but the check waits on your request.  So a normal meal in Bolivia will take two hours. 

Here is the difference between the two places.  In America we are always in a hurry.  If we go to a fast-food restaurant, we expect to be gone in five minutes.  Even when we go to a restaurant and sit down, we want it done in a hurry.  Going out to eat with friends in Bolivia is time to spend enjoying your friends, talking, laughing, getting to know them better.  What better way to enjoy friends than to sit around a nice meal and relax?

I’m not going to condemn the way things are done in the United States, because each culture is different, but we can learn from each other.  The next time you go out to eat with some friends or your family, don’t worry about the food.  Enjoy the company.  God has blessed you with these people for a reason, so enjoy them (and the food tastes better when you are not stressed about getting it so quickly).

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing we will be content with that.  1 Timothy 6:7-8

Day 6 - My New Home

Day 6

My New Home

One of the most frustrating things to me is living out of a suitcase.  So you cannot imagine how good I feel to know my things are out of suitcases and in a real closet.  Yes, I finally found a place to live. 

I started looking for places to live in March.  My friend, Carmen, took me to see several places when I came to visit then.  I think got frustrated because of the places were really nice, so she found a real estate agent to help.  Ximena took me to four or five places in March and got a feel of what I wanted and where I wanted to live.  My first afternoon back, after my exhausting trip here, Ximena took me to a very nice place on the First Ring, near the Cometary.  It was a beautiful place.  The only thing I did not like about it was that it was on the opposite side of the Plaza than I wanted to be.

Monday she took me to see two more places.  I was excited about the first because it was four blocks from the plaza and two blocks from a nice market area, Siete Calles.  But I was very disappointed.  The living room had a big pipe in the wall for air conditioning and it could not be removed.  The windows in the living were covered with newspaper because you could see the entire apartment from those windows; so no running around in my underwear there. 

From this view from my apartment you get a glimpse of the Plaza

The big building you see out this window is one of the nicest super markets in town. 

The trees behind it are the Plaza Blacut.

Then she took me to a building near the Plaza Blacut.  I was staying at the New Tribes Mission House on the Plaza Blacut, so I knew the area.  I had been out exploring it for three days and knew it a little from when I lived here in the 80s.  A very nice neighborhood.  When I walked in, I knew immediately that this was my new home.  The electricity was off and we were looking at it with our phone lights, but I could tell it was beautiful. It is not big, just four rooms: kitchen, living, bath, and bedrooms.  But it is what I needed.

Tuesday evening, I met Ximena and Alexandra, the owner, at a notary to make it official.  Then we went to the apartment, where I paid and got my keys.  In Bolivia, I pay the first month rent, two months’ rent as a security, and the real estate agent gets the equivalent of a month.  So I paid for four months’ rent yesterday.  I am broke for a bit.

I walked over to the mission house and paid for my five days there.  I took a taxi the five blocks with all of my things, threw them in the apartment, and went for food.  I went back to my chicken place, Chicken Kingdom, but brought my food home.  The lights were still off so I ate by computer light. 

When I awoke this morning, my lights were still off.  I had to go to the Plaza to order a Wi-Fi connection, so I decided I would figure it out after I got back.  The deposit and first month of Wi-Fi cost a little less than $100.  When I got back my lights were working and a little while later the Wi-Fi was installed. 

I spent the rest of the morning buying food and things I need in the apartment, though I still have a lot of little things to buy.  I cleaned my house fairly well for a bachelor.  And I washed some clothes, especially shirts that smell like a suitcase – they just got a quick rinse is all.

Now I am sitting here with all four windows open to the 65 degree breezes and writing you.  I have two more blogs written, though I don’t think I will post every day.

Luke 10:5 “Whatever house you enter, first say ‘Peace be to this house.’”  Pray that my house would be a house of peace for me and others.

Day 5 - Church in Bolivia

Day 5

Church in Bolivia

Saturday evening and Sunday morning I went to church.  One of my former students, Debbie, is married to a Bolivian man who is pastor of Iglesia Berea in Barrio Telchi.  Debbie was valedictorian the last year I taught in Bolivia.  She went to college only to return shortly thereafter to marry her high school sweetheart.  They now have three children, the oldest is in college, the middle will graduate this school year, and the youngest is a high school sophomore.  Debbie works in the Christian Learning Center where I will be working this year.  You know you are old when you work with former students.

