Giving Thanks in Colombia

As you might assume, Colombia doesn't usually celebrate Thanksgiving, and for obvious reasons (no Pilgrims, duh).  However, because my school is a bilingual school AND there is a large population of American teachers at our school, I actually got to celebrate it twice this year.  This almost made up for the fact that I was missing my first Thanksgiving with my family.  Ever.  I made the trip home every year in college for the family party and food and never had a serious enough significant other to render missing dinner with my own family (we got lucky last year that David's family had Thanks-o-ween so we could both go to both celebrations).  Oh and work shwork.  Thus giving me, I think, the title of the only cousin/granddaughter to never miss a turkey dinner.  Until now.  Sad.  But like I said I had TWO celebrations here with friends and what I can call my Colombian family. 

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, Mike and Mandi hosted 70+ people for Friendsgiving.  They made three turkeys, and the rest of the dinner was left up to the guests.  Of course I immediately signed up to bring dessert, the same Sour Cream Apple Pie I made for my family last year, but this time I had to make it with homemade pie crust.  However, as the dinner approached, it looked like there was going to be a lot of desserts and not so many sides, so I offered to bring something else and Mike requested stuffing.  I promised nothing, having never even thought about making stuffing before, but set on my way to track down my Aunt Lori's stuffing recipe.  Growing up, I was never a fan of stuffing, until I tried this stuff, it's awesome.  And upon getting the not-so-recipe-recipe (which is great because its pretty clear I never follow recipes anyway) I discovered the key to delicious was butter, and lots of it.  Mmmmm.  I did end up cutting down, especially because I was making a double batch.  And of course nothing ever goes smoothly, like when I realized the GIANT aluminum pan I bought for said double batch was not going to fit in our tiny oven.  No problem.  Stuffing loaves it is!  They turned out preeeettty tasty.  Thanks Lori for the yummy recipe!  I also made homemade spiced apple cider from scratch: 'lotta apples, little cider.  But also pretty good.

Homemade crust is a lot easier than I thought

Mmmmm Apple Pie

Too big.

Crispy Stuffing Loaves!

On Tuesday that week, our school hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the whole faculty and staff.  It was nice to see so many people come together from so many different backgrounds to celebrate and enjoy time together.  I am extremely grateful for the wonderful community at my school, which has made this transition amazingly easy.  For this dinner each section was in charge of something different; David had vegetables in high school and middle school had desserts.  I thought about making the Sour Cream Apple Pie again, but then decided to try something a little more traditional, and so I stumbled upon this video and recipe for caramel apple pie:

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-favorite-apple-pie-recipe-getting.html

also with homemade crust.  Other than having to make to batches of caramel because the first hardened too soon and having a crust that stuck to the pan a bit, it seemed this was a hit. 

Flour coated apples for filling (caramel added late)

Lattice crust with a little CB pride.

Toasty and warm in the oven.

Although I couldn't be with my family in the States for Thanksgiving, I have to say all of this and the friends down here were quite the place fillers and I think in the future these celebrations with friends and my family away from home will be something I miss too.

Material Girl

As you may have read when I was taking on my culinary challenge, Kelsi and I who share a birthday, had an 80s themed party.  Completely her idea, but I obviously fell in love.  I love the 80s.  Sure, you can say I really only had about 3 years in the 80s, but I really do think I was meant to enjoy the 80s for a little longer than that.  But then again who doesn't love the 80s?  The clothes, the hair, the music, all fabulous.  And it's somewhere in the late 80s early 90s that I fell in love with Madonna.  I have distinct memories of listening to my step-mom's Immaculate Collection CD with my sister and I can still belt out the words to almost all the songs on that CD.  Even recently in Spanish class, I was asked if I could be the daughter of any famous person, who would it be, and my immediate response was Madonna.  I'm not entirely sure why, but I think being 5 years old and dancing around the living room to her music made her seem like a good choice.  So when it came to this 80s party, I decided to take on not only the Rubik's cub cake, but Madonna's look as well.  I've done 80s before and thought I needed to step it up a notch this time.  Sometime freshman or sophomore year in college I did the neon thing with the side ponytail (and looked like a 12 year old) and our junior year my sorority hosted an 80s prom.

If I was 12 in the 80s this is what I would have looked like.

80s Prom.  If you're seeing this Fitzy, I'm sorry!

