So, I'm guessing that this is going to be my last entry from
within the Galapagos Islands. The next time you hear from this blog, I'll be
back in Guayaquil, in what will either be my second-to-last or possibly last entry before being home. What a
concept, eh? Truth be told, I'm genuinely not sure if I want there to be 75
entries or 76. 75 is a mathematically
pleasant number in many respects, but 76
has the added bonus of also being the number of photo albums I have from the
trip. A coincidence, to be sure, but a fun one. Stay tuned to find out, I
guess? But first, let's look at what just happened in the past few days. There
are wasps, guaranteed!
On Monday, it was back into the breach, although we got off
to a bit of a slow start, mainly because this was the first time that the new
Danish people had to get up for work. So when they were told that we were
having breakfast at 6am, I don't think it was immediately clear that the point
was to be at the table, eating breakfast, at 6am. Instead, people were just
getting out of their rooms, washing up, and then preparing their breakfasts. All the while, I could see the light of
the sun rising in the distance, and I knew it wasn't going to get any cooler
throughout the day. I also knew that my foot was still going to be an issue. It
didn't feel strained, but the big cut-and-bruise on the heel was still too
painful to walk on, and the cuts on my ankle made it a little sensitive to walk, so I was still limping and/or just
walking funny. As such, I decided to hoof it to the top before everyone else
was ready, as I felt I'd be going pretty slowly. And yet, I arrived there
before anyone else, and for the new folks, well before. Not that I'm
complaining; quite the contrary - it allowed me extra hammock time and an ego
boost.
The activity for the day was exclusively mora. (As horrible
as it sounds, every time I mention doing something with mora, I get the urge to
make a "That's a-mora" quip.) We basically had to take some shovels
and dig up what we could find in the area. Most were small, but a couple
singular stalks were as big as, maybe, seven feet long. When we started, it
seemed like a pretty innocuous task, because you literally had to walk from one
plant to the next (which is to say, they were few and far between). However, as
I moved down a bit, I found some areas where you could pretty much see that the
mora was on its way to taking over. In that case, it became almost too much, but hey, at least I was
getting at it. And I was pretty much in my area all by myself; the rest of the group
was up on the top of the hill. It was kinda nice in some regards; I was able to
just be there with my thoughts and let some ideas stew in my heads, somewhat
similar to when I'm in the shower. However, the disadvantage of being by myself
is that when break was called, I was completely unaware until I looked up
several times, realized that nobody was there any of the times, and then decided something was amiss, and so went
up to the hammock area. Sure enough, everyone was lying down, and had
apparently been for 20 minutes. However, I still got a good break out of the
deal, since they all ended up napping for over an hour, about double to normal
break time. For my part, I had 40 minutes of rest, so I can't complain. In any
case, we went back to work, but only did so for an hour or so before heading
back to the Hacienda, where lunch was just waiting for us.
We all planned to head to town at 2pm, so we asked Jose to
call a taxi. He then left, and we just had some time to kill. I decided to
refill my supply of on-the-job snacks, but found that my box of crackers, which
had one-third of its contents left, was gone. I thought maybe it had just
misplaced, but no, it was flat-out gone. Crackers don't just disappear, so I
came to the only reasonable conclusion that, despite it having my mark very
prominently written on it, somebody had stolen my stuff. The question was who. And between the other volunteers,
who each had their own food, and the locals who occasionally came into the house,
the choice seemed pretty clear to me. However, I had no silver-bullet evidence,
so all I could do about the whole thing was just stew in my own indignation.
And then some other problems walked through the door, namely the dogs Ardia and
Capoli. Apparently, someone hadn't closed the doors all the way, and so they
came in and went straight to the kitchen, where they tried getting into the
food waste bin. I tried moving them out, but suddenly they began snarling and
fighting with each other, until Capoli came out on top. I moved Ardia out the
door (which basically involved me pulling - dragging, if you will - him out the
door), and then went back to the kitchen, where I found Capoli eating out of
the basket. Long story short, these dogs were hungry, and I sincerely doubt
they've ever been given any sort of obedience training. The way that most
people get the dogs to go outside (and this seems to apply not just here, but
elsewhere in South America) is to flat-out threaten them. For my part, I tried
moving Capoli the same way I had moved Ardia, but when I put my hands on him,
he turned his head slightly towards me and growled menacingly. At that point, I
put up my hands and gave up. The fact is, these aren't my dogs. This isn't my
home. And if they're going to be in a situation where they come in and eat
discarded food to satiate their appetite, I don't really care. They can do as
they like. I won't let them in, but
I'm not going to force them out, either. Their actual owners can do that.
