My OperaDay 2 - Discovering "lunch"
Saturday, January 30, 2010 10:06:00 PM
So guys, there we are: The first "real" day at Guadeloupe.
I slept like a baby. The aircon rattled extremly loud, but this was not really a reason to stop me from sleeping after the long day(s). But actually I stopped it at seven just to ensure that the upcoming heat of this day would kick me out of bed fast enough to actually use this day!
As I went into the kitchen to have breakfast, I realized that yesterday evening I agreed to join Vivianne (that's where I live here) and her family at lunch that was organized by a friend of hers. This weirdly meant I had to buy a ticket for 20 euros, but this was because there was also some music. Well, I didn't really know what to expect and with not really beeing able to communicate to anyone here (yet) in sentences consisting of more than 3 words, I just agreed to join them, I mean - this seems to be very traditional and I was quite curios what it actually was. We had breakfast and I decided to go to the beach before we would drive to the lunch at 12.
Not knowing any of the beaches so far, except the one I already saw yesterday I headed for it first.
I packed my diving goggles, as well as my snorkel in order to check how life's like under water. Which was a good choice. Even in Winter, which in fact we have here on Guadeloupe at the moment, the water is very warm, so there's no such thing as leaving the water in order to warm up, the temperature is just right.
I actually expected more aquarium-like fish, but I only spotted a few blue and yellow ones, but I guess this was also due to the fact that I could not swim out more than 50 meters from the beach, because of the strong current. So - no corals, only sea grass, but well, this won't be the end of the diving story, as I want to do some more during my stay here.
At about 12 Vivianne and me, as well as a big part of her family (we were about 8) left for "lunch". Lunch was in a building which reminded me a bit of a German "Bierzelt", just it wasn't a tent but a real building, only built for events. Inside were a lot of tables with the names of the families participating. So we sat down on ours, and started with the aperitif. This means that you go to something like a bar where you find all sorts of alcohohl, juice, ice cubes, etc. (just like at a normal house-party) and you have to mix the drink yourselves. I was a bit confused, because everyone drank some Martini drinks, which I don't really like. But one bottle of typical rum of Guadeloupe smiled at me, so I decided to give it a shot. I mixed a recommendation from Vivianne, a typical drink for Guadeloupe (which name I cannot remember) but it's basically a Caipirinha (which noone knows here?) but with 50% rum instead of Pitu, and instead of load of crushed ice only one small ice cube. So I filled my glass up with pure rum and a bit of sugar and quarters of lemons (in the size of limettes). At some point I realized that this was maybe the wrong kind of drink for this time of the day ( ), as well as the wrong kind of drink at all, since I agreed to drive ( ), since ... well ... it was only "lunch". Not wanting to hurt any feelings, customs, etc. I drank it, as I begin to realize that this would take a while longer, as everyone went in to get something to eat. I had a large fish in one peace, which was absolutelly brilliant (no pictures, so for that ).
Then a band played, which played the typical music of Guadeloupe a mix of Jazz and Reggae:
and suddenly everyone started to move to the dancefloor to dance right there where the band was playing.
After a while I realized that I didn't feel the alcohol anymore, just due the fact of having about 30°C or more in that building. I therefore agreed to have some champagner with the rest of our group :-) A short while afterwards some politicians had a few speeches, because of the upcoming elections here in Guadeloupe. Even the current president showed up to have a speech and something to eat - at some point he even headded over to shake some hands and due to me standing directly at his destination, we also shook hands. Coming to Guadeloupe and shaking hands with the president directly after arriving felt kind of good, although I don't have any knowledge about his politic opinion, etc.
The party continued with a lot of local music, but completly different then in Germany for example, everybody went to the dancefloor, regardless of age and everybody enjoyed the party. We then headed back from lunch at about 8 pm local time (not bad for lunch, isn't it?) and I took a rest to write for the blog and to edit a few pictures (which are not all uploaded yet)
I slept like a baby. The aircon rattled extremly loud, but this was not really a reason to stop me from sleeping after the long day(s). But actually I stopped it at seven just to ensure that the upcoming heat of this day would kick me out of bed fast enough to actually use this day!
As I went into the kitchen to have breakfast, I realized that yesterday evening I agreed to join Vivianne (that's where I live here) and her family at lunch that was organized by a friend of hers. This weirdly meant I had to buy a ticket for 20 euros, but this was because there was also some music. Well, I didn't really know what to expect and with not really beeing able to communicate to anyone here (yet) in sentences consisting of more than 3 words, I just agreed to join them, I mean - this seems to be very traditional and I was quite curios what it actually was. We had breakfast and I decided to go to the beach before we would drive to the lunch at 12.
Not knowing any of the beaches so far, except the one I already saw yesterday I headed for it first.
I packed my diving goggles, as well as my snorkel in order to check how life's like under water. Which was a good choice. Even in Winter, which in fact we have here on Guadeloupe at the moment, the water is very warm, so there's no such thing as leaving the water in order to warm up, the temperature is just right.
I actually expected more aquarium-like fish, but I only spotted a few blue and yellow ones, but I guess this was also due to the fact that I could not swim out more than 50 meters from the beach, because of the strong current. So - no corals, only sea grass, but well, this won't be the end of the diving story, as I want to do some more during my stay here.At about 12 Vivianne and me, as well as a big part of her family (we were about 8) left for "lunch". Lunch was in a building which reminded me a bit of a German "Bierzelt", just it wasn't a tent but a real building, only built for events. Inside were a lot of tables with the names of the families participating. So we sat down on ours, and started with the aperitif. This means that you go to something like a bar where you find all sorts of alcohohl, juice, ice cubes, etc. (just like at a normal house-party) and you have to mix the drink yourselves. I was a bit confused, because everyone drank some Martini drinks, which I don't really like. But one bottle of typical rum of Guadeloupe smiled at me, so I decided to give it a shot. I mixed a recommendation from Vivianne, a typical drink for Guadeloupe (which name I cannot remember) but it's basically a Caipirinha (which noone knows here?) but with 50% rum instead of Pitu, and instead of load of crushed ice only one small ice cube. So I filled my glass up with pure rum and a bit of sugar and quarters of lemons (in the size of limettes). At some point I realized that this was maybe the wrong kind of drink for this time of the day (
), as well as the wrong kind of drink at all, since I agreed to drive ( ), since ... well ... it was only "lunch". Not wanting to hurt any feelings, customs, etc. I drank it, as I begin to realize that this would take a while longer, as everyone went in to get something to eat. I had a large fish in one peace, which was absolutelly brilliant (no pictures, so for that ).Then a band played, which played the typical music of Guadeloupe a mix of Jazz and Reggae:
and suddenly everyone started to move to the dancefloor to dance right there where the band was playing.
After a while I realized that I didn't feel the alcohol anymore, just due the fact of having about 30°C or more in that building. I therefore agreed to have some champagner with the rest of our group :-) A short while afterwards some politicians had a few speeches, because of the upcoming elections here in Guadeloupe. Even the current president showed up to have a speech and something to eat - at some point he even headded over to shake some hands and due to me standing directly at his destination, we also shook hands
. Coming to Guadeloupe and shaking hands with the president directly after arriving felt kind of good, although I don't have any knowledge about his politic opinion, etc.The party continued with a lot of local music, but completly different then in Germany for example, everybody went to the dancefloor, regardless of age and everybody enjoyed the party. We then headed back from lunch at about 8 pm local time (not bad for lunch, isn't it?) and I took a rest to write for the blog and to edit a few pictures (which are not all uploaded yet)