Now normally if I needed 80s attire in the US I would hit up the thrift store, but Colombia doesn't have those.  Luckily, the 80s styles JUST hit Colombia so once I decided on the Madonna look I wanted, shopping wasn't toooo difficult, but a little more pricey than I would have liked.  I remembered that I had a black blazer here with me, so all I needed were some parachute-esk pants, a lacy tank top, a big hair bow, lace gloves, lots of necklaces and some sort of religious emblem.  I found dangling cross earrings and a bow no problem and turned lace socks into gloves.  I went on the hunt for parachute pants knowing they were in style because I have seen than on women here more than I'd like to say.  In fact, when I went into a store to look for some, I found only a one piece tube top parachute pants suite and in trying to explain to the sales girl that I only needed the pants she responded, "Like mine?" and she was in fact wearing the exact pants I needed, in white.  So $40.000 later I had my pants and was ready to go.  After some curling, teasing and a lot of spray I was set for the party, and I have to say it looked pretty good.

While I can't model and had awkward hand and facial expressions all night during our photo shoots, I think my outfit itself was almost dead on.  Go me.  And I don't know if it was the clothes, the music or the fact that it was my birthday, but it was one of the most fun nights I've had in a while.  Thanks again to Kelsi and Kristin for throwing one heck of a party and of course Madonna for being such an inspiration.

Here are some more awesomely 80s get ups:

Men of the 80s

Best Hair!

And in case you suddenly got an urge to listen to Madonna, here you go:

Lady With an Attitude,

Dia de Deportes

Every section (primary, middle and high school) has a Sports Day at Bolivar, and every teacher has an opinion about it.  I'd heard near horror stories from primary Sports Day, but heard high school Sports Day is always fun.  Going into middle school Sports Day this past Friday, I really hadn't heard anything good from the other teachers or students about it, but I decided to go in with an open mind anyway.  In middle school, students and teachers in 6th-8th grade are placed in one of four houses: Dolphins, Squid Squads, Sting Rays and Barracudas (my house).  Yes, kind of like in Harry Potter, minus the Quidditch.  And magic.  In these houses students compete in various events throughout the day to earn points in hopes of winning the day overall.  They also get points for things like helping clean up trash or the sports equipment and sportsmanship.  In the morning we rallied with our houses to get pumped up, practice our cheer and make our way down to the soccer field to meet up with the rest of the houses. 

House flags & bulletin boards

Barracudas getting pumped.  Really.  We are.

When we made it down to the field, every house sang their cheer and then we got started with events.  Students from each grade in each house participated in track and field events including short and long distance relays, followed by a sort of obstacle course which had three-legged race, potato sack racing, something involving an inner tube and an army crawl. 

Then came the tug of war competition, which is were the teachers' "spirit" really came out, I for one lost my voice from screaming at students to "Puuuulllll!!!!!".  The muddy fields made for extra interesting conditions.  I had a FABULOUS video clip of Rob and Kristin really "encouraging" their Sting Rays, but I accidentally deleted it.  Dammit.  It was good.  But here is a quick clip of a fellow Barracuda teacher helping our kids out:

 

Our 7th graders kind of got smoked on this one.

After all this we finally got a break, time I took to go order our Breaking Dawn tickets online, obviously.  After break was time for other various sports, I watched the boys 7th and 8th grade basketball games, which the Barracudas took 1st in both.  Then there was boys soccer then time for lunch.  As you can tell, the day got less and less exciting, I got more and more tired and hot and the kids became less and less well behaved.  After lunch there was the pool events which were at least some what entertaining if for no other reason than our boys who participated (and were generally the only ones who participated throughout the day) had no idea what was going on, and to be honest neither did I, but amusing nonetheless.

The Dolphins won the day overall, with Sting Rays in 2nd, Barracudas in 3rd and the previously first place Squid Squads in 4th.  Overall, I think there are some definite improvements that can be made to the day to make it better for kids and teachers alike, but I wouldn't say it was a terrible day (just long and hot) but it wasn't my favorite day either; I'd call it a draw.