Mural on church wall - Return to your first love, Jesus

They invited me to come on Saturday night because Debbie’s sister, Becky, who I also taught, and her husband and daughter were visiting from Kentucky.  Pastor Percy, Debbie’s husband, always starts any service early.  He is teaching unpunctual Latin Americans to be punctual.  So if a service starts at 7:00, he says it starts at 6:45.  So I was there early and had time to visit.  Another friend/former student who is Bolivian, Carmen, came by to see Becky, since they were classmates.  It was a nice time of renewing acquaintances.

When I went upstairs to attend the already started youth group, there were maybe 75 in the middle of a game.  I’m not sure what the rules were, but they were running across the auditorium and put their noses in a chair that had flour in it.  When they had floured their noses, they ran and tagged another who repeated it. 

Then everybody sat down and a song played as a woman and some kids acted out a scene.  I wasn’t quite sure what was happening but later deduced it was a story about a girl who left home, but was restored to her family.  Likewise, we as Christians might leave the arms of God, but when we return, He accepts us with open arms.

Then they started clearing out all the chairs, so I thought it was over.  Ha-ha – It was not over!  All the men and teenaged boys came to the front and the girls stayed at the back.  I’m still not sure why they do it that way, but it worked.  By that time about 150 young people were there and a few older people.  Two young men led the worship service.  The best way to describe them is full of energy; two energizer bunnies.  They led one of the most active worship services I have ever seen.  One of the men is named Javier, and I don’t know the other’s yet.

It was at least, a 45-minute worship service.  Nobody left, but people kept coming in.  These kids were singing, dancing, jumping, and smiling.  Like it says in Psalm 30:11, “You have turned my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness.”  These young people were not in mourning, but rejoicing in a life set free as believers in Christ. 

Becky was standing near me during the worship.  I asked her what she was feeling.  Her response is what I have been trying to say but didn’t have the words to express what I wanted to say.  Simply put, she said, “This feels normal.”

About 35 years ago, I went on my first mission outreach to Mexico City, a barrio called Ciudad Azteca with Pastor David and Doris Godwin.  My first day there I thought I had made a mistake.  By my last day there, I knew I was supposed to be a missionary in Latin America.  And that’s what I did most of the 80s.  Then I came home and nothing ever felt just right.  For the last three years I knew I wanted to return to Latin America and for the last year, Bolivia in particular.  I never knew how to tell everybody why.  So here is my answer.  It feels normal.  The things I am hearing, feeling, seeing, smelling, and tasting seem normal to me.  It feels like home.  I don’t love my home in Texas any less, but this feels like my real home.

So let me tell you what I learned about this youth group.  Several years ago the group was rather small, maybe 25 or 30 on a good youth night.  Someone in the group asked, “How can we get our group to grow.  There are so many lost around us.”  As a group, they committed to praying and fasting for God’s guidance each Thursday.  And bam, a few months later the group started growing.  It is so big now that they split it into four groups, roughly based on age.  They meet at other times during the week, but all together on Saturdays for about two hours.  The groups take turns being in charge of the weekly teaching.  I’ve taken a picture of all the different meetings this church has during the week.  They have the understanding that the more they meet and keep each other following Jesus, they will grow stronger as a family of believers.  And this is the church I will be attending this year!

Busy week

Pastor Percy and Debbie baby dedication of Josias

On Sunday morning, they have two services, though I am still a bit confused about the times.  The later service starts around 10:00.  The first person I am greeted by is the worship leader, Javier.  At the moment, he is the only other person I know by name, other than Debbie’s family.  He talks a mile a minute – energizer bunny!  The entire worship team, maybe 15 people, all have an inexhaustible amount of energy.  I got tired watching them.  Not really.  I felt the joy of around 150 or more people worshipping together. 

Becky’s husband, Daniel, preached and Debbie translated.  It was taken from Psalm 8 and Hebrews 10; a call to persevere in our faith.  Daniel is not a preacher, but an Iraqi War veteran.  He doesn’t know it, but he is a very skilled preacher.  How lucky his church is to have an ordinary member that can preach so well.