The taxi ended up coming quite late (so much so that we
thought it hadn't been called). Since it was the full house heading into town,
I decided to hop in the bed of the pickup truck, where Julie and Lina joined
me. While there are the occasional downsides to sitting in the bed (bumpy roads
seeming bumpier, dust, and in this case, some light rain), I really do prefer
it. It's a little thing that just makes the act of riding along seem a lot more
fun. Anyway, we talked on the way there, and then got into town, where we briefly
met up with the Finns, who were literally just standing where we were being
dropped off. (That's the thing about this town, I think; you keep running into
the same people.) However, they headed off to try to get some cash (apparently,
though, nobody could get any cash from any of the ATM's in town for some
reason). The new Danish then went to an Internet cafe, whereas I went to the
regular WiFi cafe. To get my WiFi, I had to order a milkshake (and I have
determined that the amount you get for a regular is not proportionate to the
amount you get in a small, when looking at the price-to-shake ratio. As I was
sitting there, the light rain that we experienced on the ride over picked up a
bit, which I'm sure made everyone planning to go to the beach (namely, all the
Danish), reconsider. Anyway, while I was there, Bronn showed up, and I gave him
the photos from our snorkeling trip, admitting that his were almost universally
better than mine in the water. Anyway, we then all just sat and talk, and used
the WiFi to check email; I posted the prior entry, and tried to get whatever I
could get done, done. Eventually, Lina joined us, feeling she had nothing else
to do, and so we all decided to head to the supermarket. I again wanted to get
some apples to last me the rest of the week, and again they didn't have any. I was beginning to think this
supermarket (the same one that blatantly overcharged me when they had the
opportunity) was pretty crap. In any case, I bought some kiwifruit and some
crackers to replace the ones that had been stolen. The four of us then walked
back to the cafe, stopping along the way for the girls to look at things they
were interested in buying, like snorkel masks and sunscreen.
Oh, and I should note: the price for sunscreen in the
Galapagos. For about 200ml bottles? Depending on the brand, anywhere between
$15 and $23.
Back at the cafe, we chatted a bit more until Bronn had to
leave to try to make his plans for the week at his hostel. I then spoke with
the girls while the sun was setting, about everything from our expectations of
the Galapagos (mine being, similar to many places on this trip, "I didn't
have any; I just came") to our favorite movies (and a side topic about
what a great and dreamy actor Leonardo DiCaprio is). At 6:30, the rest of the
Danes found us (turns out, they'd been waiting on the other side of the street
for a half-hour without seeing us), and we took the first taxi we could catch
back to the Hacienda. Dinner was ready for us almost immediately, and we just
talked more. I know I've been mentioning things like "we talked", but
y'know what, I like talking. Also, it's only in situations like these, when
you're with a group of people who can speak your language (even if it's not
their first), and when you have a lot
of free time, that talking sometimes seems more than right, it seems nearly
obligatory to maintain sanity. So I take advantage of it where I can. That's
not to say we're having hifalutin conversations all the time. Case in point,
after the meal ended, the conversation continued, but it quickly devolved into
a discussion of popular books for the lady folks, which I kept misinterpreting
due to the accents and syntax of the Danish girls (examples: I briefly thought
in Fifty Shades of Grey, they used
whips to sign contracts, and in Twilight,
there were Nazi vampires. Either being true would make me read those books).
There was also a moment where Lina asked me how old I was, and I pulled a trick
I've been meaning to do for a while: I said I was 36. This got a couple
surprised stares, and they said I looked younger. I smiled and said, "How
old do I look?" Lina squinted a bit, and said "30." It was then
that I told her I was actually 26, at which point she got really embarrassed,
and promised that she thought I
looked younger than 30, but didn't want me to be insulted by saying too young.
But more-or-less, that exchange couldn't have gone any better. And then we also
talked about the Spanish language a bit, and I tried to help the folks out with
some vocabulary. If you had told me two months ago that I'd be teaching Danish
people about Spanish, I'd call you a dirty rotten liar. Hell, I'd call you that
a week ago, but here we are. Anyway, that continued until we all decided to get
ready for bed, after which I just relaxed in my room until I couldn't keep my
eyes open.
