Worthing Beach

 Today I spent the day with my dad and Valerie at Worthing Beach in Christ Church, only a few minutes from Valerie’s house.  The air temperature is 85ºF and the water temperature is an average of 78ºF.  The water is clear and blue and just beyond the beach there is a reef.  There are no fish or marine life in the shore part with the exception of two big turtles.

After laying out, we went to Carib Beach Bar on the sand where we ordered flying fish, the official national fish.  It was served fried in batter on baguette with a side of lime and fries.  Delicious!

 

Naz and my second cousin, Peter Sheppard (from Trinidad), met us at the restaurant.  Peter is an artist who paints stylized realism island landscapes.

 

A WARM Welcome to Barbados

I arrived in Barbados a few hours ago. It is really humid and warm, 77ºF. I was welcomed by my dad and his girlfriend, Valerie, whose home I am staying at in Christ Church. It was such a relief finally arriving after starting my day so early with heightened security at LAX. A man in line for security told me that they were even doing random security screenings of cars in the drop-off zones. He also said that after the Delta flight incident it is now up to the pilot’s discretion to determine what is and is not allowed on the airplane. Apparently the man’s friend was on a flight where nothing was allowed, no blankets and not even a book because they wanted to make sure people’s hands were visible at all times. I asked a security officer what to expect on my way back from Barbados to Miami and he said to arrive three hours early to the airport and that carry-ons (if allowed) will most likely need to stowed the last hour of the flight. Thank you, Mr. AbdulMutallab. Your bomb attempt may have failed, but you successfully made my airport experience a miserable one.

Bicycle Diaries

Our third day in Holland, we rented bikes. We rode the bikes through a huge field called De Bussumse Hei (Hei refers to the purple Heather plant in Dutch). We made a stop to get near some cows that were roaming around on the field. Then, we rode our bikes to a restaurant called La Place, where we met my aunt and uncle, Ineke and Wim.

After eating lunch we biked on to the Poffertjeskraam. It is a seasonal restaurant that only opens in the summer. It is a portable wooden building that used to travel around to different cities during the year, but now only stays in one spot. The restaurant only has two things on the menu: poffertjes and wafelen. Poffertjes are like mini-mini-pancakes and wafelen are big waffles. The oven where the waffles are baked is 100 years old. After they are made they are topped off with a slab of butter and tons of powdered sugar. Mmm...

Later that evening, after taking a long nap to recuperate from the biking we went to work with my dad. My dad wanted to show Matt the studio he works at where they record the news. He showed Matt how everything works. We even took pictures on the set.