破曉時分，我跟媽媽站在甲板上，隨“星辰•公主”號客輪巡游阿瑪莉亞冰川。阿瑪莉亞冰川位於智利南部巴塔哥尼亞冰原中央，自安第斯山脈緩緩而來，像一個凍結的河流懸掛在太平洋灣峽之上。冰川體積大重量沉，內部氧氣全被排擠出來，造成表面晶瑩透亮，明暗深淺變化，着實增添了自身的厚重感。刻板 (科班) 出身的媽媽不由得津津樂道，在這裡冰川具有過濾功能，將紅黃兩色兼收並蓄，最後只把可見光譜中的藍光反射出來，致使冰川彰顯神秘幽藍的光澤。阿瑪莉亞冰川屬於潮汐性冰川，因此受環境影響很大，隨着全球氣候變暖而日趨溶化變小。迄今為止，這是我親眼見到的最大的冰山！ 

      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 a strikingly beautiful crystalline appearance and a strange blue glow that caused it to have light or dark texture. My science geek, Mom, gave me a quick lesson about it. When majestic glaciers acted like filters, both red and yellow light were absorbed magically. A crevasse or deep hole left light at the blue end of the visible light spectrum. Being a tidewater glacier along the coastline, the Amalia Glacier changed from time to time and shrank like other glaciers upon global warming. It was the very first experience that I had ever seen such large iceberg!

      Just as I couldn't hold my patience anymore, mom looked at the wall clock. It was time for me to start off to 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 down on making Lego spinners. We spent hours on building 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 span without balance and threw 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 tides. In a minute, we could hear the doorbell ring several times, and soon it became crowded once again. No more space was available for most of the Lego pieces laid on the floor. So we all rushed to hang out with video games till the end of the morning.

      飽足了眼福之後，我急不可耐地朝少年活動中心奔去；一進門口才發現，除有一位老師和來自加拿大溫哥華的女孩凱瑞之外，別無他人。玩伴這麼少，自然無法開展很多活動，我倆只好一起撥弄樂高積木，花了很多功夫搭建一個足有一英尺長的飛行器。開始時，飛行器頭輕身重險些夭折，弄得我們緊張兮兮；後來總算把它搞定，這兒凹進去，那兒凸出來，塊頭實在不小。接着我們拿來試飛，它失去了平衡，一下子栽到桌子底下，發出很大聲響，結果我們並沒有成功。這時門鈴響個不停，片刻之間朋友們蜂湧而至，躺在地上的樂高積木不得不收攤讓位，我們隨即上網玩電腦遊戲，直到午休時刻。

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

      媽媽來接我去餐廳吃午飯，我先要了碗土豆湯打打牙祭，剛喝完最後一口，主菜雞肉煲湯正好送到桌前。不怕不識貨，就怕貨比貨，這個煲湯味道好吃得要命，而那個開胃頭台卻難喝得要死。

      When I finished devouring my main course, I ran immediately 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. It was the very next moment that everybody was fighting over a chair to sit on. The teacher said to us: "Boys, only the children that had 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.

      豪吃海喝美味佳餚之後，我乘電梯很快返回少年活動中心。老師一邊示範流行舞蹈，一邊告訴我們要麼靜坐觀摩，要麼學習舞步。大家不由分說，爭先恐後搶椅子起來，誰都不想跳來跳去。沒轍兒，老師馬上補充規定，椅子只能留給有哮喘疾病的孩子。話音剛落，我們立刻躲得無影無蹤。等再度集合的時候，我們成心搞怪，隨音樂翩翩起舞，甚至把幼兒園玩的把戲“捉迷藏”同時搬了出來。

(二O一二年十二月廿六日)