Complete tangent here, utterly unrelated to the Galapagos or
anything else written in this post: I have an idea for the next time I go on an
out-of-country trip like this, where I'll meet people. I want to create another
alternate identity (different from the ones I already have in use), and then
create a Facebook page for him. However, this FB page would be created "In
Memory" of this person by his/my friends (or else I'd really have to have
it for a couple years beforehand). People would then be posting on the page,
saying things like, "I miss you," or "Condolences to the family
of Steve (or whatever the name is)." When I'd travel places, I'd use this
name when I met people, and then I'd be as good a person as possible. Being
nice, trying to help them where possible, and even giving life advice. If
they'd ask me how old I was, I'd answer in a way like, "Last time I
checked, 26." Then, if people wanted to get in touch, I'd just say to find
me on Facebook, where they'd go and see the profile of someone who has
apparently been dead for two-plus years. And maybe they'll have a Touched by an Angel-style epiphany.
(References to saccharine early 90's TV shows? You get what you pay for,
folks.) I dunno, I think it'd be an interesting experiment. It'd be even better
if I could rig it so I didn't appear in their photographs, but that may take
some doin'.
Anyway, tangent aside. I woke up on Tuesday at a relatively
late time, 6:10. I had almost eight hours of sleep, and yet for some reason I
felt incredibly tired. I then felt incredibly annoyed when I saw that my big
box of cereal, with my could-not-be-more-prominent mark all over it, sitting on
the table for everyone to eat. I then felt incredibly angry when I found that a significant portion of it had already
been eaten. Again, I knew this wasn't the volunteers, so there was someone in
the Hacienda just taking my stuff. And then when I checked the fridge, my milk
was gone, too! When Julie was throwing something away, she found the milk
carton in the trash. I showed it to Jose and complained about the fact that all
of my very-much marked food was being taken. He seemed a little confused at the
situation. And I should note, all this stuff I've lost is just a total of a few
dollars, but dammit, it's the principle
of the matter. We were asked not to leave food in our rooms. We were asked to
mark in and leave it in the kitchen to be safe. Safe, forsooth!
Anyway, after eating my toast and breakfast sandwich with a
side of sour grapes, we all got ready for work, and then walked down the street
for maybe about a mile or so (since we didn't have to go up the hill, we were
able to start the day a tad later). At one point, we turned from the road into
some veritable jungle terrain, and it almost seemed as though we were walking
into the Amazon for a few minutes. However, this eventually opened up into what
seemed like a piece of farming land. In fact, it was a piece of farming land, owned by the Hacienda, in the sense
that Hacienda Esperanza is actually a collective of farmers over a wider area,
not just the volunteer house. However, the place wasn't filled with fresh
fruits and vegetables, ripe for the plucking; apparently, some other group of
volunteers benefited from that at a different point in the year. Instead, there
were a few patches of otoy (including one large patch that seemed ready for
harvest), and a lot of dead leaves and branches scattered across the ground.
Our first activity of the day was simple: clean up. For the most part, this
just involved us moving branches and stuff to a couple of big piles. It didn't
take long to realize, though, that some of these branches were still connected
to trees, and even when not, could be considered trees in and of themselves. We
only had one pathetic little machete to start out with - which Jose was using
to mostly cut down some banana trees at the fringes of the land - but another
one was eventually brought. And it may have been only one more, but it was the
right one; the same one I've been using whenever I can, which I nicknamed
"The Scimitar". Once we got this, the two Danish guys took turns
hacking away at the problem areas. I was giving them advice about good machete
technique (cut at an angle, not straight down, etc.), but eventually, they took
a break, and gave me the machete. Funnily enough, I hit the branch hard enough
(and, against my own advice, straight down) that people literally thought there
was a gunshot. It also split through the remainder of the wood, though since it
was two-thirds down anyway, I wasn't terribly impressed. In any case, moving
the branches and stuff was dirty, sweaty work.
We took a break, though this time it was only Jose who took
a nap. The rest of us were just sitting there until he got back up. They then
asked me to ask Jose what the second task for the day was, since it seemed like
we were finished with what we had to do. Going back to the whole me-being-the-expert-in-Spanish thing, it's kind of
humorous to see that I'm the translator of the group, going between them and
Jose. Do I deserve such a position? Hell, no, but I'm doing the best I can at
it, which seems to be good enough so far. Anyway, the second job was to
continue cleaning the place up, but also to cut down the large patch of otoy to
feed to the tortoises, presumably the next day. Since I was the first person up
from the break, I grabbed The Scimitar and began work at the otoy. I have to
say, cutting a fairly watery plant, such as a banana tree or, in this case,
otoy, is incredibly satisfying. There's a little
bit of resistance, but just enough to let you know you've hit something.
