Showing posts with label Martinique. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martinique. Show all posts
Thursday, September 23, 2010
a web cam observing the road at the bus stop nearby
The bus stop here at my host's place on Martinique is only like 50 meters away. The final bus stop in the other direction is only a couple of minutes away. So it would be worth observing the busses going to the final stop, assuming they will actually return after like 10 minutes or so. The advantage: as long as they don't pass by, they also won't return in my direction, so it's not worth running to the bus stop. The busses are late quite often a litte late, and also sometimes they don't show up at all.
Manzana verde - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Manzana verde - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My host on Martinique offered me a glass of manzana with ice cubes from his bar, I liked it.
This is from the entry on en.wikipedia.org:
My host on Martinique offered me a glass of manzana with ice cubes from his bar, I liked it.
This is from the entry on en.wikipedia.org:
Manzana, also known as manzanita and manzana verde, is a liqueur generally made of wild apples. The name refers to the apples and not the alcoholic beverage which is usually clear in color. It has Spanish origins, more precisely of the Basque country. Its name manzana is apple in Spanish; verde is Spanish for "green".
Manzana contains from 15 to 20% of alcohol. It is sweet and tastes like green apples, similar in taste to pucker.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
it's raining, there is a power outage, but the UPS is still running
This satellite map makes me think, it will keep raining here for quite a little longer.
There is also a power outage, but my host has a UPS installed, but that will not go for hours, I guess it's covering like 30 minutes or. We shall see. I cannot imagine, I will be offline for many hours.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
from Fort-de-France back home to my client / host
Got on a bus.
Left the bus at the giant Carrefour / Dillon market.
Some shopping incl. getting the Toy Story sneakers for son#2, some beer and tea bag and lovely red jam and nut cream and instant coffee and last not least some guave fruits.
My client / host and me had agreed in the meantime to meet at the Gwa Gwa pub to eat out.
Got on a bus, asked the bus-driver to tell me, where the stop for the hospital resp. Gwa Gwa would be, and he told me to take the bus in the other direction (stuttering and not easy to understand).
Got to the bus stop in the opposite direction, called my client / host again, and he confirmed that I actually was in the bus in the right direction – so, girls, do you know, why men don't ask strangers for the direction? because they hate to get fooled. Even if he didn't fool me on purpose, I just shouldn't have asked.
So waiting for the next bus in the right direction, which could take up to an hour.
Had the foolish idea to show my thumb, like hitchhikers do it in Germany, but why shouldn't I? I had to wait anyway, so I can just as well do something useful at the cost of very little energy. Apparently hitchhikers do it differently over here, they more like wave their right hand to say "Helloooooo!".
A lady and her maybe 12y daughter stopped, not taking me for too serious, but not being too anxious as well. That was rather nice. After leaving their car I checked for my iPod, confused where I had put it at last, ran to their car, asked them to let me have a look at where I sat, didn't find it there, finally found it in my rucksack. Of course.
I got to the Gwa Gwa quite some time before my client / host, and enjoyed sitting there and watching people, apparently middle class.
Had some nice time there with my mate.
Had a gentle walk back later that evening, actually always slightly anxiously watching the traffic, not only because we were hard to spot during this nightly walk on that rural road.
Left the bus at the giant Carrefour / Dillon market.
Some shopping incl. getting the Toy Story sneakers for son#2, some beer and tea bag and lovely red jam and nut cream and instant coffee and last not least some guave fruits.
My client / host and me had agreed in the meantime to meet at the Gwa Gwa pub to eat out.
Got on a bus, asked the bus-driver to tell me, where the stop for the hospital resp. Gwa Gwa would be, and he told me to take the bus in the other direction (stuttering and not easy to understand).
Got to the bus stop in the opposite direction, called my client / host again, and he confirmed that I actually was in the bus in the right direction – so, girls, do you know, why men don't ask strangers for the direction? because they hate to get fooled. Even if he didn't fool me on purpose, I just shouldn't have asked.
So waiting for the next bus in the right direction, which could take up to an hour.
Had the foolish idea to show my thumb, like hitchhikers do it in Germany, but why shouldn't I? I had to wait anyway, so I can just as well do something useful at the cost of very little energy. Apparently hitchhikers do it differently over here, they more like wave their right hand to say "Helloooooo!".
A lady and her maybe 12y daughter stopped, not taking me for too serious, but not being too anxious as well. That was rather nice. After leaving their car I checked for my iPod, confused where I had put it at last, ran to their car, asked them to let me have a look at where I sat, didn't find it there, finally found it in my rucksack. Of course.
I got to the Gwa Gwa quite some time before my client / host, and enjoyed sitting there and watching people, apparently middle class.
Had some nice time there with my mate.
