SURPRISE! - Home for the Holidays
Another thing we did in Sucre was to plan a very last-minute trip back home for the holidays. When I write "very last minute", I mean we booked the flights less than 5 days before we took them! There was a long list of reasons to go back, but suffice it to say that we wanted to spend the holidays with some of our family. Unfortunately, we didn´t see ALL of our family, but at least we saw some of them.
All in all, it was great to see family and a few friends in the short week that we were home. We surprised most everyone, with the exception of my brother Patrick who picked us up from the airport in the afternoon of Christmas Eve. He then took us directly to the Christmas Eve service that our family was attending, where we surprised many more family members. We made our usual Minnesota rounds of Christmas gatherings, and met a new family member (my cousin's little girl Jolee who was born 2 days after we left). Again, it was wonderful to be home!
As some of you might expect, we had a bit of culture shock when we returned to the States. I unknowingly spoke Spanish to the first few Americans I ran into in the airport. We remembered the joy of faucets that pump out not just cold, but warm and even HOT water. We noticed the numerous Wi-Fi Zones that replaced the many internet cafes we see in South America. And we had a wide variety of ethnic foods to choose from! YUMMM!
Other than seeing people we cared about, I think the highlight for me was the food choices! Both Jeremy and I indulged in the foods we missed: enchiladas, Chinese, Indian, Sushi, pork chops with fettucini alfredo, flavored coffee drinks to go, spinach dip, peanut butter-chocolate ice cream, oreo ice cream, cereals like Cheerios and Grape Nuts, homemade waffles, string cheese, and many other Christmas sweets. Before returning, Jeremy and I made a vow to gain at least 5 pounds each in food. I think we accomplished our goal and then some, but boy was it good!
Many of you know that Jeremy and I have two cats that we left behind in Minnesota. We miss them tons, but are happy they are with such great cat sitters (Faith and Joel) who will return them to us when we are home for good. Faith managed to sneak some time away from work so we could visit with Luce and Tiger. It was great to see them. They looked happy and that helped us to feel that we really made the right decision in leaving them with Faith and Joel. We think that they might have remembered us, but it´s really kind of difficult to tell. Given their personalities, they were both receptive to us which was fun.
Yet another baby was born just after we left. My good friend Mary had her 5th child, a little girl by the name of Lydia just 5 days after we left. I was lucky to meet her (and play with her older siblings for a bit) on our short trip home as well. Here´s Lydia!
We left Minnesota on New Year´s Eve. Due to extremely long lines at the ticket counter (and some slight oversleeping on our parts), we missed our 6:00am flight to Miami that would have had us connecting in La Paz in time for the New Year. Instead, we ended up having an unexpected (and almost day-long) layover in Chicago before Miami and La Paz. We took that opportunity to call some of Jeremy's good friends in Chicago. Happily, they made some time in their busy schedules to see us. We also squeezed in some delicious authentic Mexican food for lunch! That was actually another culture shock moment. Jeremy had ordered a drink in a glass bottle. Thinking like we were still in South America, we thought we had to finish the drink in the restaurant and couldn´t take the bottle with us. He tried to finish it quickly when the cashier noticed, she assured us that it was fine to take the bottle with us and not to return it. Here are some pictures of the Hardin family during our visit.
Our flight from Chicago was delayed, so we ended up arriving in Miami at the exact time that our flight to La Paz was scheduled to leave. As our plane stopped in Miami, we were told that the flight to La Paz was still at the gate, but that they weren´t holding it for us, so we´d better run! We did and made it. The flight to La Paz ended up waiting for our baggage, so we had a "Happy New Year" countdown just after liftoff over Miami. Not quite the same as if we were on the ground, but a New Year's experience all the same.
Now we´re in La Paz, but tomorrow morning we head for Copacabana by bus so that we can visit Lake Titicaca!
posted by Sarah and Jeremy @ 1:26 PM
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