More pictures from throughout the day:

The Other Kind of Day

Remember when I posted about that terrible, awful, frustrating, pull-my-hair-out day I had not too long ago?  Well I figure if I am going to post about days like that, I sure as heck better include the other end of the spectrum too.  After all, isn't that the life of a teacher?  One day your kids drive you so nuts you think about not teaching ever again and the next they bring the biggest smile to your face and remember why its all worth it?  Well, it is.  Of course, I am going to have moments or days where my kids drive me nuts (you try to spend just 1 hour in a room with 15-20 7th graders and not be annoyed or go crazy).  Sometimes frustrating moments like these happen to occur at just the right time or all together, or when its already been a long week, at which point my next train of thought goes something like this:  "I have a degree in Biomedical Engineering, one that I spent THOUSANDS of dollars in out of state tuition on, I could be doing so many other things (and paying off my massive debt a lot faster) and I choose to spend my days with 12 and 13 year olds.  Really?"  Yes Cassie, really.  You do.  And here are some reasons why.

Last Friday, 11-11-11 was my 25th birthday.  In the States it is Veteran's Day, and in Illinois that means no school for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), so my first two years teaching I didn't have to go to work on my birthday, pretty sweet.  But this year, I am so glad that I got to share my birthday with my kids.  In addition to the birthday wishes and hugs from numerous co-workers, every one of my classes that day came in and sang happy birthday to me and there were lots of hugs as well.  Some students even gave me handmade birthday cards/notes, one of which read

Ms. S you are the BEST Science teacher I've ever had.  You are very nice with us and you have a lot of patience.  Thank you for all you help.  You really are a great person.  Happy birthday, I hope enjoy your B-day and I hope you continue being such a great teacher.

And its little things like that which keep me coming to work everyday.  Now, this particular girl's class period also had a lot more planned for me Friday.  It was the last period after lunch and we were set to review for our upcoming Mastery Exam on climate,  As students were walking in, they were rambunctious as always, with the added "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" screeches.  Meanwhile, Claudia, one of the middle school secretaries came to my room too.  Although she only speaks Spanish, we usually manage to communicate pretty well about who she needs to see or what she needs me to do.  I got that someone needed to go to the office, but she usually goes with them, and she seemed to be walking further and further into my classroom so I asked "Quien?" and then I finally got that I needed to go to the office for something, and she said she'd watch my class, no worries.  So I jogged down to the offices where Marlene, the high school secretary told me we'd take care of whatever it was I needed to do when Claudia got back.  Now if you were paying attention, you too would know that Claudia was supposed to be watching my kids so she wasn't going anywhere until I got back to my room.  Marlene then said she had a letter she needed to translate for me, but it would be a minute and just to wait and not worry about my class.  Normally, this change/interruption of schedule would have really gotten to me, but it was Friday, it was my birthday and it was a review day for a class that generally already does better on average, so I waited. 

While waiting, I then saw two of my students scurrying across the lawn in front of the offices and had a look of shock when I saw them.. They came to the office, started making some lies about another student falling from the balcony outside my class and told me I had to wait in the office for the principal.  Clearly I already knew something was up.  Some more distractions occurred, Marlene called me back over to tell me David had yellow roses delivered that I could pick up after school and then my principal walked in looking very confused.  And then he seemed to pick up on something.  He said the kids should go back, and that I could probably go back too.  So I get back to my class and the kids are just everywhere and they've written birthday messages on the board, but that was it.  Oooooook....I said thank you to Claudia and handed back their graded quizzes and realized three girls were gone.  More lies about where they may or may not be and then the 6th grade science teacher Amanda came to my room and said the principal needed to see me again.  I protested, she said with a straight face "I just hope you don't get fired" and so I was off to the office again.  When I got there Mr. Kelly said I could turn right back around and that they should finally have it all figured out by now.  Walking back to my class I decided to come in from the outside where I would walk past a wall of windows to the classroom, rather than from inside the science building.  I saw all my kids shock and then them hiding under desks, but not before one of them opened the door for me.  I walked in and they all shouted "surprise!" and there was a cake with a candle in it for me and they all started singing happy birthday. 

Don't ask what the boys are doing, I have no idea.  I blew out the candle and they told me I had to take the candle out, bite the bottom and make a wish.  They could have completely made that up, but I did it anyway.  Then were all had some delicious arequipe roll they had the cafeteria make, in addition to some little ice cream sundaes.  Apparently they had been nagging Mr. Kelly all day about the surprise and planned it out themselves (hence the not so perfect plan) and were so excited when it finally all came together.  We took some some photos, awkward 7th grader style and then finally with 15 minutes left, they got to reviewing before heading home for the weekend. 