Had a gentle walk back later that evening, actually always slightly anxiously watching the traffic, not only because we were hard to spot during this nightly walk on that rural road.
my trip to Anse-Mitan wasn't really, what I expected it to be
during the 1st couple of minutes, I happened to read on the ferry, that there is an out-of-order ferry schedule being applied on Saturdays currently, so effectively this was the last ferry going from Fort-de-France to Anse Mitan,
and I was rather lucky, too, to read this at all, as this ferry was also the latest one to take me back to Fort-de-France.
so effectively this was “just” a pretty pleasant round-trip with a slightly long waiting period before the start and no time at all on the beach.
So first stop on my round-trip: Anse-à-l'Âne.
2nd stop: Anse-Mitan.
3rd stop: Pointe du Bout – and all of a sudden, I got the idea, the note did not explicitely say, the ferry would return to Fort-de-France, it just looked logical, but then on what basis could I use the term logical under these conditions?
Actually I was pretty silly to notice the note only after the ferry left the harbour of Fort-de-France, as I was sitting close to it for like 15 minutes, when the ferry sat in the harbour waiting ... to keep the schedule.
and I was rather lucky, too, to read this at all, as this ferry was also the latest one to take me back to Fort-de-France.
so effectively this was “just” a pretty pleasant round-trip with a slightly long waiting period before the start and no time at all on the beach.
Note à l'attention de notre clientèle: Nous informons notre aimable clientèle que jusqu'à ce que des solutions contre les actes d'insécurité soient trouvées les services du week-end s'arrêtereront le Samedi comme suit: ...
So first stop on my round-trip: Anse-à-l'Âne.
2nd stop: Anse-Mitan.
3rd stop: Pointe du Bout – and all of a sudden, I got the idea, the note did not explicitely say, the ferry would return to Fort-de-France, it just looked logical, but then on what basis could I use the term logical under these conditions?
Actually I was pretty silly to notice the note only after the ferry left the harbour of Fort-de-France, as I was sitting close to it for like 15 minutes, when the ferry sat in the harbour waiting ... to keep the schedule.
the ferry to Anse-Mitan didn't come
And it only comes and goes once per hour, but I have Marisa Monte in my ear, so it's not really that bad, and I also started dancing on my own by her music. Out here you think, it's not worth being ashame for this kind of exaltation.
yet another blog? yes, in French
I will mainly collect bookmarks in French, but I will also write a few things now and then.
heading for the beach at Anse-Mitan across the bay
I finally got the bus schedule as PDF on the phone, that will be useful.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
on my way to the beach
The bus got suddenly filled with pupils leaving school. There was a sudden heavy shower. One of the bigger boys wanted to know sth. regarding the pho
ne, I was a little nervous answering, but this seemed to help: je ne comprends pas tous les mots. Also the loud music was low again all off a sudden, and serious: my eyes didn't say "I know Krav Maga".
Berlin - Zurich - Paris Charles de Gaulle - Paris Orly - Fort-de-France, Martinique
I actual wrote all this on 2010-09-02, but as I couldn't blog it in sync with the real time line, as I was offline most of the time, I did not find the right time to do it. I just found this text in an open window of my OS X GNU Emacs, and as Apple forces me to reboot pretty soon, I rather post it now than very much later. A few things need to get added, a few linefeeds to get removed.
I never started a journey and even a long distance journey like this. There are 2 resp. 3 carriers involved in this journey, I could not successfully check in through the web or the smartphone to part of it,
I didn't really know in all detail, how and whether I would get all my luggage to my destination (and I didn't), the connection bus from CdG to Orly was as risky, as we call did foresee, and honest: I only got on board of the Air Caraïbes flight to my final destination with quite a lof of chutzpah and because the other travelers in Orly weren't as nasty as I would seriously expect them "my" country. And traveling as two (esp. between CdG and Orly) would have brought the two to the first serious crisis during this journey, that's ultimately sure.
During the very last phase prior to my departure my SO got pretty annoyed with me,
because my luggage had not got completed like 7 days in advance, which is what she does for her own long-distance flights between Germany and Brazil.
Because nowadays that her daughters usually don't travel on the same day as herself
and esp. sometimes later than herself,
she gets at least one of them to go to the airport with her and take that part of the luggage back home,
that gets rejected in the very beginning.
That was a very useful hint,
and I asked her to play that role for me,
and she agreed.
That implied she stayed the night in my place.
I wasn't anywhere near I wanted to be "officewise",
and I knew I would work until late,
and I actually and literally worked through the night.
I brought her to bed ("extended version"),
she reminded me of a certain "medical aid" (ROTFL!!), I shouldn't forget to take with me, as the local sizes might not fit,
and I was rather enchanted by her attitude.
I had never expected that at all from her.
So through the night I sorted the paper batches in two main categories and "the remainder":
* to be scanned and lefted at home
* not to be scanned and taken with me
* not to be scanned and left at home
And I truely got everything scanned, that I regarded necessary.
