Triathlon...WHAT!?

And I'll go back to the good stuff. although your comment about steak made me absolutely ravenous katie. jerk. SO, last weekend I participated in a triathlon here in Palau! Before you get too excited, I did it as part of a team, which felt a little bit wussy compared to the japanese men and women who came here and ran half iron man races all by themselves (that's a 1.5 mile swim, 90 km bike and 20 km run... in 90 degree heat people). I did only the run part of the olympic distance triathlon, which was a whopping and VERY painful 6.2 miles. The problem wasn't the distance per se (although that didn't help), but rather the 90 degree heat, humidity, lack of any wind and the roughly 3 miles uphill. I literally almost died on the side of the road... but I think I looked pretty cute while doing it. i'm attempting to post a picture.

After that, I went sailing on the Sea Gypsy, my friends' awesome 23 foot sailboat. we took it to one of the rock islands the Americans call Margie's beach. There, we consumed some tequila, swam with glow in the dark plankton, did some chicken fighting, and slept under the summer house to the sound of rain on the tin roof. It was pretty awesome... until sunday happened. I woke up incredibly hungover, dehydrated from the race, and got incredibly sea sick sailing back. oh, and like REALLY sunburnt. But I'm gonna say it was all worth it and really a wonderful weekend altogether. I really like it here. I've mentioned that before I think.

Alex, how on earth did you not know I had a blog? I talked about my amazing pun like ALL summer....!

Some minor things...

I'm beginning to feel a little bit like I'm bragging about how awesome palau is, when it's so cold at home, and that feels unfair. so this blog is dedicated to some things that aren't that great about Palau.  

1.  It's sweaty here.  All the time.  like dripping, unstoppable sweat.  

2. Things take a long time here.  The internet, waiting in line for things, driving places. It's definitely island living and I am definitely an uptight east coast girl who needs to learn to relax.

3.  There is no Marshalls here.

4. I'm doing the running part of a triathlon this weekend (oh, just 6.2 miles) and because it's so hot here, we start at 6 am. oof. It's also about 3 miles uphill.  I'll blog about that next week.

5.  There is no good steak here (sorry mom, I'm sad about this too). 

6. It's been 11 weeks since I've been on perezhilton.com or any other celebrity "news" site and I feel very out of touch.  updates people????

7. I only get one radio station in my car, and it's A.M.  we get a mix of palauan talk radio, BBC news, palauan songs, and palauan re-mixes of american songs (my favorites). I have no idea what songs are new (again, updates are welcome here) and good.  my ipod mixes are suffering.

8.  Rats and Roaches.  There aren't THAT many, but it's not fun to nearly have a heart attack at 7:30 on the way to work.  or stepping out of the shower. or getting out of the car.  Ok, so I've only seen two rats, but that's plenty. 

Ok, that's about it. I really do love it here. these are minor setbacks for what is altogether a tropical paradise.