Heading out

---

It was a dark and stormy night. The day before had been windy - trees down, power outages everywhere. The plane gained speed. San Francisco is behind us as we race west toward Sri Lanka and three weeks of classes and adventures. Seven of us to study biology and sociology of this island country. Just being in a new country is an education. What is different? What is the same?

To start with the people; they work, they have families and friends. The first people you meet are in uniforms - airline staff, immigration, and security. Outside you meet the cabbies, the bus drivers and luggage-handlers.

Then there is the air. At first it is av-gas then trucks and badly tuned cars. Finally the smells of the countryside arrive. For me in Sri Lanka it is the smell of new flowers and wet earth.

Sound changes as well. The sounds of jet planes gives way the blaring of horns and screeching of tires (or in this case tyres as we move into a British English). The sound falls away as we leave the airport and move into the country-side.

We have arrived.

---

Comments

[Dr Jon]

from Jon
Great writing. Since you have a computer and a flash drive maybe you should compose off line using Word. That way you can take advantage of spell checking (hint, hint). You can just paste your word document from your flash drive into the travel blog edit window.