the 24 hour clock

5/17/2008 06:37 AM
For thirty nine years Eileen has poo poo’d my use of the 24 hour clock. I don’t know why as she’s from a railroad man’s family. I must admit that because of the slight doubt that I’ve had in using the 24 hour clock, that I haven’t used it 100% of the time – and of course Eileen refuses to even consider using it so when we talk about time we use the conventional system.
I’ve never been able to really justify why I preferred the 24 hour clock until this morning. Yesterday I received an “asap” call from the hotel we’ll be staying at in Bogota and by the time I received the message and tried to call them back, they were closed (it’s an apartment hotel in case that raised a question). This morning I called to see what the message was – hoping for the best - but wondering. The hotel just wanted to confirm that they were sending their driver to fetch us at 8:45 PM and not 8:45 AM. Now if I hadn’t faltered in my ways I would have told them originally that it was 20:45 that we were to be picked up and would have avoided all of that confusion. I was right all these years after all – it just took a long time to prove it!
And no – I’m not trying to fill the page with notes for whoever might be reading this – the 24 hour clock is the way to go!
Tilley pants aren’t the best travel clothes! Why? Because when you are going through the various screens and scans when trying to check through the American Customs lines – the plastic zippers, legging holders etc. etc. keep setting off the scanner alert button. I had special scrutiny this morning as I stood at the scanner with my shoes off, my belt buckle undone and hanging, and my arms extended like I was in an aerobics class; I had this stern faced custom fellow grasping each leg like he was throttling a chicken and running his hands up and down my legs. It wasn’t just once he did it – for some reason he had to be thorough. Finally he realized that he had gone far enough when he glanced at my eyes and saw that they had that blank look in them – sort of looking off in the distance but not seeing anything. Fortunately my fly didn’t set off the scanner!
I’m more or less settled now and have had my last Tim Horton’s coffee for ten or eleven days. It’ll be interesting to see how Colombian coffee stands up to Tim Horton.
45 minutes to go now until flight time so I’m going to get a bit of exercise and do a stroll about the airport corridors.

5/18/2008 00:22 AM
Well, I really lucked in with my seating. Both flights I had seat 14A which was an emergency exit seat and nobody sitting in front of me. I had my backpack set up as a footstool and I must say that I think I might have been more comfortable than passengers in first class.
Vancouver to Houston was uneventful and even though I had a window seat there wasn’t much to see. I did notice that when we wee over what I think was Texas that there was an awful lot of spare looking territory, but of course that was from six miles up! I did notice what seemed to be an enormous haze hanging over the area as we approached Houston and I presume that’s what it was. I also noticed a lot of large housing sites that had been prepared for housing with the roads and curbs in but no houses being built anywhere that I could see.
All worked out well upon arrival in Houston. My bag was checked right through to Bogota so when arriving at the airport I didn’t have to leave the secure area. I was think that if I had to I might have dodged into a bathroom and changed into my bathing suit and a tank top so as to avoid further body searches.
Gate 16 is where Jody, Jenn, Jim and I were to congregate – Jo and Jenn non stop from Calgary and Jim from Denver and me from Vancouver. Jo & Jenn arrive about noon, me about 13:30 and Jim about 13:50 (notice the time!). All four of us were on the same flight to Bogota with Diane meeting us in Bogota coming in from Toronto.
Another delightful flight from Houston to Bogota but not much to see out of the window. We arrived in Bogota on time and unfortunately in the dark. I’ll get a bit of a view when we leave next week at we leave at 08:00. The one thing that I did notice approaching the city was how few lights there were over such a large city – nothing like flying into a North American city at night.
Very long line to clear customs but it only took about ½ hour. I probably took the longest of any passenger to clear customs except for those who might have been detained for other reasons. I wasn’t wearing my hearing aids and my agent hardly opened his mouth when he spoke and even then I don’t think his English was very good. I could see our conversation leading to somewhere where I didn’t want to go but couldn’t do anything about it. Finally, in exasperation (but polite) he beckoned to the agent in the kiosk next to him. This fellow was much more fluent but by then I was a bit tongue tied myself and was probably talking very loud as I tend to do that when I communicate with others of a different language – somehow I think loudness helps. Anyway we did manage to make it through the questions – I think he asked me a few extras because of the unusual situation – and I was relieved to hear the clank of the official stamp as it hit the first page in my new passport. That was the other issue – he seemed to have some concern about the emptiness of my passport as he flipped through the pages twice looking for other point of entry stamps. It didn’t help matters to have a well dressed army type policeman standing only ten feet away.
