Garlic Kills Caterpillers! Who Knew?

Last night I opened a large bag of packaged muesli, produced in Russia. Excited to fish out some dried fruit for a pre-dinner snack, I munched on a dried banana until I found a hatching caterpillar! Who puts hatching caterpillars in their muesli—honestly?! I was immediately grossed out, but more so, disappointed that my 100 Som purchase and breakfast plan for several weeks was caterpillar infested. If I were still living in Portland or Northfield I would have gone back to the store, exchanged a bag and complained, or simply thrown away the contents… Though in Karakol, I was not about to waste some delicious looking muesli and 100 Som of my precious living allowance.

I called the medical officer to make sure I didn’t already have worms growing inside of me, and that if I cooked the muesli, could I still eat it? She asked if I had any garlic. Well, yes, I do I said.

One head of garlic in a sealed muesli container, and I’m set for my next caterpillar free breakfast! I wonder if I still have to cook it… I’m just glad there weren’t any spiders inside, because that shit would have been out the door before it ever entered.

Barcelona

Barcelona

Ryan Air, a very stressful flying experience, arrival at Girona, almost to Barcelona—just another 1.5 hours by bus. After café-ing European style we unloaded at our apartment down a cute alley off La Rambla, the main shopping/pedestrian drag in Barcelona.

Again, beautiful architecture, a very pretty marina and quite an imposing monument to Christopher Columbus were my first impressions of the city. Barcelona seemed to be a bit younger and livelier than its Madrid counterpart, and a bit more relaxed.

Having been deprived of shopping opportunities, I was very interested in browsing—but our priorities were more focused on seeing the city and Gaudi works of art. Thus, I came away with only a pack of socks and a zip-up sweatshirt…

We kicked off New Year’s Eve in the apartment with a few beers and headed out to La Rambla and detoured to a giant metal cat sculpture, which Alex, John and I climbed. It was all fun and games until it gave me pink eye. We then rang in 2009 on the street with champagne and the rest of Barcelona. A house party followed with excellent cheese, fish, chocolate, and caiperinas (Brazilian mixed drink), actually mixed by a Brazilian named Raul.

Barcelona highlights:
-Park Guell
-Marina
-Overpriced tapa bars
-Shopping
-New Years party
-Fish and cheese
-Dirty cat sculpture
-Views
-Acting like birds for the camera, and jumping.

On the go... Back to the Girona airport for a flight to Fez and another Ryan Air experience… Goodbye Europe, hello Africa!