Always Wanting More

Today my head is spinning. I just finished reading Bumfuzzle, a book about the sailing adventures of a couple from Minnesota who documented it all on their blog with the same name. These two people, living a regular life in Chicago, decided one night over drinks at a bar that they were going to sail around the world. They had no previous sailing experience. Needless to say, they did it and then continued on with even more adventures. After returning from their sailing trip, they purchased a VW bus and drove it through the US, Central and South America, then put it on a tanker and sailed to Europe where they continued their journey. This sounds incredible and is making me insanely jealous. How did they come up with this stuff? I know they’re not the first to sail around the world or go on a road trip, but still….their travels are quite unique. It has me thinking, how can we be unique? But, wait….is this some sort of competition for awesomeness? Anyone who knows me knows that it is. I once had Dusty time me to see if I could make a bowl of salsa in less than 5 minutes. When walking in town, we compete for who can walk fastest. When taking pictures, always one of us says, “Hey, let me try!” because of course I can do it better than you. I’m always competing. Always trying to do the next thing. I guess that even when you’re living your dream of traveling the world, you’ll just concoct the next dream. Can you tell I’m ready to get moving again?

On a less whiny note, I thought I’d write 10 random thoughts. I did this once on facebook and it was quite fun. Let’s see what’s in my brain today…

1. I didn’t realize how annoying they were, but I’m really glad not to be carrying around frequent shopper cards anymore. I feel released by the shackles of “the man” and his need for me to shop.
2. Will I forget how to drive?
3. I think no matter what country we are in, I’ll still end up buying anything at the market that will make a Mexican meal.
4. I like the way Latin American’s mop. I say LA’s because I’ve seen this now in Guatemala and Ecuador. They simply have an old towel of which they have cut holes in certain places. They fold it over and slide it down over the handle of a broom and that’s their mop. When finished, they take it off and throw it in the wash. Isn’t that smart?
5. I’m finding so far that most grocery stores have what I’m looking for, just not in the places my American brain wants them to be or what it wants them to look like. Eggs and milk are in the center aisle, not refrigerated. Baking soda is at the pharmacy, not in the baking aisle. Oranges are more green than orange and avocados are bigger than a softball.
6. It’s fun to speak another language, especially when you don’t know how to say something exactly so you speak around it. For instance, Dusty and I were having a Spanish only session on the beach the other day. Instead of saying, “That guy just knocked those people off the Banana raft on purpose”, I said, “The driver of the boat with the banana drives crazy and all of the people go in the ocean.”
7. I’m having a harder time than I thought not having lightening fast internet. Every entrepreneurial thought in my brain gets the boot when I realize it would take 10 days just to research it.
8. I find myself fighting with cab drivers when they charge me 50 cents more than they should. I don’t want gringo prices even if its only 50 cents.
9. In both Ecuador and Colombia, they recycle their bottles. Not crush them down and make new ones but send them back to be refilled. Most of the bottles we see are well worn but with new labels. Since noticing this, we always pour our beers into glasses instead of drinking from the bottle.
10. Since there is no recycling of items other than bottles in Ecuador, I try to bring bags that I got from the grocery to reuse at the open air market. In Guatemala, I learned that bolsa means bag. So here, I ordered vegetables and then pointed at Dusty who was carrying the bags and said “Tengo bolsa” which means “I have a bag”. Or so I thought. I relayed this story to my friend, Cristian and he alerted me to the fact that in Ecuador, bolsa means scrotum. Basically, I’ve been telling the sweet old ladies at the market that I don’t need a bag….I brought my ballsack.

That’s all I’ve got for now. For those of you worried about us missing out on turkey tomorrow…not a chance! We’re going to the local gringo bar where there will be roughly 100 of us giving thanks. I hope my mouth keeps me from my usual Turkey Day chatter!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!