Concerts, Airports, And Abandonment... Monday, September 14, 2009 |
¡Hola amigos!
Getting out of the country for a few months seemed like more than enough reason to resurrect my poor neglected blog here, so I hope there are still one or two of you out there who get this in a feed or stumble by this page occasionally or click their desktop bookmark daily in fond remembrance... or perhaps have come across my blog by a less pathetic means; that´s fine too!
Here are a few snippets of my adventures thus far.
My American-side travels included as a highlight the Regina Spektor concert at the State Theatre in Minneapolis - a beautiful venue for a brilliant songwriter with the voice of an an angel. For those who haven´t yet heard her new single, ¨Laughing With,¨ remedy that immediately. I will say, however, that her live rendition far surpassed the record.
Fast forward to my eight-hour layover in Chicago... bored, I approached a harmless-looking fellow who seemed also to be in no rush to catch his flight, and asked if he would mind some company and conversation. Turns out my airport intuition is strong, as the guy, Alex, was a French-Canadian from Quebec whose Spanish was better than his English, en route to Mexico with a similarly lengthy layover, departing only an hour before me. Oh, did I mention a French Canadian actor, who had learned spanish the summer previously for a role in a play translated from its original French, and who was heading to Mexico to reprise his role in the play for a theatre festival? Yeah, that´s right kids, it pays to talk to strangers. The highlight of my night was reading through his script with him in Spanish, although I´m still waiting until the exciting conclusion arrives in my inbox, as his flight boarded somewhere in the middle of act 1. But we passed a good five hours, I believe, in our spanish-english conversation (no, I didn´t shame myself by digging out my high school French), and while waiting for my flight after Alex´s departure, I felt very glad that I had decided to introduce myself to that random guy in the airport food court.
About 5 hours later, I arrived in the airport in Managua, Nicaragua, where I was to be met by my dear friends Karel and Myra. But alas, not a familiar face was to be seen...
...
(to be continued....
ahh, the suspense.)