Day 250: Chillest Day of the Year?
We’ve been traveling for 250 days in a row. While it feels totally normal to wake up in a new place, it’s crazy to even write that number.
Today was one of the most relaxed and enjoyable of the 250.
We had zero plans. We woke to a gorgeous orange sunrise over the Bai Sea. We ordered breakfast to the villa, then homeschooled, swam, read, colored, swam, jumped rope (new fave toy), swam, played Yahtzee, listened to music, played shoots and ladders and just chiiiillled.
James, Willa and I were shirtless for most of the day. Willa went skinny dipping around 5pm and then ate dinner naked.
Margaret started doing some research for a potential book project, reading through this blog from Day 1 and occasionally reading funny / noteworthy passages out loud.
Margaret, James and Willa never left our private villa / garden / pool / cocoon of loveliness.
I left twice: once for the gym in the morning and once to walk to the little market a couple doors down from the hotel.
That grocery run ended up being more involved than expected. I arrived with a credit card and about $40 US. I asked the lady if she took cards — no. I asked if she took US dollars — I *thought* she said yes, but I misunderstood her. But I didn’t learn that until after I filled the table in front of the register with all of my groceries. I told her I’d be back — luckily I was the only one in the store except the owner, her daughter and this sleepy guy (the owner said they have 6 at home).
I went to the dive shop next door to see if they could exchange cash. Nope, but a lady walked out with me and I thought she was going to point me to an ATM or place to exchange. But she jumped on her motorbike and asked me to get on the back. “No thanks, I’ll ask at the hotel.” Walked back up the steep hill to the hotel but they don’t exchange either — however they were willing to run me down the street to a place that does. It wasn’t exactly a financial institution — more of a woman’s home with a drawer full of cash. But it worked! I was dropped back at the store where my groceries were waiting.
That wasn’t the end of the fiasco.
I grabbed a few more items from the shelves and then went to check out, assuming that I had enough money to cover everything. But I didn’t. So I sheepishly had to remove items from my order, sacrificing a few beers (but not all of them!) until I was back under the 625,000 Indonesian I had in my pocket. You would think that that after 250 days of travel I would walk around with enough cash to buy a few groceries. My dad would be appalled.
Anyway, you know it’s a gloriously uneventful day when most of the blog is a story about buying $40 in groceries.
MISC
Something we’ve learned this year: Roosters don’t just crow at dawn. That’s just when they *start* crowing. They crow all daylight hours.
We saw a lot of clues on our drive in that we’re in deep cock fighting territory, so there are a lot of roosters around. The cacophony outside is so over the top — it’s part hilarious and part kind of sad!
M called them “croosters” by accident — tangling up rooster and crow — and the kids thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard, so now we call them croosters, which feels appropriate because they are crooning roosters.
***
We’ve talked a lot about “practice” this year.
Whenever we see someone with a compelling skill we’ll inevitably say, “wow, I bet she’s practiced a lot.” We’re trying to get the kids to understand that people aren’t born with these skills, that they can achieve anything they want with hard work, growth mindset, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, we’ve said “practice” so often that now, when ever someone says it I’ll quote Allen Iverson and his epic “you talkin’ bout practice” rant. (Yes, I know that AI is actually saying that practice *doesn’t* actually matter as much as the game, but whatever. Oh, and you should definitely watch the whole thing if you haven’t for a while. It overdelivers.)
I played the video for the kids today and… they… LOVED it. James has been saying, “you talkin’ bout practice man” all day. I love and miss AI. Talk about giving zero fucks.
