I just sent some machine gears to the Canary Islands. You have heard of that place. Little islands in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. What I found interesting was the gear order was from Spain. I was naturally thinking of mainland Spain.
The city name was Guimar and that didn’t cause me any excitement. The name of the Spanish state was Tenerife. That sounded familiar but I didn’t know why. (Site of the world’s worst commercial airliners (2) crash.)
I filled the order and sent it off. I even exchanged an email or two with the purchaser about a few details in the order. It was all very friendly and casual and in very good English. Not unusual in the world market.
The name Tenerife was haunting me so I brought up Google Earth and punched in the address in the search. Off I flew heading across the Atlantic and somewhat out of focus (as usual). It zoomed down to the street level and there I was looking at some rooftops and streets.
I climbed higher in the sky to get a broader look and holycow! I saw volcano craters. Wow! this guy lives near the coast between TWO volcanoes. One inland and the other right in the harbor. I thought to myself, “Gee, I never knew they had volcanoes in Spain.” I thought I was on the Mediterranean coast.
I backed away a little higher and discovered I was looking at an island. “Wow, this is an island!” (I’m observant that way.) Well, soon enough I saw I was down by Africa and WOW oh WOW! these are the Canary Islands. I have often wondered what it was like in that place. I always wanted to make a radio contact there. That’s why Tenerife was familiar.
So that order made my day. It started out just like any other export but then gave me an excuse to do some Google Earth exploring. Thanks! Check out the Wikipedia link.