BEARS ON THE ROAD

 Our mosaic  Today was Friday, so we got to ride in the car. We went to Jerry’s, which is a grocery store. It’s like Kroger, but smaller and with a restaurant that serves awesome breakfast. They have wonderful pancakes and cinnamon French toast. Then I got to sea school, and we almost immediately got into our surf groups. I am on the Pink Tsunamis. (Whoosh, puts hand in water and swirls around) We were having a surf race, so everybody was serious. We were going to win this. Yes, Maddie, I was on the pink team, so do your little ha-ha-Zada’s-on-the-pink-team-tee-hee-hee. Look, I didn’t pick team colors. And the only reason I consented to wear pink face paint and not wear black or red or orange was because I don’t like supporting other teams that we were going to hopefully demolish. We were disappointed when we tied for first place, but then we had the tie breaker. Now we were determined that the Black-Tipped Dolphins would NOT beat us. We were not disappointed this time. Ecstatic...

Today was also awesome, without the riptide and drowning. We went to go canoeing. I thought that we were just going to ride around in the canoe while the counselor paddled. It turned out that we all had to paddle and we were not very good at it. That’s probably because we were all looking around for dolphins and then leaping out of our seats when we saw one. We saw so many dolphins that I lost count.   They were SO cool! We also went seining and we caught so many minnows, we had to let some go. For those of you that don’t know, seining is when two people drag a long net through the water. We were catching critters for the tanks back at Sea School. After a long time, we went back to eat lunch. Then we went out to go surfing. Today I managed to surf for real and NOT fall off. I was so happy. Someone stepped on a living horse conch, and we saw its orange body and eyes. It spit on a lot of people, but not me! Then I alone saw a manatee’s head bulge out. I couldn’t believe that everybo...

Ibis! The general awesomeness of today was so extreme, I can’t describe it. I will try for your benefit. So, I have conquered the four-string twine bracelet-thing. Haha. There was riptide on one of the beaches, so it kind of felt like those news stories that becomes a movie that breaks everyone’s heart and everybody goes to watch. You know, where the waves are pulling people farther and farther apart and people are yelling and waves are crashing and then one person is screaming and yelling, “Give me your hand!” And then at the last second, the other person manages to grab on. Sounds pretty fun, right? Action, adventure, drama, all packed into one short little scene. It’s pretty cool in the movies, when it’s almost all CGI-ed and there’s timing and acting and a director is managing it. However, say it’s you nearly drowning, or you having to fight the current. Suddenly, it’s a little less fun. Oh, it’s still fun. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s less fun when you’re getting salt water i...

Today’s sea school was awesome, and it was raining this morning, so we rode in the car. Let me repeat that, because I was very excited about not riding 6 miles in the rain. We rode in the car. Anyways, we made beanbag fish. I was OK at the target toss, however, I got out first in the toss and catch. Now everybody thinks I’m a southpaw because I throw with my left hand. We played Predator and I stayed in a bucket the entire time and nobody saw me. Then I won the blind thief game, where we put foil on a snorkel mask and put it on someone. Then we put our beanbag fish at the person’s feet and tried to get a fish before they tagged us. We then proceeded to eat lunch and after that, we went surfing. I was better, but then my surf group leader told us to do something interesting as we stood up. I wanted to do a hang ten. I was not exactly sure how to do it, but it looked pretty easy on TV when Ms. Frizzle did it. Apparently I had a temporary brain lapse, as I forgot you need a wave to do...

Another day, but this time, I had to get up earlier to eat my french toast and then bike to sea school. When we got there, I was expecting to make a good first impression, to calmly coast in and everybody else would be like “Whoa” and then I promptly toppled over next to my bike. So much for that. When I first got in, everybody was playing cards and stuff, and I had walked in with this other girl, so we went to play Jenga together. And then we played the Name Game. You know, the one where you write something about yourself and then you try to guess who wrote it? That one. In a room with 30 other kids I didn’t even know the names of. Plus 7 counselors. This was going to be very interesting. When I got the slip of paper, I put down what I always do for convenience. “I have been to all 50 states.” Never fails. Almost nobody was able to guess anybody’s. When it came to mine, everybody was very impressed; I guess it is true that most people don’t see all the states. It never seemed like...

 Crab Friend  After 2 excruciating days in the car, we finally reached our destination- paradise. No, believe me, I am very much still alive while typing this blog post, I simply mean my great aunt and uncle’s house. The front yard was glorious enough, plumeria and bananas growing everywhere, a certified butterfly habitat and wildlife garden, and thousand of shells scattered around the place, scavenged and collected by my cousin’s amiable dachshund, Kahlua. Inside were more shells, a coconut collection, a wonderful kitchen and dining room, and outside, a lanai with dining table, a huge pool and a backyard overlooking a lake with lots of water birds, turtles, and gators. In the morning, after breakfast, we walked on the beach, collecting interesting shells as we went. (By we I mean me and my parents, very sadly my wonderful great aunt & uncle can’t be here right now. It is the only thing that isn’t perfect right now.). We saw jellyfish and whelk cases and cool shiny shells...

We got to Guilin and were picked up at the airport by the taxi the hostel arranged for us. This is the first time my parents arranged this and it is nice. Usually we battle our way wherever we have to go on local transport, but this many weeks into our trip my mom says she is getting too old for all that. The exterior of the hostel was a bit unpromising with the gambling house on the bottom floor and the crumbling stairs. It was so late we just grabbed our key and went to bed. In the morning after looking around a bit the hostel proved to be pretty nice. The rooms have air conditioning, there is a pool table, it is clean and we found where they were hiding the western style toilets. I HATE squat potties, or as my dad calls them, “cat toilets”. After breakfast we took some buses out to the Reed Flute Cave. I never found out why it is called that. Perhaps it is because of all the vendors outside selling noisy plastic whistles. It should probably be called Over Excited Rainbow Cave. Th...