Happy New Year!! I got back from the Maldives a week ago, and I’m slowly returning back to normal. I did five loads of laundry, a load of dishes, and some grocery shopping. I washed and rinsed my dive gear (and showered at the gym, as my bathtub is full to the brim with gear that is slowly but surely drying out again). I sorted through pictures and posted them (have you seen them?) before sending out an update email (did you get it?). I went through my inbox and started chipping away at the backlog. I watched multiple episodes of a few shows and did some big downloads to get caught up on TV. I got my dog back and reminded him what life with rules and dietary restrictions is like (he spent much of break with a friend who is the closest thing to a fairy godmother he’s ever had). I came into work. I started getting back onto local time (the Maldives are only four hours ahead, but add that to the fact that we were woken up at 6 a.m. and went to bed between 9 and 10 p.m., and that’s a pretty serious change in schedule).
The trip to the Maldives was a very different way to spend Christmas and New Year’s than I am accustomed to. For me, Christmas has always meant spending time with my immediate family (except for the one year when I was working at a big firm, and I spent Christmas miserably sick in my apartment, and doing a fund review). New Year’s has been less consistent, but has always been spent somewhere cold, either hanging out with my sister, visiting my parents’ friends, or with going out with friends. I’ve never spent it (or any other major holiday, come to think of it) on a dive boat near the equator.
The diving was good, but the weather was not 100% cooperative – it was warm, but the sun seemed to have forgotten that it is more visible when it’s not hiding behind the clouds. It made things a bit dimmer down below, but we still saw some amazing stuff: more sharks than I can count, half a dozen giant mantas, ten schooling mantas, eagle rays, stingrays (and no, none of them tried to stab me), big Napoleon wrasses, and every other kind of fish most people never knew existed. The current was strong, at times, alternately forcing us to hang on to rocks for dear life, if we were trying to stay in one place, or pushing us along at speeds that Olympic swimmers would never even dare to dream of, if we just let go. In those moments, we were like bubbling, underwater superheroes, zooming over the reef.
The Maldives import most goods besides coconuts and fish, as they don’t have a lot of land or natural resources (I read somewhere that the average height above sea level for the entire country is about one meter). With those restrictions in place, it meant that our on-board menu was somewhat limited, and we ate fish in every shape and guise imaginable. It became something of a running joke, when lunch or dinner was served, to point and ask what each dish was: “What’s that?” “Fish.” “And that?” “Also fish.” “Is this one chicken?” “Fried fish.”
We visited a few islands while we were touring around various atolls. For some reason that I still haven’t figured out, there are no cats or dogs in the Maldives, at least not on the islands that we saw. Most of the islands or tropical places I’ve been have had a range of domestic and feral cats and dogs, but not the Maldives. Maybe all their pets got sick of eating fish and coconuts all day.
Now that I’m back on land (with my dog), I’m settling back into Swiss life. A few friends and I are heading to London this weekend to see other friends, have a few good meals, and see a few things around the city, and we’re also having initial planning talks for a shopping trip to hit the winter sales in Milan later this month. Only in Europe…
The trip to the Maldives was a very different way to spend Christmas and New Year’s than I am accustomed to. For me, Christmas has always meant spending time with my immediate family (except for the one year when I was working at a big firm, and I spent Christmas miserably sick in my apartment, and doing a fund review). New Year’s has been less consistent, but has always been spent somewhere cold, either hanging out with my sister, visiting my parents’ friends, or with going out with friends. I’ve never spent it (or any other major holiday, come to think of it) on a dive boat near the equator.
The diving was good, but the weather was not 100% cooperative – it was warm, but the sun seemed to have forgotten that it is more visible when it’s not hiding behind the clouds. It made things a bit dimmer down below, but we still saw some amazing stuff: more sharks than I can count, half a dozen giant mantas, ten schooling mantas, eagle rays, stingrays (and no, none of them tried to stab me), big Napoleon wrasses, and every other kind of fish most people never knew existed. The current was strong, at times, alternately forcing us to hang on to rocks for dear life, if we were trying to stay in one place, or pushing us along at speeds that Olympic swimmers would never even dare to dream of, if we just let go. In those moments, we were like bubbling, underwater superheroes, zooming over the reef.
The Maldives import most goods besides coconuts and fish, as they don’t have a lot of land or natural resources (I read somewhere that the average height above sea level for the entire country is about one meter). With those restrictions in place, it meant that our on-board menu was somewhat limited, and we ate fish in every shape and guise imaginable. It became something of a running joke, when lunch or dinner was served, to point and ask what each dish was: “What’s that?” “Fish.” “And that?” “Also fish.” “Is this one chicken?” “Fried fish.”
We visited a few islands while we were touring around various atolls. For some reason that I still haven’t figured out, there are no cats or dogs in the Maldives, at least not on the islands that we saw. Most of the islands or tropical places I’ve been have had a range of domestic and feral cats and dogs, but not the Maldives. Maybe all their pets got sick of eating fish and coconuts all day.
Now that I’m back on land (with my dog), I’m settling back into Swiss life. A few friends and I are heading to London this weekend to see other friends, have a few good meals, and see a few things around the city, and we’re also having initial planning talks for a shopping trip to hit the winter sales in Milan later this month. Only in Europe…
No comments:
Post a Comment