The foods I will miss

A Day on the Boat

Is it cold where you are? Has the excitement of the first snowfall worn off and now you’re yearning for warmer weather? Are you dreaming of the tropics? If so, then I got your visual escape right here …

With lots of “No, gracias” we finally made our way through the thick throng of souvenir hawkers, settled into a small boat and zoomed out to the islands. At our first stop we dined at a table in the water on freshly caught crab and lobster. This was the first time in twelve years that I tasted delicious crab and I fear it’ll be a long while before the Jewish guilt lets up.

After yet again squeezing past more peddlers, we got back on the boat and went out into the ocean where we dropped the anchor and jumped off the boat. This was fun for about ten minutes. That’s how long it took us to realize that the boat’s anchor wasn’t holding and that the boat was slowly inching away from us. I started to frog-style swim after the rogue boat against the waves. It took about a few pathetic minutes until I was completely out of breath and started muttering about sharks and drowning. I was losing my mind. The boat driver threw me a life vest (that’s how pathetic I looked) and instead of kicking my way to the boat, I forced my dear sister to pull me the whole way there. It was not my proudest moment. And the pictures taken of this event were obviously soon deleted.

From here we headed to another island where the fishermen let us inspect and chose from the catch of the day. The fish was then prepared and served to us on the beach. This is living. After splashing around some more, we got back on the boat and jetted home. This kind of life I can get used to very quickly.

We Have Arrived

When traveling abroad I tend to be very understanding and polite toward the opposing culture. I brush up on a few key phrases such as, “Where is the bathroom?” and, “No, I’m not lost so don’t even think of kidnapping me.” And then I rely on exaggerated hand gestures and facial expressions to get me by. Though when it comes to international locations such as airports, I expect the staff to have a few English words under their belt. Is that my pompous American side? Is that not the norm?

Well it is definitely not the norm in Cartagena, Colombia. The police officer at customs only knew 2 words. And they are the last two words you want to say to an aggravated woman. Calm down.

Oh no he didn’t.

The issue was simple, we didn’t have an exact address of where we were staying. We had a car service waiting for us outside and I kept trying to relay that to the customs officer. He kept motioning to me that we can’t leave to talk to the driver without going through customs first but we couldn’t leave customs without having that address. Catch-freakin’-22! Who would have ever thought I’d have trouble getting into Colombia. I expected this kind of issue at customs from the States upon our return but not vice versa.

Needless to say we made it through. And we are now brushing up on our Spanish.

We haven’t done much exploring yet so the few pictures I have are from within the casa where we are staying. I’m so eager to explore and to share with you my experience. Stay tuned amigos!