I went to the grocery store
*blink*
In all honestly, that is what I did. I went to the grocery store. Not for any particular reason, mostly just because that was where the port shuttle dropped us off and I didn’t feel like walking far in the overcast heat and humidity. I didn’t really need anything at the grocery store of course, but grocery shopping in a foreign place is a bit of an adventure. Especially since I don’t speak a word of Spanish beyond “Thank you” “It’s nothing” and “I don’t understand”, as far as reading Spanish goes? Forget it. Totally illiterate. So trying to figure out what everything is in a grocery store where you don’t speak the local language is entertaining to say the least.
How do you say ‘peaches’ in Spanish?
You are SO asking the wrong person!
Moreover, the stock is completely different than anyone in North America would be used to. There were loads of fruits that was completely foreign to me, some of which looked like cacti, for all I know they may have been cacti – and bananas that were about the size of my forearm. There was also a little bonsai jade plant which I was sorely tempted by because it reminded me so much of home (we have a massive jade plant back home), but jade plants need sun and I don’t have a window, besides while you can bring plants on the ship, you can’t take them off ever and I get too attached to things to abandon them at the end of the contract. So the baby jade plant stayed on the shelf and I made do with two dozen long stemmed roses that cost me less than $10 (that was just too good a deal to resist).
It was quiet day otherwise. It was an early port, both in arrival time and in departure, and after my mini-supply run I was quite happy to just put my roses in water and use the rest of the day to finish some of the research I’m working on for head office. Sea days are frantic, a lot of people don’t realize just how frantic, only when port days roll around does the crew get a tiny bit of respite. The little splashes of normality that make our life on board a little less chaotic and a little more relaxing.
You don’t realize how much you value normal, ‘till you’re smack in the middle of extraordinary after all.