It takes a lot to escape….er….leave Argentina.
Let me explain….
Our 3am flight by Copa airlines was canceled at 4:30am due to Chile. Now, Chile itself didn’t stop our flight. It was a Chilean volcano whose ash hiccup was felt throughout the Southern Cone and caused many a flight to stay, ours included. We Butlers took our 18 pieces of luggage back to where we lived. I jumped the fence, found the key and we usurped our old home for 24 more hours. We’d been up since 8am on Monday and fell back into bed at 6am on Tuesday.
The next night our flight was rescheduled and our 1am flight left at 2am. It left late not due to a volcano with indigestion, it left late as Copa Airlines was hiccupping administratively. It so underperformed that there were still people in the lines at 1am, the same people who had waited 24 hours to escape…er….leave Argentina. One man was so irate that he was escorted away by airport security. However, all of us made our flight and bade farewell to the Big Tango.
I slept little (i.e. none) from Buenos Aires to Panama since one of my daughters declared me a living pillow. Now, at this point I’d slept about 2 hours in the last 40, and the whole week previous was spent completing a lot of paperwork, participating in many goodbye events, going to a two day conference, and sleeping little. I needed a lot of horizontal but was stuck in the vertical position. In Panama this lack of sleep caught up with me. I spent most of our Panamanian layover so sick from being tired that I inclined before the porcelain non-god. I can’t say I lost my milk and cookies….I hadn’t eaten any. I can say that greasy eggs I ate en route to Panama and the greasier donut that I’d procured at the airport stayed in Panama. My family waited while others boarded and I remained in a neo-worshipful position before two ceramic cavities. I say two as I made rotations to find unoccupied ones. I made it back to the gate, began boarding, then gave Christine my baggage (which, she might say, I’ve been doing for years) and rushed back to make another offering to any non-god that would have me. No extra drama here; one did.
The flight to New Jersey was better. We sat near the back so I was closer to the inclination room, and visited it with ease. Eventually I slept and awoke to find that we weren’t too far from putting out seats in an upright position to land. In Newark and enjoyed a customs officer whose humor was just enough that it brought us chortles and just not-enough to allow him to quit his day job….
In the hot JOISEY airport we traversed over to Dunkin Donuts and I, tired and empty from all my giving, was halfway through the order before I realized I was speaking in Spanish. Now, since I only see Indians or Asians (wo)manning all Dunkin Donut franchises I realized that English should be the default language. I went to pay, and took out my loose change and then….wait….allow me to digress. In Panama I bought aforementioned donut, the one that didn’t make it out of Panama. Panama uses US currency as their currency, and US change is intermingled with Panamanian change, both having equal value. There, I’ve digressed and given you essential information.
…and took out my loose change and then saw that I was holding an unusual dime. I hadn’t been in the US for a year. I was culturally backwatered and so had so few neurons firing that I thought that the US had come out with a new dime, one with Vasco Nunez de Balboa on it. I fact, I yelled to Christine across the area that the US had come out with a new dime. The Indian lady who (wo)manned the Dunkin Donuts establishment, remembered my Spanish and assumed I was a foreigner. She took my hand and pointed to each piece of change and explained the difference between the quarter, the dime and the nickel. She didn’t pay attention to the penny. I mean, who does? Well, turns out that the dime I gave her was a Panamanian dime. Balboa has yet to receive the monetary due owed him in these united 50 states and one must land on the shores of Panama to find a country that does. I smiled and left the dime with the lady to figure it out later; after an empty stomach that had hurled its way into hunger I was eager to sip on my Vanilla Bean Coolata and decided that even Vasco Nunez de Balboa wasn’t going to stop me.
We are now here in the US for three weeks before we head to Quito, Ecuador. I’ll save any more Panamanian Balboa dimes I find….they might come in useful.
Let me explain….
Our 3am flight by Copa airlines was canceled at 4:30am due to Chile. Now, Chile itself didn’t stop our flight. It was a Chilean volcano whose ash hiccup was felt throughout the Southern Cone and caused many a flight to stay, ours included. We Butlers took our 18 pieces of luggage back to where we lived. I jumped the fence, found the key and we usurped our old home for 24 more hours. We’d been up since 8am on Monday and fell back into bed at 6am on Tuesday.
The next night our flight was rescheduled and our 1am flight left at 2am. It left late not due to a volcano with indigestion, it left late as Copa Airlines was hiccupping administratively. It so underperformed that there were still people in the lines at 1am, the same people who had waited 24 hours to escape…er….leave Argentina. One man was so irate that he was escorted away by airport security. However, all of us made our flight and bade farewell to the Big Tango.
I slept little (i.e. none) from Buenos Aires to Panama since one of my daughters declared me a living pillow. Now, at this point I’d slept about 2 hours in the last 40, and the whole week previous was spent completing a lot of paperwork, participating in many goodbye events, going to a two day conference, and sleeping little. I needed a lot of horizontal but was stuck in the vertical position. In Panama this lack of sleep caught up with me. I spent most of our Panamanian layover so sick from being tired that I inclined before the porcelain non-god. I can’t say I lost my milk and cookies….I hadn’t eaten any. I can say that greasy eggs I ate en route to Panama and the greasier donut that I’d procured at the airport stayed in Panama. My family waited while others boarded and I remained in a neo-worshipful position before two ceramic cavities. I say two as I made rotations to find unoccupied ones. I made it back to the gate, began boarding, then gave Christine my baggage (which, she might say, I’ve been doing for years) and rushed back to make another offering to any non-god that would have me. No extra drama here; one did.
The flight to New Jersey was better. We sat near the back so I was closer to the inclination room, and visited it with ease. Eventually I slept and awoke to find that we weren’t too far from putting out seats in an upright position to land. In Newark and enjoyed a customs officer whose humor was just enough that it brought us chortles and just not-enough to allow him to quit his day job….
In the hot JOISEY airport we traversed over to Dunkin Donuts and I, tired and empty from all my giving, was halfway through the order before I realized I was speaking in Spanish. Now, since I only see Indians or Asians (wo)manning all Dunkin Donut franchises I realized that English should be the default language. I went to pay, and took out my loose change and then….wait….allow me to digress. In Panama I bought aforementioned donut, the one that didn’t make it out of Panama. Panama uses US currency as their currency, and US change is intermingled with Panamanian change, both having equal value. There, I’ve digressed and given you essential information.
…and took out my loose change and then saw that I was holding an unusual dime. I hadn’t been in the US for a year. I was culturally backwatered and so had so few neurons firing that I thought that the US had come out with a new dime, one with Vasco Nunez de Balboa on it. I fact, I yelled to Christine across the area that the US had come out with a new dime. The Indian lady who (wo)manned the Dunkin Donuts establishment, remembered my Spanish and assumed I was a foreigner. She took my hand and pointed to each piece of change and explained the difference between the quarter, the dime and the nickel. She didn’t pay attention to the penny. I mean, who does? Well, turns out that the dime I gave her was a Panamanian dime. Balboa has yet to receive the monetary due owed him in these united 50 states and one must land on the shores of Panama to find a country that does. I smiled and left the dime with the lady to figure it out later; after an empty stomach that had hurled its way into hunger I was eager to sip on my Vanilla Bean Coolata and decided that even Vasco Nunez de Balboa wasn’t going to stop me.
We are now here in the US for three weeks before we head to Quito, Ecuador. I’ll save any more Panamanian Balboa dimes I find….they might come in useful.
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