My Honeymoon – October 24

Let’s start this off with a little status quo update: I was just beautifully, post-modernly lounging in a hammock, typing away. I actually felt a bit like Hemingway – so much so that I even asked Cory to take a picture of the beautiful moment, but before it could happen – EFFF FIRE ANTS EVERYWHERE!!! The things were crawling out of my keyboard attacking me. There’s another one walking across my screen! They sting and are impossible to kill. 80% DEET bug spray doesn’t even kill them on the spot.

So now I’m huddle on top of table, drenched in but spray and praying that the lizard on the ceiling doesn’t fall on my head. Ceiling…of course…being a euphemism for tin roof being held up by four corner stilts. I don’t know which qualifies more for a ceiling – this one or the one to my “room” which also serves as the walls. Okay now my whole hands itch and it looks like all the fire ants disappeared – so they obviously just showed up because I was there.

Not the first thing something like that has happened today.

Cory and I went “trekking” on an island and as I was screaming about being bitten by mosquitoes the whole way he said he had no idea what I was complaining about. The second we saw water, I threw off my shoes and went diving in to get all the bugs off of me and to maybe, hopefully ease the itching. This was when Cory actually took the time to notice how eaten my whole body was. Thanks dear. Thanks for caring earlier.

Back to chronology…this morning…we woke up. After I spent all night awake with diarrhea. Godd am I loving these foreign countries. (Before this trip, I honestly, honestly thought I had a strong stomach.)

Then we got breakfast and they added chocolate syrup to my pancakes even though I asked them not too. I really don’t like sugar in the morning so this made me unhappy.

Then we found out that the only ATM on this island is in a town 8km away. …so our brilliant idea was to rent a motorbike to drive over to it. This would not have been such a bad idea except that Cory doesn’t know me that well. So … he thought I was a good driver. [Caveat: No, I’ve never been in an accident, but I warn every single person when they get in my car that I’m not a good driver. I make no attempt to hide the obviously true fact.] So Cory thought I would be a better driver than him, so really awkwardly in front of the man that was probing us about our experience on motorbikes (none, except for the time one ran me over – I think that’s the closest I’ve ever been to one) – Cory insisted that I drive and he hop on the back.

About 200m down the road the man drove up along side us and told us to pull over and bring the motorbike back, they could not rent to us. I managed to cover up the absolutely terrible driving by joking that I’m simply used to driving on the right hand side of the road. But all the same, they gave us our deposit back and we sulked away in shame.

So then we decided to do something that seemed a bit more dummy-friendly. I mean…there was a five year old doing it. We decided to go snorkeling.

Hence the title of the blog – all I’ve ever really heard about snorkeling was how my parents did it during their honeymoon and while my mother was puking at the surface, my dad was screaming about how awesome the fish were that were attracted to her vomit, completely oblivious of his new bride’s pain and plans for immediate divorce.

Cory did a bit better. But then we had an argument about whether or children would go to private day schools or boarding schools…so it was basically the same thing.

All I’ve got to say about snorkeling is…Mom, you missed out. It was absolutely amazing. I have recently been obsessed with watching Blue Planet on the SAS TV – and this was so much better. The fish were right in front of my face, absolutely surrounding me. It was ridiculous. Insane. I wish I took the SATs because then I would probably have fabulous words with which to describe this experience…but all I’ve got is awesome.

So I have now given up on my goals of learning Hindi and being in the CIA – now I want to become a full-time scuba diver/instructor and maybe even make my own documentary about fish. Or just run away and find Nemo. Something like that.