Gloucester - America's oldest seaport

The city officially holds this title, which is the main draw for tourists. It's a typical representative of one-story America, yet it still has a fishing charm. Nowadays, fishing is gradually becoming a thing of the past.

The most common fish in these parts is the striper. Very tasty. Peter earns a little money from fishing - he sells the fish at a special auction. But he says that almost all of it goes toward maintaining the boat. In the past, they used to catch tuna here - one fish could be worth up to $20,000!!!!! and you had to pull it in while strapped to a seat all day until it got tired. I highly recommend visiting for anyone who loves fishing.

By the way, the movie "The Perfect Storm" is based on events that took place in the Gloucester area, and there are scenes filmed in this city.

One of our co-workers told us that in the seventies, a Soviet merchant ship was arrested in Gloucester. It sat in the port for several months, and the CIA didn't allow the sailors to go ashore. He managed to pass them a few music tapes -)

Sailing

I went sailing on a boat with Gene. He lived with us at the campground. A great guy - reminds me of Robinson Crusoe. Gene studied nuclear physics at MIT but dropped out and has worked as a taxi driver in Boston his whole life.

His boat is called "Doctor". He bought the boat and started scrubbing off the old name. The first 3 letters remained, he was too lazy to scrub further, and he added the first word that came to mind.

We sailed first from Gloucester along the Little River to the ocean using the motor, and then we raised the sail and reached Newburyport. By the way, I didn't know that the cause of sailboats moving is Bernoulli's principle, which lifts airplanes into the air - I thought the wind just filled the sails...

The weather, or rather the wind, was lucky - we managed to reach 9 mph. But the ocean let us down with the waves. Not this time, but in general. I wanted to go surfing, but we never got any waves all summer!!!

I remember it was interesting to see who I would have to work with in America.

In the photo from left to right: Nikita, Matt, Vlad, Phil

Phil - he is 40 years old, but he could easily pass for 30. A very kind person. He drives trucks, and Vlad and I worked with him most often. By the end of the summer, we became very good friends.

Marshall - "Whom do you want to take?"

Phil - "I'll take the Red Army" -)

He very often talked about his girlfriend Sarah, who is 20 years old and whom he is very proud of. One could conclude that she is a beauty. Once we went somewhere together, and it turned out that Sarah was unacceptably overweight. The next day at work, Phil asked if I liked Sarah. I answered uncertainly, "yes." And Phil said, "you're just saying that." Well, what was I supposed to answer? I guess he really loves her.

If I manage to visit America again, I will definitely stop by to visit him.

Jerom - also about 40 years old. At first, I didn't like him. Then it turned out that I was wrong. A calm, intelligent person. He is writing a doctoral dissertation on ethics. He says he has very large debts due to tuition fees.

There was an incident. Nikita asked him if it was true that McDonald's food in America is called "Monkey food." Jerom's words - "I don't know for sure, but you'd better not say that in front of me. Because most likely, Monkey means it's food for Black people." And he showed a photo of his children in his wallet. It turned out that Jerom has three adopted Black children.

Chip - has worked at this firm the longest - 20 years (the others have been working for a very short time - the staff is constantly changing). He gets the best orders. A cheerful, aging rocker, but a bit shady.

Shawn - about 55 years old. He used to have his own landscaping business - went bankrupt due to rising gas prices. An unpleasant type. Plus, completely incompetent at working as a loader -)

Drivers are finished - next is Mouse and the others

Mouse - about 60 years old. Mouse is a nickname - his last name is something similar. Works in the warehouse on a forklift - a box loader. Communicating with him meant there were no orders and you had to do something boring in the warehouse. His company brightened up the unemployment - a very kind and pleasant person.

Matt - 30 years old, looks 25, and behaves like a child. The nickname Goofy suits him very well. He is missing 2 teeth on top on the sides of his 2 front ones. One might get the impression that he pulled them out himself to create an image.

Jeorge - 25 years old and has 2 children. Because of this, he almost didn't buy himself any food during the day. A kind and cheerful Latin American guy.

Steve - 20 years old. Often disappeared at free alcoholic beverage tastings -)

Tim - a guy who is always slightly dissatisfied with something. Matt's cousin. Once the conversation turned to him in his absence, and I asked why Tim didn't go to college. Matt: "Because he was in prison at that time." My jaw dropped slightly. Let's figure out who else here has been in prison. I liked the answer about Steve: "Not yet."

Acquaintances who worked in a store said they were tired of the endless hypocritical smiles and greetings. I certainly didn't have to face that at work. Overall, I liked the people very much.