"Normal"

Funny Faces!

This will definitely go down in the birthday books as one of my best memories, and is something I have already used to remind myself about the GOOD things when I feel myself start to get annoyed by 13 year olds. 

My Culinary Challenge

When Kelsi and I discovered that we had the same awesome birthday of November 11th, she invited me to take part of her 80s themed 11-11-11 party for a joint birthday celebration.  After showing up to the Halloween party with Oreo eyeballs and chorizo monster toes, Kelsi and Kristin immediately said I was in charge of making 80s food, a request I happily accepted.  As the date approached, I spent more time than I'd like to admit looking for some good 80s themed food, which is slightly more difficult than Halloween food.  Luckily, I found a totally rad recipe for a Rubik's cube cake, what can be more 80s than that?!  So I decided that that would be my challenge, to somehow make this cake, successfully.

The thing with reading other people recipes is that they make it seem so simple: "Here's how to make a Rubik's cube cake in 6 simple steps!"  False.  More like "here's how to spend 8 hours making a cake that should not be attempted by novices."  I just wish there would have been a warning on the recipe caution:  the stress incurred while attempting this cake will take years off your life in addition to the hours spent on a CAKE.  I mean, I probably would have tried to make it anyway, I just like a little honesty from people. 

As you probably have already read, cooking in Colombia is not the same as it is in the US, baking even less so.  Some things are hard to come by; for example, I knew I couldn't even attempt this beast unless I had the ever so elusive Colombian food coloring.  Luckily, I found it in Exito during my very normal weekend along with powdered sugar, to which the check out guy respond "azucar? en serio?" clearly he had never seen or used powdered sugar and was perplexed by its texture.  With my marshmallows, powdered sugar and food coloring in hand, I set out to practice making fondant that would be used for the colored squares.  I didn't want to make a whole batch so I cut it down, but did some serious estimating, with some serious estimation errors and spent two hours adding more and more sugar to the gooey mess I had all over my hands and counter.  Finally I had gotten the right consistency, and knew if I actually followed the directions when it came time for the real deal, I'd succeed with much less stress.  I also made a practice batch of Dona Torta vanilla cake which calls for 1.5 sticks of margarine and 4 eggs, a little different than Ms. Betty Crocker.  Turns out the cake is delicious, but may or may not also take years off your life. 

Thursday evening came around and I knew it was time to get serious.  The recipe called for two boxes of cake, so I figured I'd make one chocolate and one vanilla so people could have a choice.  I made the chocolate and then got started on my fondant, which did go a little more smoothly, but still took longer than I would have liked with the coloring and having to add sugar little by little to get rid of the stickiness.  Chocolate cakes done and fondant made in about 3 hours on Thursday night, I figured I could easily come home Friday at 3, make my chocolate ganache, roll and cut fondant and make another batch of cakes with time to spare...false.  For someone who claims to be a "math person", I clearly didn't think this one out: the recipe calls for two boxes of cake divided into three pans, but Thursday night I make two 8 x 8 inch chocolate cakes and was planning to make two more vanilla Friday, which would leave me with veeeerrrry short cakes.  Whoops.  So instead I came home Friday and had to make two more boxes of cake (thank GOD I bought an extra!) and split it into two pans to get some height on it.  As I was putting one of the pans into the oven, a little bug managed to fly into the batter and get stuck so I quickly pulled the pan out to get the little guys out, but not before burning my arm on the oven.  Now, this has happened to me before, the burn, not the bug, only I was making cupcakes at my mom's and the burn made me drop the whole pan of cake batter onto our non-self cleaning oven.  Oops.  I still hear that story, sorry mom!  Luckily that DIDN'T happen this time, I probably would have cried. 

