Foreword
So the time has come to go visit Guadeloupe again. This will be our fifth visit to Guadeloupe since the early nineties. We booked this trip in June of last year. Last time we visited, we went down with Thierry and Brigitte plus their kids [Click here for diary]. We were also joined by my dad from Stockholm. This time, Thierry and Brigitte decided they wanted to visit Costa Rica instead; they were down in Guadeloupe again in 2003 while we stayed home. We are being joined this year by Lilli's brother, Bengt, and his wife Charlotte aka "Lotta". They are flying down from Sweden, via Paris, with their three kids and will be joining us at the airport in Guadeloupe. By luck they appear to have be travelling two days after a major airport strike was called off in Paris.
A lot of things have happened since we last went down to Guadeloupe. Besides the big terrorist attack on 11-Sep-2001, where four planes were high-jacked by Islamic Fundamentalists, the US economy has gone from a big bubble in 2001 to a big recession, some of which was exacerbated by the terrorist act. Airport security is significantly higher nowadays. At this point the economy is slowly recovering. Compaq was bought up by Hewlett Packard and I now work for HP, more or less doing the same thing as when Digital Equipment Corporation was bought up by Compaq in 1998. France has converted currency from French Francs to Euro, like many other countries in Europe. The US Dollar has gone from being very strong the last time we visited Guadeloupe to quite weak this time. In relative terms, a Euro cost $0.95 the last time we went, but now costs as much as $1.28. Consequently, prices down in Guadeloupe, such as rental car, etc., are much more expensive to us than they were the last time we went. This time we decided to add on two more days compared to last time. We hope that will make it less stressful.
Isabella is now a Freshmen at Merrimack High School, Erik in 6th at the Merrimack Middle School while Karl is in 3rd grade at Thorntons Ferry School. They have all grown. Karl is now as old as Erik was last time we went to Guadeloupe. Early this year Lilli, myself and Isabella went back and took a refresher class in scuba diving as we have not done any since we were down in Guadeloupe the last time. Meanwhile, Erik took the class we did three years ago and is now ready to be open water certified once we get down. Both Izzy and me are looking forward to use our prescription diving masks, the ones we ordered three years ago but that did not arrive in time for our departure.
Since the fall, Isabella has been involved with the high school's robot team, through an organization known as FIRST. This has turned into a very exciting program. Myself I participated in building the working stage for this year's robots. Once that was done I started to help out as a mentor in the controls and logic subteam. I've spent 3-4 nights a week down at BAE SYSTEMS on Canal Street in Nashua helping out. This has been very rewarding for me as well as for Isabella. Each year the teams receive instructions for a new playing field, new rules, etc. Once they receive this they have six weeks to build a robot. This year's robot must be shipped out on Thursday 26-Feb. The activity was very high by the time we got ready to leave for vacation. In fact, me and Isabella spent last night over at BAE with the team, working on the robot. The first competition will be during the last days of our vacation, at the Verizon Center in Manchester, NH. Isabella really wanted to go, but unfortunately we arranged for this trip long before we even knew what the robot program would turn into. We are crossing our fingers that our team, Team #166 Chop Shop from Merrimack High, will do well when competing with about 80 other teams at the regional event. If nothing else, both me and Isabella can look forward to participating in the national robot event in April this year, down in Atlanta's Georgia Dome