I've Arrived At Sangre de Cristo

The trip over went very smoothly. Luggage was within limits, but there were two security points plus a lady who selected me for special scanning with a hand held scanner! The plane wasn't full so there was a spare seat between me and a nice chap on his way to Vancouver to see a his sick sister. The seat was very handy for our off-casts as we whiled away the night. He stuck to cryptic crosswords. I tackled 3 movies: "The Queen", "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Kenny". As you can see, I didn't sleep much. There is a cute little screen in front of each passenger and each can choose from the menu whatever they want. There is even a choice to see, via satellite, where the plane is along the flight. My legs were excercised (by me) regularly, and arrived in fine shape (so to speak!).

Los Angeles airport is not what I would call flash - it probably needs a facelift, in fact. But we arrived on time, which was good. The only problem was the queues to get through the Security check followed by Customs - an hour and a half in total. There weren't enough staff for the 4 or so jumbo jets which had landed. However, I eventually reached the motel and had a couple of hours sleep. There are lots of 'Latinos' in this part of the world and each airport announcement was repeated in Spanish. The restaurant beside the motel was Mexican, and there was a lot of evidence of Mexicans/Spanish etc. I did a long walk in the afternoon and ended up at a Shopping Centre (not a big one) and checked out Ralph's - the equivalent of Coles/ Woolies. A lot of goods of course were different brands etc but the organisation of what was in each aisle was similar. One good feature was a well-kept Toilet block out the back. Our Supermarkets could emulate that.

My large port is SO HEAVY. Radical steps are needed to lighten it so I will spend time studying its contents and deciding which radical step is to be taken. It was 29 kg on the way over, which was within limits, but very heavy. However, I am told it has to be only 20 kg when I go to London in May. I may be able to wear some things out by then. It is not so very col here although there is snow all over the ground in patches from last week's falls. The view from the plane over the Rockies showed vast streches of snow. I took a few photos and will put one or two on this site, although they'll look pretty uninteresting given the distance, the angle and the 3 pixels of my camera. However, it will brighten the page a bit.

The photo on the right shows some of the snow.

All the arrivals in Albuquerque were met at the aiport by Br Joe so we had time to meet, get a bite to eat and generally relax before setting off on the shuttle about 2 pm. It took about an hour to Santa Fe and a bit more to Sangre. Lovely mountains. Very different buildings. Increasing areas of snow. Very sparse vegetation. Upon arrival we were offered hot soup ( I called it 'hairy' soup because it had little bits like hair in it, but someone told me that is from chopped up asparagus) which was very tasty. We had time to unpack before meeting, having tea, then having a full introductory meeting. There are 36 participants for this program - about half and half men and women. Seven are Australians, all women except one Parish Priest from Noble Park in Melbourne who said he is one of the few priests to have an assistant (who he hopes is running the parish in his absence!) We all said our little bit. One priest is Samoan (from New Zealand), 2 sisters are Filipino, and there is a Chinese Malaysian Sister. A priest and a sister (Irish by birth) are from England: one American priest comes from Costa Rica and another (American) comes from Uganda; yet another from Chile. A sister from Kenya arrived late. Apart from the 7 Australians, the remainder are all Americans working in USA. I think it will be a very good mix. Everyone is very keen to make the best use possible of the time. There are 5 on the Team and with a married couple for cooks plus a handyman, that's the staff. Everyone will get a small part of the work to do to keep the place afloat. (Of course I forgot to mention OBO the resident pooch who loves everyone.

We've had our introductory meetings and this week will be all low key. We are warned to drink a lot because of the altitude, and watch for headaches developing! Also, keep the exercise moderate until we adjust. So far I feel normal! But then, I am not aware of any jetlag from the flight either, so perhaps I am unconscious.

I'll write again fairly soon as there will be a lot to tell you about the place during the first week. The two photos taken through the plane window as we flew over show a lot of snow and (maybe) some interesting features like extinct volcanoes, canyons etc.

The roads in the first photo are white with snow.

The next photo shows (I think) a snow covered volcanic crater.