Jesse came out to Palau for the entirety of his winter break. Because he was my first visitor, I wanted to make everything about his trip absolutely perfect. So I planned the details of his scuba certification, stocked up on foods he likes, baked up Christmas cookies and decorated my apartment, and made plans for all the fun activities Palau has to offer. But his visit turned out to be a great example of life in Palau--breathtaking and beautiful one moment, and a huge challenge the next. He eventually made it back to Chicago in one piece, and I'm crossing my fingers that he'll be back again!
Here's the break-down of his visit, Eastwood-style:
GOOD!
Rainbows!
Jesse woke up on his first morning in Palau to an absolutely perfect rainbow sitting right outside my apartment!
Christmas!
We had a fantastic Christmas Eve together. We talked to our families over skype, opened some presents, and my personal favorite, listened to my family's recitation of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. It may or may not have made me cry.
And, despite the letdown, we received some great gear for watching the Rose Bowl!
And for dinner we went to PPR, and enjoyed a ridiculously huge buffet dinner oceanside.
Scuba and Snorkeling!
Jesse got scuba certified during his first week here, completing multiple open water dives, and fending off sea creatures with aplomb (see "UGLY" below). Also, having fallen in love with the beautiful beach at PPR, Jesse and I spent a lot of time exploring the coral, chasing the fish, and floating in the calm and warm Pacific. We spent many evenings with sunsets like this...
Not too shabby, right?
Island Food!
Of course, a visit to a tropical island would be incomplete without lots of seafood and tropical fruits. To put it lightly, Jesse consumed many, many coconuts. He added shredded coconut to his cereal, ate coconut cookies, made sandwiches with coconut jam, drank coconut water, and of course, cracked into at least three coconuts with a hammer and knife, drinking the water and spooning out the meat.
I know what you're thinking. This, PLUS getting to hang out with me?!? That just sounds too good to be true. You're absolutely right...
BAD
Longest trip EVER.
It took him 55 hours to get here from Chicago, involving a 14-hour flight, an overnight stay in Japan, and 8 hours to kill in Guam. The Guam airport is basically a long hallway with a few overpriced boutiques. I'm not sure how he did it without going insane.
Hospital field trip.
Palau is beautiful and remote, meaning sometimes the water isn't safe and the restaurant standards aren't as high as in the U.S. Translation? Jesse and I spent Christmas day in the hospital after he was struck down with a mean bout of food poisoning (see GOOD! above). I guess we were just having too much fun! Fortunately for everyone reading this, I don't have any pictures of our 12 hour experience at the hospital. Suffice it to say that Jesse's an adaptable guy and I will be learning how to insert an IV properly before we travel to India in a few months. The silver lining of his being couch-bound the next 3-4 days was that we watched the entire HBO series Pacific and several of the Christmas movies my family sent.
Bumpy roads.
Speaking of beautiful and remote, once Jesse was up and running again, we decided to take Homer (my Honda Odyssey) up to Babeldaob, Palau's biggest island. With a full tank of gas and a map, we set out to see the capital, stone monoliths, and North Beach. But apparently having a map and reading it are two different things, because we ended up off the main road and on a rocky, stony, hilly, and broken down road for about two hours. Robert Frost doesn't know what he's talking about. Or he just hasn't been off the compact road in Palau in my car. We eventually made our way to the main road, but not before losing the power steering, damaging the brakes, and getting caught in the mud.
UGLY!
Remora'd.
I mentioned earlier that Jesse got scuba certified. Before he headed out, we chatted a little about the diving experience here. I told him that from everything that I've experienced and heard, all the fish just ignore you and swim on by. It's like they know they're a part of a show for you to sit back and enjoy. Being the novice that I am, of course I hadn't a clue about remoras. To those of you who haven't been attacked by a remora, these guys are the fish that attach themselves to sharks for feeding. They look like a two-foot long shark, but instead of a dorsal fin, they have a suction.
Gross.
Well, during Jesse's last open water dive, apparently he resembled a shark because a remora swam up his diving vest and tried to attach itself to him. He successfully pulled it out of his vest, but the remora, not to be deterred, immediately swam up his shorts! Thankfully his instructor noticed, came over, and swatted it away before it could attach itself. I could devote an entire blog post to all the jokes I could tell about his close encounter...
Bananagrams.
Jesse cheats. I'm a sore loser. I'm pretty sure our "discussions" during our games ruined some sunbathers' afternoons at PPR. It wasn't pretty.
Shockingly enough, despite the Bad and the Ugly, Jesse was still smiling the day he left!
My little brother Tom is coming in town this weekend. Although everything that could go wrong didn't go wrong, I'm prepared with plenty of clean water, gatorade, rice, and saltines. Not so sure about what to do about remoras though...
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