From a different age, from a different country

Even for a non gourmand vet like myself, travelling for a few years along different countries has brought a culinary imprint.Namely, stuff that I ate and I liked,but then once I left that specific country or corner of the world, these were also left behind.
Well, nowadays I am starting to change that, as my culinary bible has entered my life, teaching me how to do for instance that delicious middle eastern salad called Tabouleh, or soon to try my hand out with a home made salsa recipe.
Anyway, there was something that I ate quite a lot of while I was a resident of Cyprus. These guys make also a delicious white goat cheese, called Halloumi, a cheese that is so special in many ways, but it can actually be grilled; top a few grilled brown now slices with some fresh lemon juice, capers and some toast or better yet pitta and I have my very own mediterranean dinner.
And, to my magnificent surprise, faithfull reader, wondering thru the aisles of a big supermarket from Cayman, here it was in front of my eyes, a nice big chunk of Halloumi, that came all the way from Nicosia via California, costing ten times more then in situ, but nevertheless, with such travelling, one can only expect. Nedless to say, I have since aquired many of those and trying to convert as many as I can;)


PS Here is the proof, in form of photographical evidence!

Latest from around here

In an attempt to bring some of my old life over here, I had the empty boring walls covered with various random pictures. These ones are in my room:)

Yes, ladies and gentleman, this is the3rd successful recipe from the book "Cooking basics from dummies", and it turned out definitely yummy and will feed us for days. Seafood linguini !! Hurray to cooking!

And last but not least, the mighty map hanging above my bed. It's a Grand Cayman diving sites map, and the pins represent dives already done (in white 2008, in red 2009). It's not 100% accurate as some places overlap but it comes to serve a point. Most dives are in the most popular places over here, namely the North side and the West side, but currently I am focusing on the wild East End that has a lot of potential (and a lot of rocky waves, reason for which is not very popular). Unfortunately, the South side is still very much virgin, due to very strong currents and the lack of dive operators over there. Hoping to add more red to the map till the end of the year:)

Latest additions

I got around to try my 2 new aquisitions from one of the bookshops over here. I gave the Cooking one a try and turned out 3-4 good recipes untill now, which have been tasted and approved by my room mate and myself, and hoping to try some Photoshop tricks this weekend if I find some time.
On the list of things that I would like to aquire next, top place is taken by a fancy and expensive hammock which can only complete my Caribbean experience. Hopefully I will find more time to hang around in it, but I have visions of myself staying in it and watching a movie or reading a book. After all it is a bit too hot to have outside still! More pics with that if and when I aquire the fore mentioned object of my affection.

Sky-diving impressions

It has not started off as my original idea, but I have had embraced it quickly. I mean how could I not? It sounded really well. Scary, loaded with adrenaline, something to tell the grandchildren about (provided one lives to tell the tale:))))

The idea was basically to go to Miami, and jump off a plane at 14.500 feet. Since it's the first jump, it would be a tandem. A tandem with you, the innocent scared first time jumper and a very experienced (one hopes!:) skydiver.

Booked in advance, didn't think too much about it, and finally the weeks moved on and the day came. Left Grand Cayman, as there are no skydiving operators here, and taking advantage of a rare long weekend that I didn't work, and a willing Hungarian travel companion, off we went for 3 days in Miami.

Miami is great this time of the year....sunny and bright, and yet milder (around 20-22C daytime), and quite chilly at evening. We even ended up renting a convertible, just because we could:) and off we went, together with one of the greatest inventions imaginable, a very talkative GPS, to explore.

We even went to an indoor climbing wall on Saturday, to start the thrill, and I remembered just how much I missed it, while my travel companion did excellent on his first climbing indoor experience.

And then, before we know it, Sunday, the D-day came!!

Miami is a small paradise for yachts and air crafts alike. There are small airports galore, and at least a couple of skydiver operators. We went about 25 km away from Miami, in a field in the middle of nowhere, but which contained lots of air crafts of all sizes. I thought so often of my vet friends Ioana and Ovidiu which are the probably the ones that have inspired the whole thrill of it all, and who would have undoubtedly jumped before me from that plane!

Then we signed a very large contract, in which we basicaly agreed that we know we are about to jump off a plane and in case of an accident, neither myself (!) or any of my relatives would sue the company,

we were then given the suits, the harness, the instructions, and before we knew it, we were going on board a small plane, very basic, no seats obviously, tighly bumped in together. I was designated a quite large instructor that would be my tandem buddy, and kudos to all the staff, they were all so cool and cracking jokes about the whole situation, when everybody else was understandably quite nervous about the situation...and then we took off.

There was no door of the aircraft, but a plastic see through-door they used to cover the exit and which allowed one to see the increasing void underneath us. At 1000 feet I was already thinking Oh my God, Oh my God, this is so high....and I knew we still have 14 times more to go up....but the view was amazing.

The next big thing, the instructors finally hooked us up and we were strapped in very closely together,...and then the door opened. This is when an unbelieveble amount of adrenaline came onto my blood stream, as I realised there is no turning back and I am about to do this for real. From the chilling down mode, everybody started rushing in, and they all wanted to jump off as soon as possible.

I was the third in the line up....and all of a sudden they all started jumping. Seeing the first couple jump off was the scariest moment yet. The void sucked them off in a mere second, as if they were not there at all. It was like you see in the movies with people falling off. They were just gone. I closed my eyes as I couldn't bear to see Miklos leaping, being sucked into the vacuum and having this image on my retina... 1 second later they jumped as well and we were heading off to the exit as well.You have a buddy attached to your back, but you get to see the void very well. And that is scary again. There is no time to think thou. All together, you jump. It's very bad for the first moments untill some balance is aquired, and then there it is.

