lower case g
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
the decision i never thought i'd makei will be at this place next year
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
sometimes you realize...... that your ability to communicate in another language has some serious limitations...
and i realized this about 2 weeks ago at my first (and perhaps only) attempt to get a 2 dollar hair-cut in a foreign country. the adventure of my honduran haircut started off very well. i went in and effectively communicated that i needed a haircut. the nice women in the store lead me to a chair and parted my hair squarely down the middle. then she asked me if i wanted layers or a strait cut... again, we effectively communicated that i would like layers. although she did insist on giving me three layers. now i am not a hair officianado so i really have absolutely no idea what this meant... so i just said "si" and we continued on with the cutting of the hair. next she asked how much i would like off... holding her fingers about a half an inch apart i showed her mine with about 2 inches apart... and the cutting began.
it started out ok, but slowly oh so slowly (as the entire town passed the window to stop and marvel at the white girl getting her hair cut... not a normal thing i'm assuming) i realized that my honduran haircut which had begun so well was starting to turn into gayle's honduran mullet. not wanting to offend, and also not knowing the honduran word for mullet... so as to use in a sentence like... "what are you doing!? you are giving me a mullet! stop!!!" i let the haircut proceed... with one interruption so that i could let my haircutter know that not being able to pull my hair back was NOT ok!
finally it finished... my two dollar honduran mullet was complete... and much of my hair was on the ground.
but two weeks out... my hair is slowly growing back, as i knew it would... i think i am less saddened by how it looks and more missing the functionability of having my hair so long i can pull it back in many different ways... but oh well.. it is just hair and it was kind of fun.
oh and much thanks must go out to amanda who saved my hair from remaining in a mullet like state. she did a very nice job of fixing some of the major problems (like a back layer of hair that went to my mid back while the front layer was about ear length.
the back of my newly short hair...
the place at which it the whole event took place
Monday, April 14, 2008
travel logs...coming soon will be many blogs about my wonderful trip to visit amanda (including the story of my rather unfortunate honduran mullet experience) but first... my adventure to get home...
tuesday:
last week tuesday my adventure began with a 2 hour bus ride + 15 min. taxi ride from siguatepeque, hn to san pedro sula, hn (these rides were filled with sadness as it meant leaving amanda and honduras behind :( but on a possitive note, the bus ride was filled with spectacular views of a beautiful countryside) (guessing... 90 miles 144 km of travel)
still on tuesday... i have the wonderful privilege of exploring the san pedro sula airport for 8 hours. wherein i meet a couple from southern ontario; a family from santa fe, new mexico; a singer song-writer from nashville, tennessee who gave me a free cd; a guy from new york, new york who used to date a dutch girl who looked just like me; and a guy from florida whose time in honduras was less than fantastic. i also found out that the san pedro airport has free wi-fi (something a few american and canadian airports could learn from!), rather confusing boarding procedures, and that needing to go to the bathroom allows you to cut in line when everyone else is waiting to get their bags checked for a second time (i discovered this accidentally... and felt bad about cutting... but i did really have to pee!)wednesday:
leave san pedro at 2:00 am, fly to ft. lauderdale (895 miles 1440 km)
land in ft. lauderdale at 5:45 and go through customs after 30 mins of sleep (yikes!)
meet my parents who were in ft. lauderdale for the week (very strange! but also very wonderful!)
take a nap!
go out to lunch with my parents and grandparents (also in florida for the week)
go back to the airport at 6 pm, have coffee (which is much needed at this point)
leave ft. lauderdale at 8:10 pm, fly to chicago o'hare (1,374 mi, 2,211 km)
land in chicago at 10:30 and meet erin bridgewater! (smiles!!!)
go to erin's home (12 mi, 19 km)
SLEEP!!!!
thursday:
my time with erin was sadly short because she had to work at 8:30 in the morning (which also meant that my sleep was sadly short)
so... i took the metra (chicago's commuter trains) to downtown (13 mi, 23 km)
transfered trains and took another train out of the city to wheaton (26 mi, 42 km)
had lunch with derek and wondered around wheaton looking for dr. haas and dr. bowald who were there for a conference... but sadly our searching was in vain and we did not find them... although we did find some very discounted books which i had to resist buying!
derek dropped me off at wheaton's metra station where a garbled message told me that police activity on the tracks meant all the trains would be delayed... at this point i was a bit nervous that i would not get back into the city in time to catch my train home... thankfully a train that was running very behind schedule (it was supposed to be there at 12:57) showed up at 2:30 and so i took it back into the city (26 mi, 42 km)
took a taxi because it was raining so hard (3 blocks) from the ogilvie transportation center to union station
5:20 pm boarded an amtrak train to holland, mi (150 mi, 242 km)
10:30 pm arrive at HOME!!! and SLEEP!!!
friday:
wake up at 9 am and get ready to leave home again.
drive to hamilton, on... completing my three days, three countries tour (338 mi, 544 km)
go to the redeemer concert choir's 25 years 25 anthems concert (:D:D)
saturday:
go to aylmer, on for melissa kuiper's birthday party! (77 mi, 124 km)
go 5-pin bowling! *which has nothing to do with traveling but it was my first time 5 pin bowling... it is definitely not my calling
drive back to hamilton (77 mi, 124 km)
sunday:
drive from hamilton, on back to zeeland, mi (338 mi, 544 km)
arrive home at 8:30
go to bed at 9:30.... sleep for 13 hours
thus ends my week of travel and adventures, i have traveled by bus, plane, train, and car as well as using my feet for a large portion of the week...
i have traveled 3,416 miles, 5,499 km and enjoyed every minute of it... particularly the parts where i got to see old friends :) now i am happily in my home in zeeland, where i plane to stay all day long!
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