Sunday, May 28, 2006

Estoy aquí, queriéndote, ahogándome... que no puedo comprender

Tengo regresarar de mi viaje a San Salvador. (i.e. I have returned from my trip to San Salvador—atleast assuming I’ve got the Spanish correct.)

Highlights from my 4-day (Thursday p.m. through Sunday a.m.) return to Central America were:

• Spending 40 minutes in the TACA ticket counter line to check my 1-bag in, and another 20 minutes to submit said-checked bag for screening to the TSA. Why so long, you may wonder? Well, with one underweight bag, I was the exception to everyone else in line, who had atleast 1 more bag than you’re allowed (even when travel with family members--most were), and having overweight bags. This did not include the carry-on bags, which had to have a special tag on it in order to get on the plane (and, yes, all those were large suitcases). I also kinda felt like I was already beginning to enter Central America there in the Miami Airport (there are direct flights from MIA to San Salvador, not so from FLL), as the primary language there in the ticket line was Spanish (English was segundo)--not terribly surprising, given where TACA flies and where it is based.

• New Rule (a la Bill Maher): If you personally cannot lift your huge, designed-to-fit-perfectly-into-an-overhead-bin (and stuffed to capacity bag) suitcase into the overhead bin, then you should check the damn thing! (to continue a rant from last week)

• El Salvador is currently on Mountain time (i.e. 2 hours behind Florida). Going there I thought they were 1 hour behind, upon arrival I found out from my contact there that they are 2, and then proceeded to set my alarm clock 3 hours behind the East Coast. This makes it really hard for your alarm to wake you up at 4:45 a.m. for a ride to morning practice, because the clock thinks it’s 3:45 a.m. (problem fixed).

• The San Salvador airport is not actually in the city, but rather about a 30 minute drive away.

• My hotel, the small but nice Posada del Angel, had satellite t.v. so I got to watch the Miami network stations (still missed out on the Indonesian quake, though)

• A dubbed-version of The Sound of Music, where the songs were still in English.

• A visit to Pollo Campero (regretfully, Katie, I didn’t have any pupusas, tho; and Erin, I did not hit any of the American restaurants while there, despite going by KFCs, Pizza Huts, Burger Kings, and a Bennigan’s).


And upon my return, I downloaded my first 3 songs from iTunes: Lento, Hips Don’t Lie and Minority.


And now that I’m back, tomorrow I beginning prep’ing for Jamaica (yes, I realize it’s Memorial Day, and even worse, I can’t go into work because they’re repaving the parking lot or something. But I’ve got crap that must be done before my Wednesday departure to Kingston-town).


estoy aquí, queriéndote
ahogándome
entre fotos y cuadernos
entre cosas y recuerdos
que no puedo comprender

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad San Salvadorian cuisine worked better for you than Chinese! Make sure you leave Jamaica in one piece for when I get there...

jarret said...

repaying the parking lot or something. How much do you owe it?

Matt said...

Exactly! I had to pay ;) :P