Otherwise, you just slice right through. And if you go fast enough, there is an
ever-so-slight delay between when your blade crosses through and when gravity
finally pulls the upper part of the plant down. You kinda feel like a samurai,
only with a much less impressive sword. But yeah, really fun, so I didn't mind
going through the whole patch and cutting it down. This was moved into a big
pile (by which I mean a really big
pile) for the tortoises, and then there was yet more cleanup to be done. First,
there were some young avocado and banana trees that had to be taken down, and
then we had to clear out the mound that the otoy was growing on. I don't know
anything about otoy, really, but it seems as though it likes to grow in the
mulch of other plants. Because underneath the roots of this stuff (little of
which I included in the pile for the tortoises, because I didn't want to have
to carry that weight) was just various old dead trees in various states of
decay. But any sort of big pieces of wood were thrown out (often in multiple
pieces, as they kept breaking apart whenever we tried applying momentum), and
then the rest was raked up using these absolutely pathetic homemade rakes
(whose tines were made up of small pieces of rebar that bent if you ever hit
anything except for exactly head-on). Twice I saw a rat scamper out of the
mulch pile, and I briefly considered trying to chase it and kill it with my
rake, which I quickly deduced that, were it even possible, would be more of a
symbolic gesture than anything, because even though rats are an invasive
species to the Galapagos, really, you can't get rid of them, especially just by
killing two random ones.
Before long, Jose told us that we were finished. It seemed a
little early to me, but I didn't care. We walked back to the Hacienda, where I
took a quick shower with my clothes (though not wearing them), to get the dirt
and sweat off of them. I wanted to use the shirt at least once more and the
pants until I was finished at the Hacienda, so while I didn't care if they were
pretty, I didn't want them feeling gross,
y'know? Anyway, after I came out of the shower and hung up my clothes, I found
that not only had lunch already been served, but pretty much everyone was
finished eating theirs. I quickly ate mine, and found that half of the group
was heading to town. I had no reason to go myself, so I stayed home with
Elizabeth and Lina, who I had a lovely discussion with over some hot cups of
tea. Elizabeth, in particular, had a honey-chamomile tea that I immediately
vowed to mooch off of her before the trip was done. Unfortunately, while we
were talking, we could hear the rain begin to come down, alternating between
soft, hard, and off for quite a while. Obviously, this didn't bode well for my
clothing hanging on the laundry line. Well, they weren't going to get any wetter than they were before, but they
definitely wouldn't get drier, either. I then went into my room, and did some
writing for a while, before reading a bit. I suddenly realized that I was
likely not going to be able to finish The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo before my time here was over (unless I really blasted through), but hey,
reading isn't about speed, it's about enjoyment, right? ...Am I right, folks?
...Fine, I'll just go into the corner and use my slow eyes to cry a bit.
Anyway, after I saw the other two get up from their sleep, I
decided to join them in another conversation over tea. This time we were
drinking a cherry tea that was available in the Hacienda, which I swear was
nothing more than food coloring, because despite the fact that it had several
dehydrated plants in its ingredients (none of which were cherry, by the way),
it tasted nothing like cherry. In fact, it tasted of nothing at all. While we
were drinking down the colored hot water, I showed them how I was able to make
an origami t-shirt of the tea bag packet, like I learned on the Inca Trail
(though not nearly of the same quality). I also mentioned my time in magic
school when I was younger, which always seems to be a punchline with everyone.
Still, I also taught them how to do my favorite magic trick, and then taught
them how to shuffle a deck of cards properly (they had a long way to go). Jose then asked us if we wanted dinner then, or if
we'd wait for the others. We said we'd wait, but he served us then anyway. It
made little difference in the end, since the others showed up within a few
minutes, and we continued eating and talking. My favorite topics of discussion
for this were free refills, and trying to explain why the secret menu at
In-n-Out is secret (I don't know, but I just said it was tradition). We
continued like this until everyone prepped themselves for bed.