This was work I actually had not achieved within months before this journey,
so this just another and very important "sided-effect" of this journey.
Now all these scanned bills etc. sit on my hard disk (of course I backed them up, before I left, actually there are now 4 copies all together, not a big deal with my nice and beloved "Rakefile"),
waiting to get renamed and renumbered,
some of them also to get processed like "transformed" into a bank account transfer.
What an achievement!!
I do need more of these events, I think,
and actually SO's daughther#2 applied as company,
but that might turn out a little difficult,
because this is going to be a male nerd monastery.
Well, scanning and shutting down the computers took like 15 minutes too long,
which made it necessary to replace the airport bus by a costly airport taxi,
which was actually rather nice, as I have known the driver from my commuting years some time ago.
Airport staff at Berlin Tegel did enforce any big change in my "luggage system",
just that I had to split my rucksack content in two,
but that split had already gotten prepared and wasn't a difficult thing.
So my SO's company during the trip to the airport was simply pleasure (aport from here slightly negative excitedness),
but obviously such support is very good for your nerves.
You should get yourself such an SO as mine!!
So the trip with its stop in Zurich over to Paris Charles de Gaulles (CdG) wasn't that exciting,
apart from the question, how many minutes we would be late,
as every single minutes late would matter during the trip from CdG to Orly.
I expected far more difficulties regarding for the "section" between "leaving the plane from Zurich" and "getting on board of the bus to Orly".
Getting the luggage was easy,
I knew which exit to take (#34) to best reach the bus,
just waiting for the luggage seemed endless,
and that took 20 minutes counting from the planned arrival.
That meant just 70 minutes left until dropping the luggage ...
I left the bus too early, ie. at Orly-East instead of Orly-South,
I took the train, didn't get a ticket for that, because I didn't want to waste time, I was pretty nervous, though not completely desperate.
I searched for the check-in counter,
I got told it might be too late for accepting the luggage,
I should just regard it as hand luggage, and the guy gave me a lable.
All my hand luggage got now checked as cabin luggage,
all my fluid things as sun milk, shower gel, …, all that got taken away,
I made a scene, avoided that my manicure set got taken away, too.
I ran to the departure gate,
disobeying certain rules, but finding mercy though,
I got to the departure gate on the minute of the planned departure.
I never started a journey and even a long distance journey like this. There are 2 resp. 3 carriers involved in this journey, I could not successfully check in through the web or the smartphone to part of it,
I didn't really know in all detail, how and whether I would get all my luggage to my destination (and I didn't), the connection bus from CdG to Orly was as risky, as we call did foresee, and honest: I only got on board of the Air Caraïbes flight to my final destination with quite a lof of chutzpah and because the other travelers in Orly weren't as nasty as I would seriously expect them "my" country. And traveling as two (esp. between CdG and Orly) would have brought the two to the first serious crisis during this journey, that's ultimately sure.
During the very last phase prior to my departure my SO got pretty annoyed with me,
because my luggage had not got completed like 7 days in advance, which is what she does for her own long-distance flights between Germany and Brazil.
Because nowadays that her daughters usually don't travel on the same day as herself
and esp. sometimes later than herself,
she gets at least one of them to go to the airport with her and take that part of the luggage back home,
that gets rejected in the very beginning.
That was a very useful hint,
and I asked her to play that role for me,
and she agreed.
That implied she stayed the night in my place.
I wasn't anywhere near I wanted to be "officewise",
and I knew I would work until late,
and I actually and literally worked through the night.
I brought her to bed ("extended version"),
she reminded me of a certain "medical aid" (ROTFL!!), I shouldn't forget to take with me, as the local sizes might not fit,
and I was rather enchanted by her attitude.
I had never expected that at all from her.
So through the night I sorted the paper batches in two main categories and "the remainder":
* to be scanned and lefted at home
* not to be scanned and taken with me
* not to be scanned and left at home
And I truely got everything scanned, that I regarded necessary.
This was work I actually had not achieved within months before this journey,
so this just another and very important "sided-effect" of this journey.
Now all these scanned bills etc. sit on my hard disk (of course I backed them up, before I left, actually there are now 4 copies all together, not a big deal with my nice and beloved "Rakefile"),
waiting to get renamed and renumbered,
some of them also to get processed like "transformed" into a bank account transfer.
What an achievement!!
I do need more of these events, I think,
and actually SO's daughther#2 applied as company,
but that might turn out a little difficult,
because this is going to be a male nerd monastery.
Well, scanning and shutting down the computers took like 15 minutes too long,
which made it necessary to replace the airport bus by a costly airport taxi,
which was actually rather nice, as I have known the driver from my commuting years some time ago.