As you can see from the picture, I was mentioned in the bulletin. 

I hope your church service went well on Sunday.  If you didn’t make it for whatever reason, I want you to think of an analogy from Daniel’s sermon.  Imagine your team playing in the Super Bowl (he used the Soccer World Cup, but Americans will relate to the Super Bowl better).  The signal has just been given that it is the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, and your team is ahead by 21 points!  Your team cheers, jumps around a lot, does a few high-fives, and then leaves the field and goes to the locker room.  Who then wins the game?  The other team.

Don’t be like that team and give yourself a high-five and quit.  The game is not over until we get to Heaven.  We each still have a job to do. We cannot let the other team score, or we don’t get the celebration.  The celebration is after the game is played. 

“Let us hold unswervingly to hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”

Let’s go play!

Day 4 - I'm Home

Day 4

I’m Home

I am sitting in my room at the New Tribes Mission House, enjoying the breeze and listening to the sounds of the city; honking horns, police whistle, cars accelerating.  And I hear a parrot from somewhere around here.  The dog at the compound, Watcher, occasionally barks if someone comes too close to the gate, but he is really a sweetheart.  They just don’t know that.  It is around 70 to 75 degrees and there is a nice breeze blowing.

It is Saturday morning.  I am going to tell you about yesterday and later I will tell you about today.

Debbie and her kids, Shekinah and Joash, met me at the airport.  Because the flight was coming through La Paz, they were expecting me at 10:30.  Luckily Debbie was following my progress and saw I came an hour earlier.  Really two hours late, but … go read yesterday’s blog.

I was so tired, but so excited to be home.  I am staying across the street from one of my favorite little plazas in Santa Cruz, at the New Tribes Mission House.  It is a place that reminds me of the mission homes from the 80s.  I guess some things don’t really change.  There are trees blooming all over town.  Right now they are the hot pink ones.  I think those are the tajibos trees (pronounced ta- he- bows). 

I was tired and debated what to do.  Part of me wanted to take a nice long nap, only I was afraid if I napped I would sleep until evening, so I decided on a different plan.  That started with a nice hot shower.  Then I walked to the plaza.  First I wanted to get a new phone.  My phone is good and takes awesome pictures, but I can’t get it unlocked and get service for it until sometime in August.  If I want to talk or text friends here, I need a cheap phone.  By the way, everyone here uses WhatsApp.  It is there preferred method of texting.  I am keeping all my old apps, but for a while that is the one I will most have access to during the day.  Add it and keep in touch.

I got a nice little phone, with a lot of texting time for $70.  I might be told by someone that I spent too much, but I was mostly seeing phones for $250 or more.

I had a good lunch of empanadas at a restaurant overlooking the Plaza.  Empanadas are like a turnover, but filled with savory ingredients.  In this case, chicken.  Often in Bolivia the fillings are more like a stew filling.  At least that is my interpretation.  They are usually very juicy, but not greasy.  I am thinking these were baked.  I had three of them for lunch and three for dinner.  Most places serve the sodas cold, but not with ice.  If they have ice, it is like this restaurant, that has a separate bowl with ice that you can fill your glass with.  Different, but it works.  The doors of the restaurant were open so I could enjoy the breeze.  It is winter here and many people are wearing sweaters of jackets.  But it is only about 75 degrees.  Life is good!

While back at the mission house, I talked to Richard, the man in charge, about my laptop.  It has the three-pronged plug.  If I use it as is, I will destroy my laptop and blow out the lights at the mission house too.  So I went searching for a converter.  I saw no shops that looked like they could help me, so I strolled through Siete Calles market in hopes of finding one.  I found a stall that sold phones and accessories, that looked promising.  A girl working there referred me to a man.  I showed him a picture of my plug and he said he could find what I was looking for.  He vanished.  The girl said he’d be back.  Five minutes later he came back with a converter.  Since I am writing you from my laptop, you can see it works.  Now I can write while here in Bolivia.

