Your Personal Geographic Extremes

[Toy Revolver]

when i moved from portland to seattle my friends had a party for me - which i didn't want because i think it's bad luck or maybe just embarrassing if you return too quickly - but i also worked the night before the move - well all my coworkers were at the party including my relief at work - it was a job caring for people with traumatic brain injuries and the past 10 PM shift was just one person me and then at midnight i was stuck there because my relief was shitfaced at my party - i called the manager and was like look technically i don't even work here anymore but she didn't show until around 1:30 AM and then had the audacity to bitch at me when i was like goddamnit- she took the manager job not me - it was her responsibility but she acted like it was a favor instead of me staying an extra hour an a half as the favor - it was a job that would've put people's lives at risk if i just left-

i had to pick up and load the uhaul and drive to seattle all the next day but of course the party was still raging full on at the flop house i living in back then - a place where i had some of the best times of my life - so naturally i got rip roaring fucked up and the party carried on until dawn

this one girl, who was so beautiful btw like as beautiful as any woman alive beautiful at least for my taste, and super smart - we'd had sex a few times too - it was beyond belief- like physically she was so out of my league but anyway she was the only one who helped me load up this uhaul- and i only needed a little van but all they had was this giant ass truck - like practically as big as a fucking 18 wheeler

this is way before gps so i was just using a paper map to get there to my newly rekindled college girlfriend's house that was in the university district if you happen to know anything about seattle

so all that totally fucking exhausted i drove that fucking huge truck on no sleep hungover af if not actually still drunk but i was young and managed it

then my girlfriend who was in sales / food distribution was on the phone when i got there and totally ignored me for hours - i get she was working but still it really hurt my feelings although in hindsight i think i was being selfish considering she was paying for that nice crib in a hip area in an expensive city and sales with restaurants is high intensity af - but i was tired and immature and wanted a welcome blowjob asap but ended up just jerking off and going to sleep

not the greatest story but it's the best i could think of

[Lexi of the Dawn]

My most memorable arrival might be that time when my family was flying home from NYC in summer 2005. I got food poisoning from some hole in the wall restaurant earlier that day and I literally barfed right on the plane. Some granny in the adjacent row freaked out and yelled at me, as if I wasn't having a bad enough day already. Makes me steaming mad just remembering it. My dad picked us up from the airport and he was met with a 16 year old with vomit stains all over her favorite My Chemical Romance t-shirt.

You said most memorable, not best, haha.

[Toy Revolver]

i had a bad flu and puked in the barf bag once

the flight attendant was really sweet about it

[Lexi of the Dawn]

I'm glad you had a better experience then I did! I remember it came on very suddenly right when I was sure I was feeling okay, and even if we had a barf bag (I don't remember if there even was one, it was a small cheapo flight from Chicago to Madison so the plane might not have had such a luxury item, lol) I don't think there would have been any time to avoid the wrath of teenage Mrs. Waffles's stomach. I wanted to go to the bathroom but we were descending right as it came on.

On the plus side the rest of that vacation was fun! I got to see Tim Curry in Spamalot on Broadway, and it was my first time in NYC so I saw a lot of the sights.

[Janszoon]

What have been your most memorable arrivals /departures?

I have two.

I was in line for a flight and this woman showed up to the gate super late to check in. Unfortunately for her, the flight was overbooked, and because she arrived late, there was no seat available for her. An annoying situation for her, no doubt, but her reaction was to flip out on the airline employees, run past them onto the plane, and refused to leave. The state police were called and she was removed in handcuffs, but all of this took a long time, which meant the plane departed late, I missed my connection, and I subsequently had to spend a long time hanging out in the St. Louis airport.

The other story is this: I was flying from Chicago to Boston. I got to the airport early, went through security, and was just hanging out in an empty seating area when I looked at my boarding pass and realized that I had a middle seat. I went up to the podium and asked the airline employee if I could switch it to a window seat, he did a quick search on his computer, and happily changed it for me. I sat back down and waited for the boarding announcement, but after a while I noticed something strange: everyone around me was speaking Spanish. At first I thought I had just happened to sit next to people who were Spanish speakers, but it really was everyone. Confused, I looked at the destination info by the gate and realized this flight wasn't bound for Boston, it was bound for Mexico City. I had sat in a random seating area and promptly forgotten this wasn't actually my gate. Since I talked to the guy at that gate, he had assumed I was supposed to be flying to Mexico and given me a Mexico City boarding pass. Anyway, I went up and told him and he fixed it, but I was really happy that I realized all of this before I actually boarded the plane and accidentally flew to Mexico.