Ouch

 While the cakes were cooking, I got out my semi-sweet melting chocolate, heavy cream and butter to make the chocolate ganache, by far the easiest part of the whole thing.  Then I set out to roll and cut my fondant into squares.  Even though I took the fondant out of the fridge as soon as I got home, it was still pretty rock solid, so I got a great arm workout trying to roll out my fondant with an empty wine bottle (thanks for the idea Kelsi!)  It didn't help that I could never get the 7-8 squares I needed in the first roll, so I would have to re-ball and roll two or three times.  Took forever.  I also at some point had to shape and put a crumb coat on the chocolate cakes.  After all that was done I had to do the same with the vanilla cakes.  At this point I am semi-delirious from now working on the cakes for 3+ hours while realizing I am about to run out of the one can of vanilla frosting I bought.  Shit.  In a panic, I frantically search online for homemade white icing recipe, throw together some of the extra powdered sugar and butter and then in a brief moment of sanity I said to myself: "this is NOT worth it."  I realized people would not be critiquing this cake the way I might, the chocolate ganache would coat the cake just fine, plus I had fondant to put on too.  So I left the weird concoction in the bowl and went back to my cake.  I took a break in there somewhere to shower and Madonna-ize myself before coating and cooling the cake. 

I thought about taking the cake and finishing it at Kelsi and Kristin's, but I couldn't think of how to get all the pieces safely and neatly over there, so I finished it at home, all except the fondant squares.  The cube survived a taxi ride to San Fernando where it was ready to get its fondant.  Turns out I am also bad at measuring, and the squares were too big, so I had to cut them down again.  By this point, I said forget it to trying to make it look all nice and fancy and just put squares anywhere and everywhere.  Finally, by 9:30 Kelsi and I had our Rubik's cube birthday cake.  Everyone seemed to be pretty impressed and it turns out it tasted pretty darn good too, thank goodness.  I wish I would have gone with the "in progress" look, but I was too chicken and my cake shaping skills are not the best, so my cakes were a little instable.  Maybe next time.  HAH yeah right, there will NOT be a next time for this cake.  OK maybe there will be.

Verdict: SUCCESS!

Totally yours,

One of THOSE Days

Yep.  Today was the day.  Today was one of those days.  Today I did not like my kids. 

It was Friday, I had my lesson planned and copies made and it was about to be a three day weekend (for what? I have no idea), but not before my students drove me absolutely nuts.  Don't believe me?  My science neighbor Stetson can attest, at least for 1st period.  Now, being a TFA trained teacher I immediately think of my teacher actions that may have lead to my student actions blah blah blah.  But sometimes they are just being idiots.  And I say that in the nicest of ways.  Not idiots like lack of intelligence, but rather just lack of common sense or consideration of others I suppose.  There's this thing they do, that I have generally gotten used to, of just calling out when they are in need of something or have a problem, or a comment, or thought, related or not, but when I am already trying to deal with the fact that I got an email at 8:03 telling me I didn't have the computer lab reserved for first period (which starts at 7:30 by the way) I kind of can't handle it. 

Not only am I a teacher, I'm an improv artist as well, especially when it comes to technology.  So after writing an email about not having computers reserved (in both English & Spanish) while my students brainstormed what they knew about precipitation, I figured out a way to make the five laptops I did have in the room work.  But then they were too slow for the children and hence the whining, and complaining and the "meesus come please!" and the "eets not wooorking!" while I am actually trying to give them directions on what do do and how to fix any problems.  And this all after it took them several minutes to even listen to directions, minutes that of course were added to their "time bank".  Ugh.  Oh and then there's the boy who doesn't make it through a class without a "eeewwww meeesus" in reference to something he sees or that happens in class.  I'll give it to him the time another student accidentally drooled on his binder (I'm sorry, do I teach 7th grade or obedience school?) But today when I asked him what he could possibly be whining about it was because there was paper on the floor under his desk.  Oh, that, and a hair.  Seriously?!  SERIOUSLY?!

In general, my students like to complain and pay little attention to what they should be doing.  For example:

• "Meesus! This computer isn't working!"  Funny how when I walk over and type in your information it logs on, without all the incessant beeping.  Weird.
• "Meesus! What do we open?!" Precipitation Web Resources. Said it 7 times, and its written on the board. And the person next to you managed to find it, did you think to ask them?
• "Meesus! I can't find it! It's not here!" Are you sure? Maybe you should try looking under this week on the class site. You know, the one that is highlighted orange and says "Oct 31-Nov 6th". Might be helpful.
• "Meesus the links in the document you gave us aren't working?!"  Oh really?  See that #1 you copied from the resource list?  Yeah.  You can't paste that into the web bar and expect to get very far.  Oh and tell the five people next to you because they are having the same problem.
• "Meesus!  I don't like this computer, it's weird!"  It thinks the same of you.  You have 5 minutes left to work.

