Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

5/30/10: Lima, Peru

May 9. That’s when the first family member (Dad Curry) arrived in Peru to meet us.
May 30. That’s when the last family member (Amy) said goodbye.

We were lucky enough to spend 22 days of our honeymoon with our family, but unfortunately the family honeymoon had to end. Just a few hours ago Amy paid her ridiculously high Peruvian international airport tax ($31 to get your ticket stamped to leave the country), bought a ridiculously high-priced Starbucks drink then walked down the hallway toward the departures, leaving Zhou and me to fend for ourselves for the night in the Lima airport. (Interesting fact: we become the third and fourth Currys to spend a night in the Lima airport in the past 22 days. I wonder if the security guards recognize the family now.)

Today actually marked several changes, both literally and symbolically, in the lives of Kevin and Zhou.

First, as I just mentioned, we said goodbye to Amy. This means that we’re on our own for the next 33 days – the final 33 days of the trip. No more family to protect us from each other. We’ll have to learn how to honeymoon as a couple again.

Second, today was our last full day in South America. In total, we have spent:

• 49 days in Africa,
• 98 days in Asia,
• 34 days in Australia, and
• 82 days in South America.

So we are saying goodbye to not only our favorite continent, but our second most thoroughly visited continent. And just like Lloyd Christmas, I hate goodbyes.

Third, and this is the symbolic change, today we began the next four years of our lives. At 2:30, a red SUV stopped in front of our hostel and out hopped two Peruvians. We didn’t recognize either, but Zhou will soon know the driver very well as he is a future classmate of hers at UVa. In about two months he will be only the third person that we know in our new city. But today we were lucky enough to get acquainted several thousands of miles away from Charlottesville. And if Renzo is any indication of the others in Zhou’s PhD program, I’d say she’ll have a good four years.

Fourth, and this is a made up change that means nothing, today is the last day I may ever blog in the month of May. Although we haven’t made official plans for the blog going forward, there is a high probability that it will be dead long before next May. This is just a warning to you: enjoy the blog now while you still can. Sometime in a month or so we’ll make an announcement on how we’re actually going to wrap this thing up, but for now suffice it to say that it won’t go on forever.

May 30. A mediocre blog post. Although this is not a change at all.
_____________________________________________

Picture of the Day: The Pacific Ocean, as seen from a mall on the coast of Lima.

Read Full Post »

A Play in Three Acts (Thank Goodness Amy is Here)

5/23/10: Lima, Peru

Act I

One of the main reasons I’m glad Amy is here is because I can once again participate in the group conversations. No more pretending to care about which baseball teams are leading which divisions. No more speculating about the future of the Cleveland Cavaliers. No more forced lukewarm statements of “Yeah, I completely agree, LeBron is the best basketball player ever to live…” No more of that – now we can talk about books! Just as an example, here’s a sample of a conversation we had last night while looking at our hostel book exchange shelf:

Z: Hey! The Chase by Louisa May Alcott!
A: Weird.
Z: I’ve never heard of it. I thought I had read all the books by Louisa May Alcott.
A: Apparently not.
Z: reads the back cover aloud. Amy, you know what? These characters’ names sound like ones that Anne of Green Gables would have made up before she became a good writer.
A: You’re right, they do! … Hey…why did Stephen King review a book written by Louisa May Alcott?
Z: That is weird. I don’t know…
K: Bronson Arroyo! Bronson Arroyo!
A and Z stare confusedly at K.

Ok, I made that last part up. I just didn’t want Kevin to be left out of the conversation.

Act II

Poor Amy had to sit through an administrative day in the life of Zhou and Kevin. Luckily, she’s already learned how to sit patiently while other people do really boring things because, after all, she is a college student. Anyway, we were trying to plan the next segment of our trip, which is Spain. We will be flying to Madrid and we had planned on taking the train to Barcelona for four or five days as well. Then I looked up train ticket prices from Madrid to Barcelona, and that plan went out the window. So then we looked up flights on Ryan Air and Iberia and we came up with a list of five cities we could fly to for a few days. They were: Barcelona, Amsterdam, Vienna, Paris and Marrakech. Then the three of us each ranked the cities separately. Then the discussion began. It went something like this:

Z: Well, if money is no object, definitely Paris. I love Paris.
A: To be honest though, I only ranked Paris so high because of the food.
K: I think Paris is too expensive. And Zhou, you’ve been there already.
Z: That was ten years ago!
K: Hey, let’s go to Amsterdam!
A: What’s in Amsterdam?
K: I don’t know, I only want to go there because of the Guster song.
Z: Ok, Amsterdam’s out.
A: Why don’t you guys just go to Barcelona like you originally planned?
Z: Yeah Kevin, why don’t we just go to Barcelona like we originally planned?
K: I want to go somewhere else. We’re already going to Spain.
Z: That makes NO sense.

And on it went. For hours, it seemed. But we eventually did decide on a city. Ready? Guess where we’re going in a couple of weeks? Lisbon!

I’m just as confused as you are.

Act III

Today we flew to Iquitos. We flew with Peruvian Airlines, and the flight was so packed that when we checked in that there were no seats available together, so we had to sit one behind the other, in middle seats. Now, I know I’m going to sound like a spoiled brat when I say this, but I always sit in the window seat. And that’s just how it is. What? I like to look out the window.

I once read somewhere that the person in the middle gets to use two armrests. I remember this very distinctly because 1) I had never heard of that rule before reading it and 2) what a great rule! It only makes sense, right? The window person gets to look out the window and sleep against the side of the plane. The aisle person gets to get up and walk around whenever they feel like it without having to dance around other people’s laps. The middle person gets nothing except the opportunity to feel that their person space is being completely invaded by the two large people sitting on either side of them. They should at least get one extra armrest as a consolation prize! Anyway, I’ve never really had a chance to test how widely known this “middle person gets two armrests” rule is because, like I said, I always sit in the window seat.