[jadis]

that all sounds really cool

i don't know if i'll ever travel abroad again but i have a fantasy of taking the bus all the way to mexico city and just see what happens

I literally have a similar fantasy: arriving in Mexico City, renting a crummy apartment in some ungentrified neighborhood and just living there as the weird gringo

Probably stems from reading way too much William S. Burroughs as a teenager in my case. Never been to Latin America, don't speak spanish etc 

[Lisnaholic]

I don't have any wild stories about travelling really, but these things have struck in my mind:-

i) airplanes usually go up, then come back down again, but if you are flying to Costa Rica, this curious thing happens: your plane goes up, but then, as you approach San José Airport you only descend about six inches because the airport, pushed up on its mountains, has instead risen up to meet your airplane at its cruising altitude. It's a weird feeling.

ii) a journey I grew to dislike was travelling by train overnight between the UK and Germany: there's nothing much to see, just lots of transfers (train/ferry/more trains) so you never get any proper sleep. After suffering the trip several times, I improved it by taking a small bottle of brandy along with me: when you're waiting on a platform at 3 a.m. in the bitter cold, a slug of brandy can do wonders for the flagging spirit.

Two unusual vehicles I remember:-



I was so intrigued by these San Francisco cable cars that I bought a book about them: lots of pics, and how they work. They are very attractive and thankfully are still proper commute vehicles for city residents.



For its docking manouvre, the hovercraft I was on had to do a U-turn, except that a hovercraft doesn't need a turning circle at all: it can just rotate round on its own centre-point without going anywhere.
____________________________

I think this thread is coming to its end, isn't it? Just one last question to give it a tidy conclusion: we started with our most northerly limits, so we can finish with:-

What is the most southerly place you have ever visited?

[Psy-Fi]

The most southerly place I've ever visited is Miami Beach in Florida.

The Everglades and the Keys are both on my list of places to visit the next time I'm in Florida. Both are further south from Miami Beach.

[Lisnaholic]

Some places on the approx same latitude as Miami Beach: Durango, Western Sahara, Egypt, Qatar, Karachi, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Okinawa.

Yeah, I've never been to The Florida Keys either, but I like the way they trail off until you're presumably left wondering, "Am I really on land anymore?"

[Janszoon]

What is the most southerly place you have ever visited?

Mine's not very far south: Kingston, Jamaica. It was part of a trip to several parts of the island to visit some of my wife's family and her best friend. The whole thing was a great experience, because since we were staying with and visiting locals, we got to see and do a lot of non-touristy things.

[Lisnaholic]

^ I can imagine that that was a memorable experience, and different, as you say, from the tourist version. Tourism is almost always intent on serving you up the stereotypes of the country and is often pretty dull, imo.
Here's a non-tourist experience I had on my third-ever day in Mexico: I was staying with a couple and their 10-year-old son. On this afternoon he  wanted to buy some fireworks that were being sold locally, according to the rumours at his school: his parents said it was ok but didn't want him to go on his own, so I was nominated as guardian. With zero Spanish and no idea where I was going, I followed this boy around some dusty streets while he was going up to various houses and presumably asking, "Is this where they are selling the illegal fireworks?"     

[Lisnaholic]

Most Southerly point I've ever reached is Costa Rica, which is at Latitude 10° North, or 600 miles north of the Equator.
So, I've never been to the southern hemisphere and would have no bragging rights with even the humblest of cabin boys from the heyday of the Natucket whaling industry. This is the 1820 voyage of The Essex, the whaling ship that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick.



Those guys went about as far south as you can go, then half-way across the Pacific too. That's an impressive breadth of vision when the technology of the day was not sattelites and airplanes, but rope, wind and canvas. (*put "bowdown" emoji*)

[robhr]

Oh I thought I posted in this thread already.

The northern most I've been is Thompson, Canada. The southern most I've been is Belize. I tried to post the map but I don't know how to embed it here.

[jimmy jazz]

Oh I thought I posted in this thread already.

The northern most I've been is Thompson, Canada. The southern most I've been is Belize. I tried to post the map but I don't know how to embed it here.

My gran was from Belize.

What did you make of it?

[robhr]

My gran was from Belize.

What did you make of it?

Neat, my mother and all her siblings are from Belize. They's Mennonites from the Orange Walk area. Blue Creek to be specific.

It was pleasant, I enjoyed the Mayan ruins.

The second time we went was for the 2000 new years and we went to a church get together where they were all talking about how it's the end of the world now and revelations was about to begin. Looks like it didn't pan out.