{"id":173,"date":"2007-01-30T22:58:48","date_gmt":"2007-01-31T03:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/funchilde.com\/blog\/?p=173"},"modified":"2007-01-30T22:58:48","modified_gmt":"2007-01-31T03:58:48","slug":"ft-lauderdale-fl-back-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":"Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.: Are Those Gold Teeth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>\n.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }\n.flickr-yourcomment { }\n.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }\n.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\"><a title=\"photo sharing\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/366060134\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"flickr-photo\" style=\"width: 436px; height: 331px\" height=\"331\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/178\/366060134_7d3f8804dd.jpg\" width=\"436\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\" \/>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\" \/>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\" \/>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\" \/>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\">&#8212;\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\">I feel like I&#8217;ve been saying goodbye for weeks now. The &#8220;Bon Voyage&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/366060156\/\" target=\"_blank\">party<\/a> that one of my client&#8217;s threw for me\u00c2\u00a0was hilarious and touching. We had everything from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/366060113\/\" target=\"_blank\">moosemeat eggrolls<\/a> (really, I&#8217;m not making that up) to the lovely cake (pictured) made by one of my colleagues. People keep asking me if I&#8217;m excited and the answer is yes, but I haven&#8217;t had any time to really process what I&#8217;m about to do.<\/div>\n<p>My parents have been fantastic, letting me spread <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/366591300\/\" target=\"_blank\">everything<\/a> all over their house the last week and never complaining at my odd hours or frequent requests for coffee. I worked right down to the wire on Saturday. I had a 4:20pm train to catch and I didn&#8217;t take a shower and zip up my bags until 3:20pm (really, I&#8217;m not making that up either!). Fortunately my Mom drives like a bat-out-of-hell, a carryover from her years of driving on Germany&#8217;s autobahn. We made it to the station at 4:16pm and I could only laugh as I watched my Mom jog next to the train doing her &#8220;princess&#8221; wave, while my Dad and nephew took pictures and shook their heads.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately I couldn&#8217;t catch up with friends in NC and GA, but I made it to Tampa and was a bit startled at how chilly it was. I was also startled by the toddler that cried for 45 minutes (hurray for earplugs!) and the Jamaican senior citizen who screamed into his cell phone for an hour. I was totally entranced by the caucasian teenagers with a mouthful of gold teeth, and the only starbucks on the planet that isn&#8217;t a wi-fi hotspot (suck it!)<\/p>\n<p>I needed to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/375137908\/\" target=\"_blank\">my brother<\/a> before I left on this trip, to hug him hard before he gets married this weekend in Jamaica. It hit me that I&#8217;m actually going to miss my baby brother&#8217;s wedding, and he is still happy for me, as I am for him. My whole family is crazy about his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/375137876\/\" target=\"_blank\">wife-to-be<\/a>. They welcomed me to their home with caviar and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/375137834\/\" target=\"_blank\">martinis!<\/a> They demonstrated their love and affection with some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/375137996\/\" target=\"_blank\">dance moves<\/a>, and some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42088597@N00\/375137956\/\" target=\"_blank\">wrestling moves<\/a>. Yeah, this union is a match made in heaven.<\/p>\n<p>I finally had a chance to think during the 4 hour drive to Ft. Lauderdale. I have to admit that I&#8217;m nervous, a bit anxious, and yes, very excited. This trip is unlike any other I&#8217;ve taken, I&#8217;ll be working for one, and I am a bit of a workaholic already, will I be able to balance work and still have a transformative experience? I have a deep fear of open water and a fear of heights and a vessel of this size combines the worst of the two! How will I deal with the 8 day voyage with no land in sight, no escape from the ship &#8211; from Salvador, Brazil to Cape Town, So. Africa?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m also not sure how I&#8217;ll feel about traveling fast and shallow versus slow and deep. During my 3.5 months in Mexico I got into the culture, hung out with the locals, sought out the food, music, arts and entertainment native to the cities\/towns I was visiting, but on this voyage I&#8217;ll see so much more of the world, but with the constraints of someone else&#8217;s timetable. We are traveling with almost 900 people, 700 of which are students and things happen. I wonder if we&#8217;ll all return together, if we&#8217;ll all return alive (people have perished).\u00c2\u00a0Because I&#8217;m a dork,\u00c2\u00a0I also wonder about things like: did I pack enough Orbit gum? Will I be able to download new episodes of 30 Rock? Will Desmond Tutu become my new best friend? So I guess it all balances out.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t believe I&#8217;m actually traveling again, the sensation of movement away from and towards feels so good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8212;\u00c2\u00a0 I feel like I&#8217;ve been saying goodbye for weeks now. The &#8220;Bon Voyage&#8221; party that one of my client&#8217;s threw for me\u00c2\u00a0was hilarious and touching. We had everything from moosemeat eggrolls (really, I&#8217;m not making that up) to the lovely cake (pictured) made by one of my colleagues. People keep asking me if I&#8217;m &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/?p=173\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.: Are Those Gold Teeth?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,25,30,33,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos","category-pie-hole-food","category-semestersea","category-travel","category-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.funchilde.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}