{"id":1845,"date":"2013-01-20T11:45:57","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T19:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=1845"},"modified":"2013-01-20T11:45:57","modified_gmt":"2013-01-20T19:45:57","slug":"a-splash-of-normalityalmost-manta-ecuador-01112013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=1845","title":{"rendered":"A Splash of Normality\u2026Almost \u2013 Manta, Ecuador \u2013 [01\/11\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"324536606_1e05f3bdf2_z\"<\/a>What did you do in Ecuador<\/i>?<\/p>\n

I went to the grocery store<\/i><\/p>\n

*blink*<\/i><\/p>\n

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\u2019t feel like walking far in the overcast heat and humidity. I didn\u2019t really need<\/i> anything at the grocery store of course, but grocery shopping in a foreign place is a bit of an adventure. Especially since I don\u2019t speak a word of Spanish beyond \u201cThank you\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s nothing\u201d and \u201cI don\u2019t understand\u201d, as far as reading<\/i> Spanish goes? Forget it. Totally illiterate. So trying to figure out what everything is<\/i> in a grocery store where you don\u2019t speak the local language is entertaining to say the least.<\/p>\n

How do you say \u2018peaches\u2019 in Spanish?<\/i><\/p>\n

You are SO asking the wrong person!<\/i><\/p>\n

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<\/i> cacti \u2013 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<\/i> jade plant back home), but jade plants need sun and I don\u2019t have a window, besides while you can bring plants on<\/i> the ship, you can\u2019t take them off<\/i> 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).<\/p>\n

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\u2019m working on for head office. Sea days are frantic, a lot of people don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t realize how much you value normal, \u2018till you\u2019re smack in the middle of extraordinary after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What did you do in Ecuador? 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-world-voyage-2013","category-ports-of-call"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-tL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}