2012-12-26

【Aiden in English】

        So, there I was with my mom, standing on the balcony of Star Princess at the crack of dawn to see the Amalia Glacier in the central part of Chilean Southern Patagonian Ice Fields. The glacier descended from the Andes Mountains and sat like a frozen river above the sea. It had immense weight, and the oxygen had been pressed out of the ice, presenting it with a stunning crystalline appearance and a strange blue glow that caused it to have a light or dark texture. My science geek Mom gave me a quick lesson about it. Red and yellow light were absorbed magically when majestic glaciers acted like filters. A crevasse or deep hole leaves light at the blue end of the visible light spectrum. Being a tidewater glacier along the coastline, the Amalia Glacier changed occasionally and shrank like other glaciers upon global warming. It was the very first experience that I had ever seen such a large iceberg!

        Mom looked at the wall clock as I couldn't hold my patience any more. It was time for me to start at the Youth Center. When I hopped wildly through its entrance, I was astonished that no one was there except the instructor and another girl named Keiry from Vancouver, Canada. Since there weren't enough people to do most of the activities, she and I settled on making Lego spinners. We spent hours building an a-foot-long spinner and had to try different approaches. The tip got crushed under the weight, and the entire body threatened to blow, which almost freaked us out. But after all our hard work was made, an enormous, colorful structure with random Lego pieces stuck out from here and there. We tried to test it. But it spans without balance and throws itself off the table. The loud crash meant that the spinner didn't survive. Right then, more people showed off! Instead of one by one, they came by the tide. We could hear the doorbell ring several times in a minute, and soon it became crowded again. No more space was available for most of the Lego pieces laid on the floor. We all rushed to hang out with video games till the end of the morning.

        After my mom picked me up, we went straight to the restaurant. As for lunch, I had the daily special potato soup for my appetizer. As I slurped up the last drop, the entree was closely followed, served with chicken stew. The flavor was so delicious that the potato soup tasted like garbage.

        After devouring my main course, I immediately ran up the elevator to meet my friends in the Youth Center. A teacher gave us a pop-dance lesson. Some of us were asked to sit and watch while the others were dancing. The next moment, everybody was fighting over a chair to sit on. The teacher told us "Boys, only the children with asthma could take a chair." With a blink, the other boys and I zipped away and hid in awkward places. After all were found, we began doing weird dances exclusively for Freeze Dance. Although it sounded funny, we caught up with an excellent moment to play Duck-Duck-Goose.

【红霞译】

        破晓时分我跟妈妈站在甲板上，随“公主•星辰”号客轮巡游阿玛莉亚(意指“圣作”)冰川，这个上帝打造的杰作位于智利南部山岭冰原中央，自安第斯山脉缓缓而来，像一个冻结的河流悬挂在太平洋湾峡之上；冰川体积大重量沉，内部氧气全被排挤出来，造成表面晶莹透亮，明暗深浅变化，着实增添了自身的厚重感。刻板 (科班) 出身的妈妈不由得津津乐道，在这里冰川具有过滤功能，将红黄两色兼收并蓄，最后只把可见光谱中的蓝光反射出来，致使冰川彰显神秘幽蓝的光泽。圣作冰川属于潮汐性冰川，因此受环境影响很大，随着全球气候变暖而日趋溶化变小，这是迄今为止我亲眼见到的最大的冰山！

        饱足眼福之后，我急不可耐地朝少年活动中心奔去，一进门口才发现，除有一位老师和来自加拿大温哥华名叫黑发的女孩之外别无他人，玩伴这么少，自然无法开展很多活动，我俩只好一起拨弄乐高积木，花了很多功夫搭建一个足有一英尺长的飞行器。开始时，飞行器头轻身重险些夭折，弄得我们紧张兮兮；后来总算把它搞定，这儿凹进去，那儿凸出来，块头实在不小，接着我们拿来试飞，它失去了平衡，一下子栽到桌子底下，发出很大声响，结果还是没能成功。这时门铃响个不停，片刻之间朋友们蜂涌而至，躺在地上的乐高积木不得不收摊让位，我们随即上网玩电脑游戏，直到午休时刻。

        妈妈来接我去餐厅吃午饭，我先要了碗土豆汤打打牙祭，刚喝完最后一口，主菜鸡肉煲汤正好送到桌前，不怕不识货就怕货比货，这个煲汤味道好吃得要命，而那个开胃头台却难喝得要死。

        豪吃海喝美味佳肴之后，我乘电梯很快返回少年活动中心，老师一边示范流行舞蹈，一边告诉我们要么静坐观摩，要么学习舞步，大家不由分说，争先恐后抢椅子起来，谁都不想跳来跳去，老师没辙儿立马补加规定，椅子只能留给有哮喘疾病的孩子，话音刚落我们立刻躲得无影无踪。等再度集合的时候，我们成心搞怪，随音乐翩翩起舞，甚至把幼儿园玩的把戏“捉迷藏”一起搬了出来。

Today in History(历史上的今天)：

2009: 新西兰达尼丁一南方的爱丁堡(Dunedin—Edinburgh of the South, NZ)

Amalia Tidewater One (圣作潮汐冰川)

Bernardo O'Higgins NP, the Largest of the Protected Areas in Chile 

(民族独立运动领袖国家公园——智利最大的保护区)

Eyre Fjord (继承人湾 12-26-2012)

Backhand Attack (反手对攻 12-26-2012)

Crosslinks(相关博文):

Chile(出游智利)

South America(漂流南美洲)

小学四年级(4th Grade)