Two spring breakers

Karolina at the Flamingo in Las Vegas

Ben and Max / Ben and Mike

Cyndi and Rick (and me)

Bob and Leta

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50 Was the Goal!

Dang it. I planned to get to the magic number of 50 blogs before I stopped writing. Technically I have gone past that number with 3-4 having been deleted after being written. Officially, though, this is #49 and my last. In a moment of clarity on a 400 mile road trip Monday, I realized that I've noticed all I can notice about Key West. And, as far as personal stuff goes, anything more would be exploitative of the people I now share my Key West adventures with. On the one hand I was able to experience life down here with an ear for how it might sound to someone reading the blog. On the other hand is the heavier load. I've developed friendships and don't intend for those relationships to be blog material any more than they already have. I'll say that writing the blog was a lot of fun and gave me something to focus on while I was getting assimilated. I enjoyed the feedback immensely. This whole process has kept me in touch with folks in a way I would not have anticipated.  But, I've decided to be a participant only as opposed to a participant and a blogger. I am going to keep the blog open so I can record the untanned faces of my visitors and allow you folks coming down to get the very limited publicity that goes with that. Ciao.

Cross Culturally Speaking

I started my "Survival Spanish" class today and I'm killing them so far. The first thing, I was early to class and because of a traffic accident, everyone else was late. (Plenty of time to schmooze the teacher, if you know what I mean). Next thing, I did the alphabet great. No one else was close to how great I did the alphabet, matter of fact. After class, I went to the bookstore to get the required text. Whoa...I called the teacher of the class that the bookstore only had so many left... Far as this class goes, I'm made out of gold. A certain, "satisfatory" rating is sure to follow all this ass-kissing.

On the other end of the spectrum, I had a chance to use my new, limited Spanish vocabulary on someone I know. These were the rules: She would use English words and I would use Spanish words. My words were maestra (teacher), attractiva (captivating), and escote (cleavage). Her words were lazy (perezoso), sweaty (sudor) and elderly (mayor).  I had this exact same problem when I took an intro psych class in the 60's. I told the cute young coed she looked like a compassionate person  and, by the way, did I have a chance? She said I was crazy. I never liked the rules to begin with.