The GCW Tour, Buenos Aires & Antarctica: Not My Tribe

Let me start by saying that everyone on this cruise is very, very nice. Everyone is friendly. Everyone is courteous. All good people.

But it's also become pretty clear that this is not my tribe.

As college professors everywhere can tell you, if you repeatedly send the same people into the same room, they will tend to sit in the same chairs they first selected even if they have the option to choose new ones. Thus, while our assigned dinner seats have only really applied to two of the fifteen? (twenty?) meals we've had, by and large you see the same faces at your table each time you sit down to eat.

The advantage of this is that it gives you the chance to know people a little bit better. The disadvantage, for me anyway, is it didn't take long to realize most of them live their lives very differently than I do.

A few examples to illustrate:

Today at lunch we were talking about the route we were taking and whether or not we would go far enough south to move beyond the Antarctic Circle. We won't, but this lead to conversation about who had been above the Arctic Circle. One gentlemen at the table related that he'd made it above the circle when he flew his plane to the Arctic Circle Spa. (My tribe does not own their own planes.)

At another meal we were talking about travels, past and future, so of course the conversation let to Cuba. (Just try having a conversation about travel with a bunch of Americans and not have the subject of Cuba come up.) Many folks have plans to get there -- and I'll confess it's on my list -- but someone asked if anyone had actually been to Cuba yet. One gentlemen admitted he'd been twice already, and about a decade ago, as his 55 and older softball team had been invited to Havana to play. (My tribe has never been invited to a foreign country. Foreign countries don't even know my tribe exists.)

Two more, this from the same woman. Sometime in the 1980s she decided to get certified to scuba dive. She took some lessons in her home town, but then decided to take a vacation to Club Med in Martinique to complete the certification. When she got on board her flight for the trip she found herself seated next to Jacques Cousteau. They chatted during the flight and at the end he invited her to spend the next day on the Calypso, where he certified her to scuba dive. (My tribe does not sit in the section of planes where one might find Jacques Cousteau sitting.)

Twenty-five years later she was visiting Prague. As she got to the hotel, she found it swarming with security. So, as she entered the hotel she made a smartass remark (her term, not mine) to one of the staff like, "You did all this for me? You shouldn't have." Hearing her comment, the man on the stairs in front of her turned and said, "Oh, you're an American. Come talk to me." So she accompanied him into the lobby where they sat and chatted for forty-five minutes. The man? The Dalai Lama, of course. (My tribe does not stay in hotels where the Dalai Lama stays.)

Ah well. Once you get out on the ice, wearing your snow gear and your snazzy blue parka, everyone pretty much looks the same.