Wow, sorry to be so silent. Both of us have been really laid up the last week or so with what they call the Caracas crud. I'll spare you the details of how fun it has been, but suffice it to say it could also be known as The Revenge of Caracas, "turista" and a number of other names. Not fun. On top of that, I seem to have gotten H1N1 or some variety of influenza last week. On Friday I got a nasty cough which developed into something that sounded like pneumonia and I had a terrible fever Saturday and Sunday. It has been absolutely miserable, but I'm happy to say that I'm on the mend. Hopefully by the end of this week, I should be back at 100%.
A lot has happened here since we first wrote upon arrival, but I am going to try and keep this as concise as possible so that I don't bore you. I am currently not working, so until I find a position, I will try to keep the blog up to date on a pretty regular basis. Some of you probably noticed Brian's wonderful handiwork at the top of the blog. Don't you love it? I do!!! We (he) added clocks for Venezuela, MN and DC so it's easier to keep track. You guys all went off of daylight savings, but we stayed the same, so now we're 1 1/2 hours ahead of MN and 30 minutes ahead of DC....weird.
Since we last wrote I think one of our biggest highlights in Caracas has been Chacao market. The past two weekends we have gotten up early to go to Chacao market with friends and buy fresh produce, chicken and some things that can be difficult to find at the regular supermarket here. It is a fantastic experience. If you have ever been to a Latin American market, this one is probably pretty similar...lots of smells, easily overwhelming with lots of vendors in your face right away trying to sell you things. Our second weekend was much easier to navigate and we have already found our favorite vegetable stand. The seller remembered us the second week and he has quite the sense of humor. I was able to find the final ingredients I needed to make a couple of kringles which I've been wanting to make for people who have been so helpful to us since we arrived. The almond flavoring, powdered sugar and whipping cream were hard to find, but I got them at Chacao. I look forward to sharing more with you about our chacao purchases. Last week I think Brian had the best find in locating the cheese/bacon vendor.
We were so excited after we got back from Chacao that we were able to cook our own food. Brian even made our version of a local avocado and onion sauce called guasacaca. I was so proud of our first meal I took a picture. One thing it would have been nice to know beforehand was that we are supposed to bleach all of our vegetables. It might seem strange to some of you to be ingesting bleach, but it's only about 1 tablespoon per gallon of water and they say it's the best thing to do to kill anything that might be on the veggies or in the water.
We were also warned about eating raw veggies at restaurants when we go out. We were aware of this, but I guess you sort of get in a comfort zone. We have eaten at two really good restaurants in our neighborhood. The first is a sushi place, which was some of the best sushi I've ever had and the prices were really reasonable. The second place is called Rey David. It is a really interesting restaurant/shop that is considered to be amongst the nicest in the area. They also carry imported products that are hard to find other places (for example sour cream can't be found anywhere else in the city). It's a really great place! After we ate there, however, we warned by someone not to eat the apples served with their sandwiches...perhaps that was the beginning of our being ill. Anyway, it has been fun to discover the new places close by particularly being that Brian and I are such foodies.
I have made several friends since we arrived. I have to say that the best part about this post is the community. There are so many wonderful people here who have had me over for coffee, taken me all over the city, invited me into their homes, their families and I could go on and on and on. It's fantastic. The job situation is still very much up in the air for me, but only time will help that.
I will spare you all the details of what has been happening since our last post, but what is exciting is that we got internet in the apartment and we just found out recently that we will be able to attend the marine ball. Two tickets opened up. I'm really excited. A friend took me to the dress shop today to rent a dress for the event because I didn't pack one in my suitcase. The prices were very reasonable (ranging from 50-90 per dress). I picked out a blue one for this year. It should be a fun event. Can't wait to share pictures.
On that note, some of you are probably wondering why we haven't shared any pictures. Well, it turns out we forgot to pack our camera cord to upload pictures to the computer in our suitcase, so we're stuck until we can order one. Hopefully it won't be too long.
Finally, I hope any of you who take a nice relaxing bath or a lovely long, hot shower on Friday or Saturday will think of us. Caracas is currently in the midst of a terrible drought. That coupled with lack of maintenance on the current system has led to the government declaring all Caracas residents to be 2 days a week without water. We will be ok. Our building has a holding tank and the water should last enough for basic things for 2 days, but it still strikes me how real the water shortage is and how difficult conservation efforts can be. As with many others in the city, we will be filling our tub on Thursday to be sure we make it through the weekend without a hitch. If you're interested, here's an article with a bit more info. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8339247.stm. I also highly recommend searching for the Chavez speech on 3 minute showers on You Tube for those of you who speak Spanish.
Again, sorry we've been out of touch. I think we're back up and running and you can count on hearing from us on a pretty regular basis. Take care!
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