Sunday, November 30, 2008

Getting high on chai in Oriental, NC

If you are looking for a centrally located, friendly, warm, sunny, exciting, relaxing coffee place close to the water with wi-fi and a great view I strongly recommend "The Bean" in Oriental, NC. I took the car while Philip and Josh were sailing down from Elizabeth City and spent most of the afternoon here, drinking one coffee after the other, followed by a couple of organic chai lattes and muffins. Yes, with extra butter. A big "Thank You!" to the Hungry Dragon gourmet and natural foods store, who sent me here! We stayed at Oriental Harbor Marina and went for our Thanksgiving dinner at the Toucan Grill and Bar after we had already had a scrumptious breakfast slash lunch at the Oriental Steamer with lots of turkey stuffing and corn pudding and crab and Portabella mushrooms and soup and bread and... Am I overeating? Yes, and loving it. Send more food, please!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

From Belhaven to Raleigh - not quite a sailing day

Sometimes I think I would have more friends if only I could sleep less. While I'm still in bed, other people (like The Captain for instance) are busily writing their online friends all over the world. 90% of the time I am "still in bed", "just out of bed" or "about to go to bed". The rest of the time I'm just tired. Do you think 11 hours are too much? They work just fine for me. Why have social contact, when you can have pillows? Anyway, I gave Regina a ride to Raleigh Durham airport today, an easy drive straight down 264. When we got hungry, we took the very next exit and stopped at the Farmville McDonald's for a quick breakfast. A couple of hours later, when I had dropped her off and was on my way back to River Forest Marina in Belhaven, I felt like having a coffee, just took the very next exit and... guess where I ended up? The McDonald's in Farmville. So good to be home again! A big thankyou for a nice iced coffee and lots of free smiles.

Monday, November 24, 2008

On the Alligator Pungo Canal: Elizabeth City to Belhaven, NC





"Dyahappentohaavefavedollarsfomakeoseene?"- Excuse me? I don't understand a single word. I really have to work on my North Carolinian. We have just arrived at River Forest Marina in Belhaven, NC, after a beautiful day of sailing down the Alligator River-Pungo-Canal. Well... motoring. But we really did sail the last 20 minutes! Although it stayed in the 50s all day, the sun really heated up our cockpit and made the six hour cruise quite pleasant. The only thing we were worried about was the 65-ft-bridge. We were thinking about filling the dinghy with water and hanging it from our 64.5-ft-mast, so the boat would list to the starboard side, but in the end we just went very, very slowly and managed to get through. Time for a chips and coffee party! While we were partying Philip took another look at the chart and found out it was the wrong bridge... The REAL EVIL BRIDGE was 15 miles further down! So again we slowed down to almost nothing, headed for the center of the bridge and prayed. And we made this one too! You could hear the antenna scrape on the iron underside of the bridge, but it didn't break. We happily made it into River Forest Marina in Belhaven and had dinner in the amazing manor that was completed in 1904. It has 11 fireplaces, sparkling cut glass leaded into windows, crystal chandeliers glittering from the ceilings, tapestry placed above the mahagony wainscoting in the dining room and two baths so large they included oversized tubs for two. Okay, I stole the last paragraph from their webpage. So, if you want to learn more about it, just check out www.riverforestmarina.com and let me go to bed now. Thank you and good night.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The frog

When I first saw her at the bus stop in the drizzle, I thought she was an old woman. She wore a coat in some undefinable senior's color like grey-brown-dark-purple, a modern version of the invisibility cloak, a coat that tried to blend into the surroundings, that seemed to whisper "Don't look at me, I am not here". Her pants were both too large and too short, as if some overweightz cousin had given them to her in an act of ill-meaning kindness. Standing there in the middle of the sidewalk, at 8.15 on a Tuesday morning, she blocked peoples's way. People on their way to work, clinging to laptops and umbrellas, purses, and plastic cups of decaf chai latte. People with a proper job, proper income, people who derived their self confidence from being proper members of society. She didn't seem to care. As I then realized, she was a young woman, about 22 years old, with the irresistibly open smile of a person with Down syndrom. And she was not alone. On her shoulder sat a green plush frog, 12 inches tall, who sported a friendly grin and a bow tie. The two were emgaged in a vivid discussion. Among all the people rushing by they were an island of peace, sincerity and absolute sanity. Here we had the only person who was not hiding anything, who was publicly displaying her longing for friendship and sympathy. I looked around. Suddenly the people in the streets didn't seem to be so much different from the girl. Weren't they all clinging to their imaginary friends in order not to feel alone on a gray morning? Weren't they all silently talking to someone in their heads, trying to organize the day, trying to keep deadlines, trying not to be late? In this moment I wished more people would dare to show their inner 12 inch green plush frog. It would make finding real friends much easier.