I went back to the plaza later in the day to get WhatsApp installed on my phone, had a fresh squeezed orange juice that was amazingly refreshing, and waited for a friend to meet me.  Ximena is a real estate agent and is looking for apartments for me.  She had one to show me yesterday afternoon.  It is a beautiful $600 a month apartment on the 7^th floor of a building across the street from another one of my favorite little plazas with beautiful toborochis and tajibos.  The apartment is furnished, and includes cable and Wi-Fi.  It is very modern and clean, includes cleaning and laundry service for a cheap price.  There is a convenience store on the first floor that is open till 10:00, a pool, and the roof has a 360-degree view of the city.  The roof would be a nice place to write in the mornings. 

The drawbacks are that it is on the opposite side of the main plaza than I want to be.  It might add 10 minutes to my commute to the school. It only has one bedroom, but the couch is a convertible to a bed if need be.  There is only a stove top, but not an oven, so I can’t make a quiche (I make a good quiche). 

I like it but will wait till I see the other.

Ximena dropped me off at the plaza to finish getting WhatsApp installed, and I took a taxi back to my plaza.  There is an old store on that plaza that was one of the first air-conditioned grocery stores that I remember in Santa Cruz.  It has been enlarged since the 80s and has so much more.  It is kinda like a large dollar store, or a small Wal-Mart.  I mostly wanted to see what’s available. 

But by the time I got back to the mission house I was exhausted.  It was only 7:00, but I was asleep in minutes.

So Saturday morning I woke up about 4:00, then 5:00, and finally around 6:00.  I sat outside under a tree writing what happened on Friday, while making plans for the day and Monday.

At 12:30 Sandra and Andrea picked me up for lunch.  They gave me several choices.  The first was Mexican food.  I have never had Mexican food here, so I had to say yes to that.  It tasted more Mexican than Tex-Mex, but definitely delicious.  What is even better about the place, is that it is just 3 blocks from an apartment I am considering renting.  The choice for that apartment just went much higher among my choices.  I felt like I was in Bolivia!  How do I describe it?  Well, it is on a side street, so I never would have found it otherwise.  It wasn’t fancy, so I might have ignored it.  It was cheap – around $7 for a plate of food.  Everything about the setting made me think of Bolivia.  The utensils wrapped in paper napkins.  Paper napkins on the table.  Sodas served without ice.  It felt like I was home. I had enchiladas Mexicanas with a side of one taco Gringo.  So the enchiladas were with a stewed chicken, more what you’d expect in Bolivia than in Texas, which means the meat is darker.  It was topped with cheese, but not soaked in cheese like we do in Texas.  The beans were not refried and the rice was not what you’d expect in a Mexican restaurant, but they had the feel of a good homemade meal in Bolivia.  The pico de gallo was as good, if not better than any you’d get in Texas.  It was a good meal – you can see from the picture.

It was also great to catch up with good friends.  Sandra was my student back in the 80s.  She is now an adult with two sons.  I will be teaching her older son in the fall semester (actually it will be the summer/spring semester, since we have opposite seasons).  Andrea, her younger sister, was in kinder or first grade when I last taught here, so she was never my student.  Andrea just told me she accepted a job teaching for the next two years in Dubai.  Both of them are excellent English teachers.  They have developed their own system that works.  I don’t know what they do, because it is secret.  Parents who want their kids to go to the English speaking schools get them to teach their kids. 

They just invited me on a road trip.  So let’s see what happens over the next few days.

After lunch I was planning on going apartment hunting again, but that was postponed until Monday.  I took a short nap until Mom texted me.  So I then I went for a walk around the neighborhood looking for a good picture of a pink tree.  It is a beautiful neighborhood with beautiful homes, beautiful apartment buildings, and lots of nice restaurants.  I honestly wouldn’t mind getting stuck here.  And I found my tree.  It is called tajibos, which I mentioned above.  When standing under one, I thought I smelled cotton candy.  I picked up a blossom and yes, it smells like cotton candy.  There were parakeets in the tree eating the blossoms.  The scientific name is tabebuia morea for my science friends.

So this blog is ending as I get ready to go visit some friends at their church.  Tonight is youth group.  Tomorrow’s post will be about church.

Isaiah 40:8 – The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord stands forever.

