The sense of displacement, or maybe it was misplacement, encompassed us all today. There was the distinct feeling that we had been mysteriously transported to the northern hemisphere. Had we been collective Rip Van Winkles while the Caledonian Star completed its Antarctic season and repositioned north to the British Isles?
The port town of Stanley on East Falkland Island was a little bit of Britain at the southerly reaches of land. Friendly townsfolk spoke with British accents. Red telephone booths and matching mail boxes had tumbled off postcard scenes from another place. The only thing missing was a double decker bus.
The architecture was varied, from brick "old country" style to the distinctive and colorful model roofed with tin. Lupines in every color danced around garden edges and the smell of peat burning in fireplaces drifted through the air. In the center of town an arch formed from the mandibles of two blue whales celebrated the founding of this colony more than a hundred and fifty years ago.