Out to the baggage area and a short two or three minutes later my blue bag appeared on the conveyor belt. It was definitely the worse for wear as it was quite dirty and scuffed up – but that didn’t matter, it was there! I no sooner picked up my bag and turned around and there was Diane Tyler (a good friend who we met through Jo & Jim) smiling and waving her Canadian flag. She’d arrived about 45 minutes earlier. Jo, Jim and Jenn were a few minutes behind me so I wandered out to the ramp to see if I could see our hotel driver. Sure enough, there he was in the middle of the multitude of other expectant greeters all holding up signs with the names of those they were to meet. It’s amazing how many there were – in the hundreds for certain. But there amongst them all was a smiling young fellow holding up an 11”x8.5” sheet of paper sideways with my name typed on it! All continues to go well!
We waited for the Footes to come along and then all walked a hundred paces or so to our car. It was older and although it had a front and back seat plus a truck type box covered with canvas at the back we soon realized that there were five of us plus our greeter (who spoke some English) plus another women who turned out to be our driver. Jenn and the driver piled into the front as there were only two seats up there and Jim, Jo, Diane and I squeezed – and I really mean squeezed into the back seat. I was hoping that with all of us and our luggage that we were going to make it. The fellow who spoke a bit of English we presumed was left behind as there was no way another body would fit in.
Our problem now was to try to communicate with our driver who only spoke Spanish. As we are located in two different buildings about two blocks apart, we wanted the women dropped off first so Jim and I would know how to walk back to meet them in the morning. I couldn’t remember what first was in Spanish so I along with others were saying things like “senoritas uno” and “hombres Segundo” . I was combining French, English and a bit of Spanish all in my translations – I even said, “gute (for good)” once which brought raucous laughter from the group. It’s a good thing I don’t know bits and pieces of German too or we really would have had her confused. In the end we got our point across and lo and behold we pulled up in front of the apartments where the women were staying. I decided that Jim and I had better check out their digs before we left them on their own and I pried myself out of the back seat and went around the back to get their luggage – and guess what? I couldn’t believe it, our greeter was standing at the back of the vehicle and started to unload our baggage! I couldn’t believe that he ran behind us for ten minutes – he didn’t actually – he just piled in on top of the luggage. Another laugh.
The digs were wonderful, clean, everyone has their own room and bathroom. It’s really a three bedroom, four bathroom apartment. Kitchen, television and computer with internet included!
Jim and I were driven about two blocks away and our place isn’t a B & B like the women’s place is, but nevertheless it’s quite suitable and well appointed – without the internet though. Jim’s bag got put in the better room by our driver – he has a large painting of a nude on the wall while all I get is a lonely pine tree of some sort.
Jim and I walked back (we were assured that the neighborhood is quite safe) and fetched the women and then went for a beer and a bite to eat. The streets and sidewalks are very rough for the most part but some sidewalks have nice inlaid tiles on them. I found out twice that those tiles are very slippery when it’s wet (raining lightly). I didn’t go down but will be wearing my sandals tomorrow as they have good gripping soles on them.
We ended up in a small restaurant that looks a lot like a cafeteria out of the fifties because of the colourful arborite (sp?) tables and chairs with silver plated legs. Jim at first ordered chips and then changed his mind and ordered a meal of chicken. The rest of us ordered cerveza. The cerveza came and four of us had two each. Then Jim’s chicken meal came and it was a plate large enough to feed six! We all had a small taste. The interesting thing about this meal was that we all were given plastic gloves to wear (not latex – just loose fitting plastic gloves). I wondered what that was all about and was a bit hesitant to even try anything at first but we decided that the gloves were to avoid getting greasy fingers (no cutlery was brought). Three or four minutes later three full sized fish dinners came along! Our communication with the waitress wasn’t great and she didn’t get the message that Jim changed his mind about the chips and ordered the chicken instead. We also didn’t understand that the chips (French fries) come with a large piece of fish! Aye yi yi! We all pitched in and bits and pieces of this and that and made a respectable showing but there was food left on the table when we finished. 60,000. pesos later and we were gone. (Not as bad as it sounds – about $30.00 for all that food plus 8 bottles of beer).
We walked the women back to their digs and then Jim and I had a difference of opinion as to which way to go back to our place. Surprisingly we thought in opposite directions. As I was so certain as to the way we had come we decided to try my way first and walked about two blocks to where I thought our place was. The directions felt right to me but nothing looked familiar as we walked along. We came to the end of the street where the apartment was supposed to be and for certain nothing was familiar. The apartments along this street for the most part have a grated car park securing their vehicles with a keyed pedestrian door in the grate which leads to the apartment door. We tried the last three doors on the block with our keys (which were sticky to start with) to no avail. I still felt that we were on the right street but we decided to head back to the women’s apartment and then start out from there on Jim’s route. We didn’t get very far when we both realized that this was not the right way to go – nothing resembled familiarity this time. I suggested we go back as I was still certain that where we’d been was the right place. We walked back and this time jiggled the keys in a couple of locks and “hooray” we’re in!
And now – it’s bedtime after a fun day of traveling.