Day 2 - The Art of Traveling

Day 2

The Art of Traveling

The first time I got on a commercial airliner was 45 years ago, when I was just 13 going to Israel with my grandmother.  Since then I have flown to Mexico, Trinidad, Canada, Spain, Germany, Lithuania, Greece, Romania, Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia.  At 13 I loved to fly.  At 58 I hate it. 

Here are seven reasons I most hate flying:

1.      Getting to the airport early – Airlines tell you to get to the airport at least 3 hours early.  Sometimes you can see the reasonableness of this.  They overbook flights, so you might be bumped, or your flight might be delayed, or your flight might be cancelled.  Basically the airlines rule your travel plans. 

Once, when flying to Barcelona, my flight changed gates and then was delayed an hour.  When I arrived in Boston, my flight was cancelled.  I got a new flight through London and that one was also delayed an hour.  It happens and they say so sweetly, “I’m sorry.” 

2.      Being searched – after getting your ticket and checking your bags, you go through security.  I do understand the need for security, though I am not sure what we have in place today will stop another 911 from happening.  What I hate about it is standing in a long line, emptying my bag, taking off my shoes, taking off my belt, emptying my pockets, and my pants falling down (they just made me take off my belt which is there to hold up my pants).  Then I have to repack and get dressed again while someone complains that I am going too slow.

I once watched an elderly woman, easily in her 80s, in a wheel chair, being wanded by one of the security guards.  There is something wrong if that is happening.

3.      Waiting in the airport – after getting to the airport early, now I have to sit and wait, sometimes with my gate not yet posted, for one or two hours.  The seats are uncomfortable, buying food is expensive, and soon your bars on the phone or iPad start to disappear.  Yes, you can plug them in to recharge them, but so is everybody else.

4.      Sitting on the plane – finally you get on the plane and you are wedged into a seat that is too small for your extra-large body.  I have gained weight over the years, but the seats have gotten smaller and the space between you and the guy in front has also gotten smaller.

Sometimes people take your seat and the flight attendants won’t do anything about it.  On my last trip, March going to and from Bolivia, I got on board on three different connections to discover someone in my seat.  Each time I was told to find another seat.  Did the flight attendant do anything about it?  No. 

5.      Airplane food – You are crammed in your seat and can barely move and they give you a small plate of microwaved food.  If the guy in front of you leans all the way back, you really can’t move to eat.  Luckily you are only on the plane for around eight hours.

6.      Baggage pickup – When the flight is finally over and the 100 people in front of you finally get off the plane, you get to stand and wait for your bags to come off the plane.  I know you think this must take five or ten minutes, but it can take 30 or more.  When I went to Brazil last year, my baggage didn’t arrive (for two days). Because of things like that, the time I went to Barcelona, I took everything in a carry-on bag.  I wish I could do that more often.

7.      Customs – honestly I have not had that many problems going through customs.  But after being so exhausted, you just aren’t ready for someone going through your bags, underwear and all.

With everything I just said about hating to fly there is an overwhelming reason I love to fly. I love to get there. I know so many people who never go that far from home (please don’t get your feelings hurt), but I just don’t get it.  There is so much to see in the world and so little time to see it.

Traveling is about experiencing something new.  The hotel doesn’t matter because why would you want to stay inside when you are experiencing a new place?  Yes there is a McDonald’s and KFC everywhere in the world, but why not try some food you have never eaten before?  With everything I just said about hating to fly there is an overwhelming reason I love to fly. I love to get there. I know so many people who never go that far from home (please don’t get your feelings hurt), but I just don’t get it.  There is so much to see in the world and so little time to see it. And please, you can watch TV or swim in a pool in your hometown.

There is a poem that expresses my love of travel:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost – 1920

I have my own interpretation of this poem.  I believe in life you can go the same road as everyone else.  It is predictable.  You know every curve and corner to expect.  It can be found on google maps.  For many people this is what they want out of life.  They don’t want any surprises.  The road less traveled is unpredictable.  It might not always be paved.  It might have potholes or the bridge might be out.  Where it leads you never know.  For some people, experiencing the road less traveled is experiencing life.

I love to travel.  It can be tiring and frustrating, but I always experience something new, “and that has made all the difference.”

I will tell about my flight tomorrow, after I have internet access again.

This was my plane from March, waiting in the rain in Panama