I had another fairly odd dream that night, though I really
doubt that this one has any real significance, because it mostly just revolved
around some things that have been in my mind for one reason or another. I'll
try to mention where I think certain elements came from. First off, I don't
remember the first part of my dream, but the real meat and potatoes came in
when I was discussing Magic: the
Gathering cards with people [I had taught Elizabeth and Lina a magic card
trick, and that made me think of playing Magic before going to bed]. Because
the people I was explaining to didn't understand, I decided to take them into a
real battle, completely unrelated to
the game. I brought up a user interface that would allow them to select the
time period and battle they wanted [no particular influence I can think of, but
it seemed very video game-y], and they ended up choosing a naval battle [like
in that new 300 movie I saw in Lima]
where one of the sides was led by a witch doctor general [no clue]. However,
everything went downhill quickly, and the simulation became real, which started
destroying things [that hypothetical tsunami?]. People started losing their
homes and their jobs, including the NYFD who was helping to fight [back when
conspiracy theories were mentioned the other weekend, the NYFD was brought up
in regards to 9-11]. I and all the other people fighting were just in rafts and
kayaks [both of which I had done relatively recently], but were terrible for
fighting full-on witch doctor war ships. Also, my camera got totally wet in the
ocean [I suppose this is just a general concern I have]. In order to help the
homeless, McDonald's began giving them free food and jobs [we were talking
about McDonald's during dinner] and Bronn [a person I'd been speaking with a
bit in the last week] was noting how McDonald's only does this kind of things
in times of crisis; an oddly specific bit of cynicism, to be sure. And that's
all that I can remember happening, because then my alarm went off.
We didn't know when we were supposed to wake up the next
morning, so I just set my alarm for 5:30. Turns out, this was exactly the right
decision, because when I woke up, I could hear Jose just getting in to cook
breakfast. It was a pretty standard fare of the sandwich, eggs, and some fried
yucca, which I had never tried before, but heard people praising. However, it
was just okay in my assessment; hot
sauce was definitely needed. As for everyone else, the waking up process seemed
a bit slow, as some people hadn't even set their alarms. Additionally,
Sebastian wasn't even going to be working with us, as he was heading off later
to go diving. So the first bunch of us that were ready went up, and was
rewarded by having an extra-long post-walk rest in the hammocks, under the
gray, gray sky. It was such a gray and gloomy day that I had brought my poncho
with me in case it rained (and also because I thought we'd be moving otoy; I
could use it to hold stuff without getting quite so messy). Once the rest of
the people came up, though, the machetes came out, and it was revealed that
there wasn't any otoy feeding that day; instead, it would be us cutting down
guava younglings. For some reason, Jose was able to talk me into using a
different machete than normal, as it was bigger and (according to him) more
powerful. This proved a mistake, because everything took me twice as many cuts
as it should have. Anyway, I worked my way down the slope where we bring up the
otoy, and I find myself cutting down everything from tiny saplings to
medium-sized trees about seven feet tall (as long as they didn't have really
thick branches, they were fair game).
And then at one point, I bothered a wasp nest.
Now, I'm no expert on the subject, so I can't say if they
were wasps or hornets or yellow jackets or whatever. Hell, it wasn't even sure
it was anything like that when it started; it could have just been a bunch of
flying beetles or something. But basically, I chopped down a branch of this one
medium-sized tree, and suddenly I see...no, I don't see anything. I just hear a
very audible bzzzzz-ing sound
approaching my face in half a second. Then I feel them on my face and
instinctively, with little care for grace or decor, drop my machete and run
back into the open, shaking like a dog trying to dry off. The sound was gone
almost immediately, but I could feel some sharp pains on my upper arm and on my
chest (both under my shirt, mind you). When I looked, I had indeed been
bitten/stung by something, and it was definitely painful, so much so that it
was giving me the pain shudders. Amazingly, while it seemed like I was stung
several times on my body, I didn't get stung at all on the face where I felt a
whole bunch of them go. So thank God for small blessings, eh? (Also, better me
than anyone else getting attacked; I worry to think how some of the others may
have reacted.) Now, I've never been stung by any bee or wasp or anything
before, so I didn't know if I was allergic. My desire to observe, as well as
the pain still in those spots meant it was a good time for an impromptu break.
Julie was with me, so we sat and talked until the pain subsided into a kind of
dull ache (the stings themselves, though, swelled up a tad before shrinking
back down later in the day). We then got to carry some of the guava branches up
the hill with us, but before that, I went back to the spot of destiny and, sure
enough, there was a wasp hive sitting in one of the unbroken branches, with a
good two-dozen wasps crawling over it. Again, small blessings, as I think they
were just giving me the warning shot. Had I actually knocked down the hive, my
fingers might have been too swollen for me to type.