And then they pack their things and head out of class with big "Thank you meesus!" and "Bye meesus", I don't know how they do it.  I told them they were driving me nuts and acting horribly, I yell, they continue and then a thank you and cheerful goodbyes?  Weird. 

Perhaps it had just been a long week and my patience were already thin.  And maybe sometimes 7th graders act like they don't have brains.  Either way, a beer at Mr. Wings after school was much needed, and I sure am glad it's the weekend.  Three days nonetheless. 

The Truth About Life in Colombia

I know my life in Colombia is in a lot of ways very different then my life in Chicago: having to use a different language to communicate, traveling another country, not driving a car, teaching rich kids, just to name a few.  But really when it comes down to it, the majority of my life here is, well, just normal.  Last weekend for example, was very uneventful.

Friday night a group of about 10-15 went to Hooters in Granada to watch the seventh game of the World Series.  Now if I'm being honest, I actually had very little interest in the game, but was just looking for something to do.  And yes, Cali has a Hooters, and the food was only OK.  After a disappointing ending for most (I mean who REALLY likes the Cardinals anyway?) we attempted to split up the $400000+ peso bill and failed, and then were off to our various destinations.  For David and I that meant home, because yes, we are kind of like old people and like to get to bed at a reasonable hour, even on Fridays.  Others went to Rain, a dance club up north and I believe Talbot's, a little pub up in the same area.  More than anything I was just tired, plus my White Sox shirt & Sperry's are not meant for late night dancing. 

Saturday morning my body gave me the usually pre 7am wake up call so I went downstairs to read and made myself some breakfast.  Then I cleaned the apartment a little bit, because despite the fact we have a cleaning lady, we can still manage to make a mess in 3 days easily.  Around 10am I went to grab a coffee and read a little more at Crepes and Waffles only to discover they didn't open until 12, so I walked to UniCentro to Juan Valdez.  I ordered a macchiato arequipe, thinking it would be similar to a carmel macchiato.  It was, however, the tiniest thing I have ever seen. 

But I happily sipped it and read my book/people watched at the mall.  After a couple hours and being mistaken for a woman named Maria, I decided to continue my hunt for food coloring in Cali.  At last!  I was successful and found red, blue, green and yellow powdered food coloring at Exito, which then meant I also bought the rest of the ingredients needed to make homemade fondant for what I hope to be a super cool 80s birthday cake for my friend Kelsi and I.  If you're in Cali next week, feel free to stop by for our 11-11-11 birthday party!  Afterward I walked home and got ready to head to school for some volleyball against the girls high school team.  We played on the outside court which resulted in a reddish nose and quite a few bug bites, despite putting bug stuff on twice.  Sheesh.  After losing to the girls team 3 games in a row, Shana, Amy and I caught the Mio back north and I got off and got my nails done before heading home.  I caught the end of the Hawkeye game, enough to see them pitifully lose their lead and the game to MN, jumped in the shower and then Skyped with my parents.  My oh so eventful day ended with a Saturday night trip to the grocery store with David.  Jealous?

Sunday was anther early morning that started with me finishing my only-ok-560-page-way-too-long book and then my two hour attempt at making a practice batch of fondant.  Note to self:  If you are going to make a smaller batch actually measure the ingredients!  Although it took forever, I finally got it to the right consistency, and so my self-assigned challenge of cake making is on.  Wish me luck.  Then I made some hummus and started sauce for the lasagna I was planning for dinner.  Lots of internet, blogging and Facebook in between, then I made the rest of the lasagna, threw it together (despite any real recipe) and put it in the oven.  More internet surfing and then dinner.  The night ended with a declaration that I would not do any work all weekend, since it was 8pm on Sunday and I already hadn't.  By 9:30-10 I was in bed, getting ready for another week of work.

So there you have it: a perfectly normal weekend.  No traveling, no parties or visitors or ridiculous field trips, just life. Now you may notice my weekend was mostly David free, but that is only because is taking a statistics class and spent the majority of the weekend working on it, and maybe hit up the casino on Sunday with some of the guys, maybe.  While I do enjoy, even love the exploring and traveling, it can be exhausting and there is something to appreciate in just enjoying the neighborhood we live in for its everyday-ness.