Folks – people DO NOT KNOW about this rule. I was quite indignant that both ladies sitting beside me immediately took possession of two armrests each and then promptly fell asleep. And the thing is, the issue isn’t even the armrests themselves. Because I don’t really like armrests. 1) They’re a bit too high for me, 2) I am self conscious about my abnormally long and skinny arms and think they look even longer and skinnier in that awkwardly unnatural position and 3) airplane armrests are not comfortable. So here’s the gist of the situation: I don’t even like using armrests, and if I had never read that the middle person gets both armrests I probably wouldn’t have even noticed that both my armrests got taken, but I still spent the entire one hour and forty minute flight plotting on how to take my armrests back.

I never succeeded.
_____________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards

Rhyme Time! Solve all three of these triple rhymes featuring recent NHC visiting family members.

A hip hangout for happy fathers
Throw a brother an “All Day Strong” pain reliever
Let a tiny Irish sister go into the wild
_____________________________________________

Picture of the Day: Hanging out by the Pacific Ocean.

Read Full Post »

A Tale of Two Families

5/22/10: Lima, Peru

It was the best of times, it was the best of times again. That’s what happens when you’re taking a year off to explore the world, and family comes to see you as often as if you lived next door. First we introduced you to Dad, the Shaquille O’Neal of the Curry family. One week later there was The Real Steve Curry, of beef jerky and Simulating Steve fame. Both of these arrivals were hyped up with countdowns, blog posts and frequent conversation between Zhou and me. But those aren’t the only two family members who have come to visit us in Peru. There’s a third, even cooler person who’s made her way here and until today she hasn’t received her proper due.

Meet Amy X. Zhang. The X isn’t filling in for a missing middle initial like it would be in Zhou X Zhang (although Zhou never uses this moniker, as it breaks up the rare double Z initials). With Amy though the X is legit: Xiang. (Don’t you wish the Zhangs named you too?) But a sweet middle name isn’t reason enough to get a mention in the famous NHC blog (didn’t want to get your hopes up, John Chilidog Jones). You also have to come see us. Today Amy did just that.

Before I go on, here’s a few reasons why we were incredibly excited to see Amy: she’s the best little sister either of us have ever had, she’s a much better writer than either of us, she’s still in college which by default makes her life interesting, she’s a black belt, her email updates are fantastic and we need to follow up on many of the subjects, she’s willing to brave the bugs and rain of the Amazon just to see us, and every 19 year old girl should want to be her because she’s just plain awesome. However, the problem is that she arrived less than 20 minutes after we left Dad and Steve so it didn’t give us much time to anticipate. We simply said goodbye to Dad and Steve at the Lima departures then walked about 50 paces to the crowd awaiting the arrivals and then this happened:

Z: There she is, I see her!
K: That’s an old lady.
Z: Oh, I just saw the top of her head. Wait, there she is!
K: That lady is white and she weighs about 400 pounds.
Z: Is that her over there?!
K: That’s a guy.
Z: Oh, it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen her. I guess I’m not sure what she looks like.

Eventually though Amy did show up, and Zhou correctly ducked under the ropes and ran to give her a big hug. I followed close behind, and pretty soon thereafter I got to thinking about how the dynamics of this upcoming week would differ from the those of the two spent with my family. I came up with the following list:

1. Amy is basically the same height as Zhou (although she might point out she’s a fraction of an inch taller – I’m not sure if there’s that competition between sisters like there is between brothers), so I’ll be over a head taller than the rest of our group.
2. I will have the best mustache. Good thing Adam Morrison isn’t here though, because even he would have me beat here.
3. There will be no more references to Cool Runnings, or Joey Votto, or The Simpsons, or Ohio State, or even LeBron James. Wait – that’s not entirely true. I will still reference them, but no one will acknowledge me.
4. No one will awkwardly wonder how we’re all related. With Dad and Steve, we were three young Asians and one older white guy in a cowboy hat. Didn’t make much sense. Now we’re clearly two sisters and a brother.
5. I will carry most everything because there is no mule-like younger brother to do it for me. Haha, who I am kidding – I carried everything anyway. Only before Steve had no excuses (although he liked to blame the altitude). Amy and Zhou have a good excuse: no pockets.
6. I won’t understand any conversation. Amy and Zhou like to talk about books, and even though I’m a reader now I still am 19 years behind both of them. (Yes there are rumors they were reading straight from the womb.)
7. I will be the third coolest person in the group. Surprisingly though, this is a step up from being the fourth coolest.
8. No one will have sand dune races with me any more. Steve and I fashioned five different kinds yesterday: the forward uphill race, the backward uphill race, the all fours uphill race, the downhill belly flop race, and the downhill jump. He won the first three, and I won the last two. I included this bullet last because I wanted to post some pictures.

Uphill sand dune racing is much harder than it looks.

And it's Steve by a nose!

Downhill belly flops are all about technique. I clearly have it.

But – get ready for the cheesy ending… wait for it, wait, here it comes! – even though things are changing, one thing remains the same: Zhou and I will be with people we love, and we wouldn’t trade our family visits for anything in the world.

(Adding to the “cheesy” ending: I would actually trade these family visits for the same family visits plus a chili cheese dog. Man I miss those things.)
_____________________________________________

Picture of the Day: I lost the uphill races because I was tired from carrying Zhou up the dunes.

Read Full Post »