However, while I still had a dull pain for the next couple
hours, the wasps weren't the most annoying part of that day's job. No, that
distinction would go to the kids. You might remember what I mentioned an entry
or so ago; it was that the other thirteen girls traveling with the Danish
quartet were doing some different volunteer work, with school kids. Now, when
you hear this, I think that everyone assumes you're going to be working with
underprivileged kids who just need a leg up in life. Orphans, maybe. But no, it
turns out that they'd be working with kids that are quite privileged; possibly
the richest kids on the island. And brats, too. Apparently, they only had to
work with these kids three hours a day (9am-noon) and they all hated it. We got
a small taste of this. So, when we were on our break, Elizabeth noted that she
saw somebody she recognized from her group at the hill's drop-off, and so she
and Lina got up to walk to them to say hello. However, shortly afterward, about
twenty-five kids in that horrible tween
age (10-12) also came up over the hill, and before long, raced to the hammocks.
They literally just pushed off any stuff that was on them, and just lay down.
"What is your name!" one particularly obnoxious one said in a way
that was completely non-inquisitive and purely mocking in nature. I only
offered them a death glare in return. Had we not needed those hammocks ourselves,
I would have loved to have used my machete to chop off one of the supports.
However, I wasn't the only one with a machete on my mind. A couple of the
annoying boys seemed fascinated by them, and one of them flat-out put on
Elizabeth's gloves while she was gone and started swinging her machete to the
ground. I initially thought to tell him not to touch it, but I instead decided
to wait and see if he'd teach himself a safety lesson. Unfortunately, he
remained intact when they were all called to do some work, and actually had the
audacity to try to take the machete with him. "Hey! Caída la
machete!" I screamed at him. ("Hey, drop the machete!") He and
his couple of friends looked back and seemed to get scared that a)
I was yelling at them, and that b) I could speak Spanish, and could
thus understand most of what they were saying when they were near me. The kid
quickly dropped the machete. "Y los guantes también!" I yelled with
as much ferocity as before. He quickly tore off the gloves and hurried off. I
wasn't willing to put up with this little brat's BS, I tell ya what. The other
volunteers, who found the kids just as annoying as I did, nodded at me in
approval.
We were all genuinely worried that Jose would have us
working with the kids, in which case I just would have refused and/or pushed on
of the more pestilent ones into the wasp nest. But it turned out that they
would be working with mora - and only ended up working about twenty minutes -
whereas the rest of us went back to work clearing guava on the hillside. This
continued for about an hour before we were finished for the day. No more pests
(or wasps) to bother me, and the sun finally decided to come out. But pretty
much right when we were finished, we began walking down to the Hacienda. There,
we had a pasta for lunch that included at least three different animals in it
for meat (hot dogs, chicken pieces, and beef bones), and dealt with the hungry
dogs and cats (well, I didn't; I was
well over that). I then showered, finding it almost sad that one of the two
kinda-big (three-inch) spiders that shared the bathroom was dead and half
sticking out of the drain. Afterward, I just went into my room to do some
writing and relaxing. And then I went outside to read more of my book. And then
I went back to my room to read more of my book. (I got a lot of reading done.)
By the time I was finished, it was time for dinner, and the topics of
conversation this time ranged from the books we were reading to commercial
jingles (to which I contributed the Mentos theme). I then managed to bum a pack
of that honey chamomile tea from Elizabeth, and it was as good as it sounded.
We also discussed what would be happening next week; I'd be leaving on
Saturday, so if any of the new people - assuming there were new people - didn't
know Spanish, all these Danes were out of luck. And then, as Sebastian used my
laptop to sort through his legitimately cool diving photos of a shipwreck
(which he'll also be out of luck on once I leave), the rest of us just read or
wrote. It was one of those weird situations that I don't quite get when it comes to social interaction:
we were all there, sitting around a table, completely engaged in our own thing,
not talking or even acknowledging each other. And yet, it felt as though if any
of us were to go to our rooms to do the exact same thing with the exact same
level of interaction, it'd seem anti-social. I dunno, that kind of thing always
struck me as odd. However, I got to the end of a major section in my book, so I
got up to brush my teeth, which seemed to trigger the exodus of everyone else
to their rooms to prepare for sleep.
And I did so myself, to relax and write a bit more. I
wonder, now that I'm on my, what, second- or third-to-last entry that I'll make
while the trip is still going on, if this is exactly what I was originally
planning. Just having enough free time that I could write almost each day
(which I've been very good about here). And in this little fantasy world, would
I have actually made posts daily or so, at least insomuch as to use that third
digit in my entry numberings? That was probably the dream, but unless I
literally post about four times a day from here on out, I think I'll just have
to be satisfied with what I got.
...I'm not going to post four times a day, folks.
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