Read the MESSAGE from naughty Sashenka X. Rezek, Ceammeemt

Ceammeemt have UNREAD MESSAGES from Mrs. Enrika Hambelton

NAUGHTY stories from Mrs. Janell Gatza for Ceammeemt

MEET your day with wicked Emeline Basom

Isadora Bornmann wants to remove space between Ceammeemt and HER

Mrs. Jasmina Acres needs Ceammeemt's HELP

Find NEW MESSAGE in Ceammeemt's INBOX from Michaeline Pech

No Blog

I guess it is finally time to admit that I will not be writing a blog about my trip to Australia and New Zealand. The end of the trip, when we could not go to Fiji because of the flooding and had to stay an additional 4 days in Aukland just cast a pall over the whole trip. I can't seem to work up the energy required to do a good job so I will just admit that I am not going to do this one and move on.

I do apologize to those who were hoping to read about my trip and see some pix. Hopefully my next trip will go better.

Argentine Toast

I will close this blog with the toast taught to us by Cristina Zucchi, our Argentine Program Manager.

"Arriba, [raise your glass] abajo, [lower your glass] al centro, [extend your glass to the front] adentro!!!! [drink!!!!]"

Tsunami

I checked on line yesterday and was relieved to learn that the tsunami had not impacted Easter Island. That little island sits out there in the middle of the Pacific, 1000s of miles from anywhere, and I was very concerned that our "family" there might have been devastated.

Voting

As I finish unpacking and review my "souvenirs" from my trip I occasionally think of something that I meant to blog and then didn't. One of those things was how voting is handled in the countries I visited. Every citizen who is registered (and, as I understand it, you are automatically registered if you have the equivalent of a driver's license, a Social Security card--which you would have to have for medical care--or nearly any official kind of interaction) and beyond the official voting age is REQUIRED to vote. That's right, REQUIRED. If you don't vote, you will be fined (now that might just be a way for us to whittle down the national debt in a hurry) unless you have a very good reason such as being in the hospital.

Firsts on My South America Trip

First time in South America

First time to cross the equator

First time to fly first class

First time to dip my toes in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans on the same trip

First time to blog on a trip (or anywhere else, for that matter)

Standing in Line

I had started reading an e-book, that is set in Rio, on the plane yesterday and it has reminded me of another of those quirky observations upon which this blog has focused...I always say, "If you want to know how old it is, or how tall it is, or how fast it goes, or how many people live there, read a book. The things I take away from my travels and keep as memories are the ways people go about their lives." So:

People in South America don't understand the concept of standing in line (or "on" line as my east coast friends would say). Any place you go where people might stand in a line here in America, there is one of those machines that spits out little tabs of paper with numbers in sequence--231, 232, 233...and you take a number and then sit or wander around and wait for your number to be called, or, in the more modern places, to be displayed on a digital sign nearby. This was true in the farmecia where I bought bottled water in Chile, in the deli where we got sandwich-fixings to eat by the pool in Buenos Aires, in the Post Office, waiting to buy stamps,...well,as I said, anyplace we Americans or Europeans would normally stand in line for our turn. This is very efficient, since there was usually a fair number of people waiting and most people would come in, take a number, and then go about their shopping or chat with their neighbors while the sign scrolled through the numbers preceding theirs. If they weren't ready to check out or be served when their number came up, they just took another number.

The only places this created a problem were places where the system wasn't used, like at the airports for going through passport control, boarding, and so on, and we non-South Americans insisted on standing in line and going in order. The poor natives followed our strange custom as well as they could, but, it was clearly a foreign concept with which they weren't at all comfortable and with which they often just could not comply, resulting in outrage on the part of the foreigners and bewilderment on the part of the South Americans.

Carnaval Stadium

Carnaval Stadium in Rio (4 pictures)