Airport staff at Berlin Tegel did enforce any big change in my "luggage system",
just that I had to split my rucksack content in two,
but that split had already gotten prepared and wasn't a difficult thing.
So my SO's company during the trip to the airport was simply pleasure (aport from here slightly negative excitedness),
but obviously such support is very good for your nerves.
You should get yourself such an SO as mine!!
So the trip with its stop in Zurich over to Paris Charles de Gaulles (CdG) wasn't that exciting,
apart from the question, how many minutes we would be late,
as every single minutes late would matter during the trip from CdG to Orly.
I expected far more difficulties regarding for the "section" between "leaving the plane from Zurich" and "getting on board of the bus to Orly".
Getting the luggage was easy,
I knew which exit to take (#34) to best reach the bus,
just waiting for the luggage seemed endless,
and that took 20 minutes counting from the planned arrival.
That meant just 70 minutes left until dropping the luggage ...
I left the bus too early, ie. at Orly-East instead of Orly-South,
I took the train, didn't get a ticket for that, because I didn't want to waste time, I was pretty nervous, though not completely desperate.
I searched for the check-in counter,
I got told it might be too late for accepting the luggage,
I should just regard it as hand luggage, and the guy gave me a lable.
All my hand luggage got now checked as cabin luggage,
all my fluid things as sun milk, shower gel, …, all that got taken away,
I made a scene, avoided that my manicure set got taken away, too.
I ran to the departure gate,
disobeying certain rules, but finding mercy though,
I got to the departure gate on the minute of the planned departure.
Chupacabra, the Latin-American "goat (blood) sucker" - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chupacabra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I am just hoping, it's not going to show up here on Martinique, as I am preparing myself to sleep outside one of the coming nights, and the Chupacabra might disturb my sweet dreams then.
I am just hoping, it's not going to show up here on Martinique, as I am preparing myself to sleep outside one of the coming nights, and the Chupacabra might disturb my sweet dreams then.
Lime (fruit) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lime (fruit) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I really love the home-grown lime from Brazil and here on Martinique.
(BTW: the hummingbird just visits our garden's bushes and tree.)
Other sources say, there is no vitamin C in lime – I am a little confused now.
I really love the home-grown lime from Brazil and here on Martinique.
(BTW: the hummingbird just visits our garden's bushes and tree.)
Other sources say, there is no vitamin C in lime – I am a little confused now.
the local cane sugar together with lime from the garden tastes fine in …
… in the local rum or in a cup of Darjeeling tea.
office work in the morning, Caribbean beach in the afternoon
Sitting on the sofa in the fresh air, enjoying the Caribbean morning, waiting for the hummingbirds to return, I can smell, that the neighbour started cooking again. She seems to like garlic a lot, I also noticed that yesterday.
shopping in the darkness of the early Caribbean evening
I really like the local Carrefour / Dillon. Their own articles are apparently targeted towards the Francophone + Dutch market, so the articles are labeled in the resp. languages. I only saw this a lot, when I lived and worked in Antwerp, but I did not expect to see this again out here in the Caribbean.
After a little searching I finally even found something similar to Philadelphia / green. I am not quite sure, whether this is adequate food for the Caribbean, but apparently there is not just me here, who seems to like it. I also got me some Camembert, that together with some nice baguette will help me survive.
For breakfast I got now müsli, corn flakes, and milk. And bananas, bananas, bananas, …
Oooo, the milk is from France, not a local product. What a pity!
After a little searching I finally even found something similar to Philadelphia / green. I am not quite sure, whether this is adequate food for the Caribbean, but apparently there is not just me here, who seems to like it. I also got me some Camembert, that together with some nice baguette will help me survive.
For breakfast I got now müsli, corn flakes, and milk. And bananas, bananas, bananas, …
Oooo, the milk is from France, not a local product. What a pity!
BTW: If you ever want to see a garbage bin, just as clean as you breakfast table: come and see it here!
I am not sure, whether I did that already, but I don't want to forget to mention this:
I am not sure, whether I did that already, but I don't want to forget to mention this:
I love the Caribbean.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
my 1st hummingbirds on Martinique
Sitting on the sofa on the balcony / terrace at my customer's place, thinking about sad IT issues, my eyes got aware of a very nice and lovely "irregularity" in the garden: 2 black+blue hummingbirds. I hope, they will return soon.
Monday, September 13, 2010
a very nice pier, but unluckily connected to a construction area and not open to the public
The location given here is not precisely, where I was standing and what I was referring to. I was standing right by the waterside, which was rather close. And the pier went between 50 and 100 meters into the ocean. I would have loved to sit their with my MacBook hooked to the Internet and writing about my journey and the lovely place.
just completed some part of my overseas communication with Europe
I video-skyped with son#1 and his mother, and for the first time the timezone shift was the other way round: I was in broad daylight, and they at Berlin were already in the "darkness of the night". Quite funny.
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