You free fall. For a minute. Seems a lot, but really is not. The speed is amazing, the view and the sensation is like nothing else. To make things even more thrilling, the instructor does with you a couple of spins, which have sent me screaming my head off, but just for the fun of it.

Then the instructor shows you on the altimeter that the 4500 feet limit is there, and one of you has to pull off the parachute.

He did it in my case, which they do with most people, and then we slowed down. 7-8 minutes followed, amazing thrill of being suspended in the air and seeing it all from above, and then a very good landing....and there it was, before we knew it, it was all done.

The post jump glow of adrenalin is something to be lived to be understood, .... and then we wanted to do it again:)

Where the rich and famous spend their holidays

Happy New Year to you all out there!
Latest news from this island out here coming up soon:)

With temperatures ranging from a max 28 C in the daytime and a minimal 24C in the nighttime, no wonder this piece of land is a winter haven, especially at this time of the year.

So, parked right outside 7 Mile Beach, for a few days now, this really large yacht has made its appearance and spent the whole holidays season.....



The picture is probably not doing it justice, but maybe you can get a more of an idea of the size of this baby if you related to the helicopter from the upper right corner.
This, ladies and gentleman, is the 20th largest yacht of the world, called Tatoosh, and belonging to the other Microsoft guy, Paul Allen. It is 300 feet long, helicopter and up to 6 other boats on board, swimming pool, private movie theater and a submarine. And has spent Christmas time in Grand Cayman.
Yes, ladies and gentleman, me and Paul Allen, on the 1st of January, where looking at the same turquoise waters. Me, basking in the sun in a balcony from 7 Mile Beach and looking towards his boat; him, basking in the sun on his yacht, looking towards 7 Mile Beach.
Well....good for me if I can say so myself:)
Of course I will pay very dearly this moments of self enchantment as you will read in my next post and remember myself that I am but a humble vet after all, but more of that in the post to come.

PS My Windows wanted to update so I said why not? Go and update. (although I am pretty sure I did this before...however this time I got caught. Caught for using a not-so-expensive romanian version of it, long story short; now I have a black desktop and the "this copy of windows is not genuine" label ...whatever...) I feel like telling the guy, come on, mate, we practically know each other since we both spent Christmas in the same location.... give me a break will you?!)

PPS Even this very rich guy must have its bad days. What's the use to have such a big boat, if not far from where he is at, the cruise ships park daily unloading their 2-3000 daily visitors. Even his huge boat fades in comparison to those mammut cruise ships:)

Wishing you all.....

.... a merry merry Christmas!


And if Santa Claus doesn't visit you this year, it's because he's chilling out in his flip-flops down south, in the Carribean! But I hope he does come and y'all have a fine time out there.

All I want for Christmas.... is a moderate amount of calls out as I shall be on call:)

Costa Rica report

It’s a small country with treacherous, narrow roads, and with lovely people that don’t care much for road signs, but that will guide you gladly, in Spanish, to wherever you want to go. About 20% of the country surface is a national park, and rightfully so, as they host many microclimates, and rare species of plants and animals. Everything is hilly and abundantly green. There isn’t a single tree that is a separate entity, but rather a tree supporting a vast number of other epiphytes that cover a lot of it’s trunk. There are orchids, butterflies, monkeys and lots of birds. (I was expecting to see macaws flying like sparrows. I was wrong there….there are lots of them in the wild but not as abundant.)





It’s a very tourist friendly country, with lots of nice and reasonably priced accommodations.
Stranded between 2 oceans, there are lots of beaches. We weren’t very bothered with them. There are lots of beaches in the Caymans. Instead, I was keen to see the whole rest. The volcanoes for instance…they host Arenal volcano, that at about 1600 m high is the 3rd most active volcano in the world. The smoke that you notice around the peak it’s actually smoke coming from the crater.

Another feature of the volcano are the Tabacon thermal springs, which is a luxurious resort that combines the green of the jungle and the hot thermal water into a natural spa. Walking at night in the discreet lightened jungle park mix with lots of waterfalls and natural Jacuzzis while a misty rain was falling was an experience of a lifetime.

Talking about weather, the country is very close to the Ecuador, in july they are in full rainy season and there were a few hours of warm rain every day. It was dark at 6 pm every day, which made the starting hours very bright and early….also because there were so many things to see and time was, alas, far too limited.

The rain forest is an experience in itself, tall and dark, abundant, green and noisy. They came up with 2 eco friendly experiences for a better observation of the forest, and they are called canopy tours. One kind are a sort of suspended, fixed series of bridges, hanging at about 40-50 m at the forest level, which gives one the chance to see the tree tops, and the upper levels of the forest. The other sort is a zip line, and with a harness and a trolley, one makes his way around the forest from one platform to the other, in a Tarzan style. The zip lines can be stunningly long; I went across one of about 500 m, crossing an entire valley. It was the closest I ever got to flying, and it was pretty magical.
Normal hikes are also a must in the forests, but likely they have pretty organized trails in the forest,…that also makes eventual snake spotting very easy. I never saw one but in a snake garden, but it was good for my paranoia.

The cherry on the cake was the last hotel, for the last night, only a few km away from the aiport (we figured, rightly so, that it’s best to be as close as possible to the airport in a country where the Panamerican highway, road number 1, is a strip of asphalt with two lanes and no markings and the incidental pothole…not that I complain, knowing our own national Romanian roads, but..). So, the last hotel was reproducing a 17th century multi columns hacienda, with an inner patio and overlooking a coffee plantation.





All a bit too rushed, a bit condensed, but what memories, looking back! Back to work, back to the sick animal kingdom, and dreaming of future holidays. Nevertheless, Costa Rica does come highly recommended and I can only hope future roads will take me there again, as there are still many things to explore….