Tea Time

The other day, as I sipped some tasty coffee purchased in Haiti, I thought, I should write a few posts devoted to the best drinks I've had while traveling. Here's the first.



At home, I almost never drink tea with milk.  It seems like any time I add milk, I dilute the tea too much and ruin the taste.  But Chloe knew exactly the ratio of milk to water that would make the perfect cup.  Her husband, Dave, had a pretty good knack for it too.  The three of us would reconvene at their London flat every evening during the week that I was there—Dave and Chloe coming from work or acting class or hockey practice, and I from sightseeing—and I could usually count on one of them offering me a cup of tea.  And it was always delicious.  Maybe they just knew how to pour it.  Or maybe it had something to do with the milk, or the tea itself.  The British do have centuries of experience buying tea, after all. (Chloe is from South Africa, but she’s a UK citizen now, so I can refer to her as British.)

During that leg of my trip—from London to Dublin to Belfast to Edinburgh—I was a devoted tea drinker.  Everywhere I had it, whether it was at a café, a restaurant, Dave and Chloe’s flat, or my friend Stew’s apartment in Dublin, it was light brown and milky and flavorful.  When I’m at home, I trade off pretty regularly between coffee and tea.  Both drinks have their charms for me.  But after those two weeks in the UK and Ireland, I was ready to commit to tea full-time.  That is, until I got to Spain.

The Eye

The view from Trafalgar Square

In regards to summer

I've found this handy little widget that will give shivering souls such as myself hope.
Enjoy.

Beard Update

I just realized that I never posted an update about my facial hair.  So here it is.

I ended up paying my friend 50 bucks a few days after that previous post last month.  I was sick of the beard after letting it grow for nearly four weeks, and the girl I had just started dating was sick of it after about four hours.  I'm just not a long-beard kind of guy.  Anything over about 10 days is pushing it for me.

I don't regret giving up on the bet (Though I am still working on bulking up, and I'm about four or five pounds from my goal weight.  My friend and I are in the gym a few days a week.), but I do regret buying shampoo for my beard.  Now I've got a whole bottle of Head and Shoulders and nothing to use it on.

Is it summer yet?

Until about a week ago, we had had a relatively dry fall and winter here in Western Washington.  Now, the rain has come back and begun making up for lost time.  Today at work I mentioned that I couldn’t wait until it was summer.  One of my coworkers responded by saying that because we live in this terrible, dreary, gray, soggy climate (my description), it makes our vacation time more special.  We get to go away to warm, sunny places during our time off, and therefore we really appreciate those nice places and our time off. 

That may be true, but I’d also like to be able to appreciate the place where I live.  And yes, I could just suck it up and look on the bright side, see the glass as half full, etc., etc., and be thankful that I don’t live in Siberia or something.  Or I could save up some money and, instead of just traveling temporarily to a nice place, maybe try living there.  Yeah, maybe do that.  Or just spend more time traveling.  We’ll see.

By the Hair of My Chinny-chin-chin

A friend recently advised me that, if I’m having trouble blogging as often as I’d like to, I should try to focus my blog on something I do daily or almost daily.  I thought about it, and something that popped into my head was weightlifting.  Working out has become so much a part of my life that I’m sore nearly every day.  And I like it.  What I don't like is how long it takes to see results.  So now and then I've devised schemes to motivate me to work harder. 

I blogged a few months ago about trying to gain a few pounds by weightlifting.  I came within three pounds of meeting my goal.  That was in the summer.  Then, during the fall, I took about three and a half weeks off from the gym due to travel and a little bit of illness (related to the travel), and lost a lot of my gains.  Then, just before Thanksgiving, I made a little wager with my workout buddy.  One that I’ll probably lose because, just like before, I was a little too ambitious when I made it. 

The deal is, I’m not allowed to shave my face until I gain 10 pounds, beginning with the weight I was at when the bet started.  If I shave before I hit that mark, I owe my buddy $50.  It’s been nearly four weeks and I’m pretty sick of this beard.  It’s more physically irritating than I’d expected, and it cramps the style with the ladies.  I prefer my good old five-day shadow. (It’s a little longer than a 5 o’clock shadow, and it’s sort of my “look.”) Added to that, I’m having more trouble gaining weight than I’d expected. 

I thought that, because I was just getting over being sick, I’d be able to pack on the first few pounds easily.  That hasn’t been the case.  My body still won’t let me gain fat.  It’ll let me gain muscle, but that process is incredibly slow.  While the amount I’m able to lift at the gym has been steadily increasing, my body weight has only gone up a couple of pounds. I may have to accept two things: defeat on the bet, and the reality that meeting my goals will take a lot more time and effort. 

I’ll give the beard another week or so before I make my final decision on whether to keep it.  But as for the present moment, I’m going to eat a sandwich. 

Dominican Kids

I don't consider myself to be good with kids.  I don't usually know what to do with those little things most of the time.  With babies, I'm afraid I'll drop them and they'll shatter like a ceramic cat.  Grade-schoolers run around and wipe snot on me and jump on my back for piggy-back rides and scream and annoy the piss out of me.  Sometimes.

But for some reason, maybe because I'm calm, kids seem to like me.  So do animals.  Maybe I appear stable because I don't seem to vacillate between happy, sad, angry, etc.  Maybe they dig the even keel thing and feel safe with me.  You hear that, ladies?  Or maybe they see that I'm actually kind of a pushover, and I'll let them get away with crap without getting upset or punishing them.  Who knows?

Whatever the case, kids seem to like me more than I like them.  Although some of them can be cool.  And maybe if I have some of my own someday I'll warm up to the little buggers a bit more.

That being said, I did enjoy getting to meet the girl I sponsor in the Dominican Republic.  She was shy and calm, and probably a little awkward, so I could identify with her.  She wasn't annoying.  But she was extremely quiet and I wasn't sure what to say to get a timid 8-year-old talking, so she mostly just held my hand as we walked through her village.

A lot of the kids in the Dominican Republic seemed to love holding hands with white folks.  We would go to the schools run by the organization I work for, and kids would flock to our van and claim us as we got out.  "Este es MI Americano!" (This is MY American!) they would shout, if they were the first to grab one of us.  They would push the other kids away.

But Perla, the girl I sponsor, wasn't like that.  She was calm, not pushy.  Maybe she was too timid or unsure of herself to get into the scrum.  Or maybe she's just got a good, even-keel sort of personality.  I like people who can be quiet; extroverts talk too much and don't listen enough.  But then again, I'm biased.  Whatever the case is with Perla, she seems like a sweet girl and I'm glad to help her out.

Swarming around the "Americana."

Basquetbol

Perla, just chillin'

Interviewing Cristian, another calm kid.

Whatchoo lookin' at?

TMI Update

Update on the last post:  She never called, so she's obviously too inconsiderate for me.  Moving on.  Maybe I'll post some travel photos to cheer myself up.