Sight-seeing!

In my opinion, tennis tournament sight-seeing falls easily into three distinct categories that range from best (#1) to awesome (#2) to not so great but still worthwhile (#3). 

#1. Sight-seeing enabled by locals

#2. Sight-seeing experienced with fellow player/friend

#3. Sight-seeing alone with nothing but a camera phone. 

#1.  Australia was one of my most memorable sight-seeing trips because of the local Aussie players and families who took the time to show me around.  I saw the opera house, kangaroos, Melbourne discos, sports/tennis clubs and so much more authentic cuisine and incredible beaches. 

#2.   I had the privilege of sharing Athens and the Acropolis, downtown Prague, and downtown Stuttgart with some great players/people.  Usually sight-seeing is the consolation for losing early in the tournament because you don’t have to stay off your feet or rest anymore for your matches—once you lose you’re free to walk around, get tired and enjoy the incredible places you get to visit-unfortunately. 

#3.  Last in the line of desirable sight-seeing episodes are the adventures without a local guide or a friend and I went alone with, yes, sadly, nothing but my camera phone.  I saw Rome from a tour bus in one day, raced through the Sistine Chapel (how much can you look up and muse with nobody to talk to, even though you’re not supposed to talk??), and had a great time taking pictures of myself in Venice and the Piazza San Marco. 

Option #3 is definitely the “quick and dirty” version of sight-seeing and usually involves a lot of crowd-dodging, fast walking and awkward posing moments where you are obviously taking a picture of yourself with your own phone as people walk by and try not to laugh.

A friend once asked me, “Isn’t it great that you get to see all of this great architecture when you travel to these places?”  I felt guilty because I never really had the time to learn about the places I visited and enjoy the sight-seeing and historical side of places.  My biggest concerns were: 1) where can I do laundry, 3) how expensive is food,  4)is there internet? and 5) where is the nearest grocery store?

After playing for four years, when I decided to coach for a year (Fall of 2008-Spring 2009) and stop playing on the tour I had great motivation to sight-see the right way.  No more “quick and dirty” sight-seeing adventures for me!  I was going to savor a trip for once even if it meant walking until I dropped and taking a million and one pictures. 

I decided on a month in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Jamaica, with two weeks spent in each place over the winter holiday.  Woohoo!  Here I go. . .

In Argentina the Spanish is different from that in Spain and Mexico.   I had been out of Spain/Mexico/Spanish speaking country for more than three months and was itching for some Spanish exposure because of how much it helped me with my mastery of the language.  There’s nothing like trying to listen and reciprocate for learning a language, even if you have all the grammatical and vocabulary bases covered.

Argentina has quietly captivated me for years also because it has my favorite dessert (Dulce de Leche), and my favorite bikini cut for swimsuits—not as full cut as in America, and not as bare as Brazil.

Jamaica is simply a place I had always wanted to visit.  I mean, who doesn’t want to visit Jamaica at some point in their life?? 

The culmination to my explanation of my month-long trek is a little story that I want to share.  This story won’t make you roll with laughter (or maybe it will. . .?) but it will give you a chuckle and, more importantly, I hope it will help you share my sentiment that the little things from different cultures and places are story-worthy material.

And here the story begins. . .

My sight-seeing experience in the Buenos Aires, Argentina leg of the journey brought me to a little movie theater tucked away in a busy shopping area between the San Telmo and more Manhattan style parts of Buenos Aires; the Galerias Pacifico on Avenida Florida (Florida Avenue). 

After walking around for hours exploring the city I figured seeing a movie might be a nice change of pace.  Hey, I had no tournament schedule to adhere to, I could do whatever I wanted!   I bought my ticket that was half the price of any movie ticket in the USA and sat down to watch the movie.

I won’t tell you the name of the movie I saw in case you haven’t seen it, but the basic premise is that the world is ending -- in English, with Spanish subtitles.  

The characters in the movie are in Yellowstone National Park, a Dad and his daughter just found an RV with a map in it pointing to the ship that is supposed to carry the survivors like Noah’s Ark through the world’s new water age after the rest of the world implodes and water covers the crust.

A mother, a step-dad and a son are in a plane waiting for the Dad and the daughter to bring the map-- but Yellowstone Park is on the brink of eruption (literally, starts exploding from the ground)!

The father obtains the RV with the map but they still have to make it back to the runway with the plane.

Balls of fire start are flying all over the place as the Dad rushes the RV to the runway where the other characters wait for him--however, the runway for their airplane is falling apart into a new abyss opening up into the earth and the step-dad does not think they can wait any longer to take off or they will all die regardless of whether they have the map.

More balls of fire start flying around and the step-dad makes the decision to start the plane.  But the mother looks back and screams that she sees the Dad in the RV so they stop while the asphalt in the runway continues to crumble around them. 

The daughter gets out of the RV and makes it to the stopped plane. . .but wait!  The Dad has to find the map in the RV-he finds it!  But as he finds it the runway implodes under him and half of the RV is now hanging over a newly formed chasm in the ground, with the Dad clutching onto the side. 

He manages to crawl to the top, but the people in the plane cannot see him—all they see is the RV that topples over into the chasm in the earth.. . .is that a hand?!  Yes!  It’s him!  He made it out of the RV before it fell, and he is still holding the map! 

It might be too late though, the plane has to take off because the ground is giving way.  The step-dad steps on the gas while the Dad starts running for the plane.  He sprints and jumps into the side of the plane like Bruce Willis in Die Hard!  Their tiny jet speeds down the runway as the ground gives way beneath them.  The wheels leave the ground as the earth turns to fire and dust around them and a cloud of smoke envelopes them. . . .

Blank screen. . .what?    

OK, no problem.  I can handle a little break.  I hear the same movie playing next door and wonder how long this intermission is going to last. . .like I said, the movie cost less than half of what it would have cost in the USA, so I can handle a little wait.

Maybe they do things differently in the movie theaters here (obviously), the five other people in the theater around me don’t seem bothered.  I wait, wait, go to the bathroom, come back, wait. . . .and wait.  The air conditioning is quite cool in here and I’m only wearing shorts and a tank top because it’s warm outside (Southern hemisphere in December is spring/summer).  30 minutes later. . .

I hear triumphant music next door as the movie ends and the credits start to roll. 

They start the movie up again in our theater. . .the little plane is enveloped in smoke while trying to gain altitude, everybody is scared and screaming and the pilot is yelling, ‘Aaaaah,’ with his hand on the stick trying to pull them into the sky. 

They might as well be on the ground singing, “Do, Re, Mi” because my momentum for the movie vanished just like the earth’s crust in the scenes.  Watching the rest of the movie was not an enthralling experience.

Apparently the movie theater only had one reel of the movie and they played it in halves between two different movie theaters at the same time.  Well—at the same time plus a thirty minute intermission!

It’s a good thing their popular ice cream place Freddo’s was close by with some Dulce de Leche ice cream- I had filled up on that earlier so the afternoon as a whole could never be called a waste.

Story