Thursday, May 17, 2007

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things About My Honduras Trip
1. The camera on my phone decided to stop working while I was in the Atlanta airport last Monday morning.
2. This wouldn't have been such a bad thing, but I saw the poster child for the phrase, "It takes all types to make the world go 'round." Honestly, this man had on orange sandals; orange, yellow, and pink plaid pants; a pink, blue and purple striped shirt; an orange undershirt; glasses that had hot pink frames, one handle blue and one handle purple; and to top it all off a straw hat complete with purple flowers. So why of all days would my camera decide not to work on the day I saw that man?
3. After having a little laugh (oh, admit it, you would've laughed too!) I got on a flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. I got a row of three seats to myself. So I stretched out while reading then while watching the in-flight movie, which honestly I can't remember the name of but which was really strange and I probably would never buy it for myself (If I remembered the name of it that is!)
4. After 3 1/2 hours we landed in Honduras. Talk about HOT. Especially considering it had been 40 degrees when I left Greensboro that morning. It was over 100 degrees there. And HUMID.
5. The night before we arrived there had been an unexpected drenching rain in San Pedro Sula, so we had to make our way through flooded streets. All I could think of were all those severe weather training courses I have to take here at my work and how they warn you over and over to never drive through standing water. Well, that rule was out the window!!
6. We went to the plant and worked from there, but I'm sure you don't want to hear those boring extremely exciting details. After work we checked into The Hilton Princess San Pedro Sula. Pretty nice place!!
7. That night we went to a restraunt called Pat's. It was a pretty great steakhouse, however, I started feeling a bit queasy that night (and still do) I'm blaming their salad. Why, oh why did I eat the salad? Oh well!
8. Tuesday was more work and little play. Though we did go to a great restraunt with outdoor seating that night called Don Udo's. They played 70's, 80's, and 90's American music. The guy who drove us around all week said that Hondurans LOVE American music. And why shouldn't they?
9. Wednesday was a LONG day. We worked until about 6:30 Honduras time. That was 8:30 my time. I was dead on my feet.
10. We went straight to a restraunt called the Copantl from the plant. This was an outdoor restraunt on top of a seven story hotel. The view was amazing, and I got so caught up in it that I almost forgot how tired I was. Plus I had me a virgin Pina Colada. (Yes virgin, no rum for me!) It was yummy!
11. Thursday we went to make sure that the guys at the finishing location had the program down. They did, and I was told that I communicated well in Spanish. Who'da thunk?
12. We went back to the Copantl that night because we were all too tired to think about a new place to go, and it was the best place we'd gone. We watched several brush fires breakout on the hillsides surrounding San Pedro Sula. According to driver guy there are constantly fires there because it is so dry (unless of course they have some freakish unexpected rainstorm that you know floods the streets!)
13. Friday we flew back home, or at least we tried to. The flight from Atlanta to San Pedro Sula was delayed, and we didn't take off until an hour and a half late. Then we were running low on fuel, so the pilot decided to stop in Montgomery, Alabama rather than try to make it back to Atlanta. This would have been fine except for the fact that while in Montgomery we were informed that there were MAJOR storms in Atlanta and we couldn't land there, so we had to wait out the storm in Montgomery. Again this would've been fine, but Montgomery doesn't have customs, so we couldn't leave the plane. Four hours I sat on this plane. At least I had three seats to myself again (where I had enjoyed the movie "The Road to Tarabithia" on the flight home.) Two hours into our wait we were informed that the storms were passing, but that our pilot's time had run out so we had to wait while another pilot was flown in. To make a long story short, we landed in Atlanta after midnight. The one good thing about that was that customs lines were pretty much non-existent! Then they shipped us to a hotel where we were given reduced rates. Bless their hearts! They gave me a reduced rate to a room that when I walked in had one unmade bed, towels and condom wrappers on the bathroom floor, and the stench of cigarette smoke. Unfortunately I had been given THE LAST room at the lovely Ramada Inn South Atlanta. So I piled up my clothes on the unmade bed and slept on top of them because I'm telling you, I wasn't trying to touch anything in that place!!
So to sum it all up, Honduras was great. Atlanta not so much!

5 comments:

Darla said...

Sounds like an exciting trip! The hotel in Atlanta, though... that's a little too exciting. Ugh.

GiBee said...

Okay, kiddo -- I tagged you for a Meme -- come on over and read about it... http://kissesofsunshine.blogspot.com/2007/05/seven-degrees-of-randomness.html

Carmen said...

consider the Atlanta hotel room an adventure and mark it up to laughs later. :)

Shalee said...

I'm pretty sure I would be writing a letter to the Ramada Inn Corp. right now...

But yay to everything else!

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