Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

Saturday the Meyer family rolled out of bed early and headed to downtown Brookings for the "Beef and Eggs 5k." My dad is an avid runner, and John and I were feeling the pressure to prove to ourselves that we could still beat him in a race. It was a fun day and a great race. The competative spirit in John took over after 3k when he started running ahead. I waited until about the 4th kilometer to start picking up the pace, cruising into 83rd place after 26 minutes and 51 seconds. My dad did very well too and my mom did the race walk with bursts of spints to improve on her time from last year. After the race was over, everyone enjoyed a breakfast of, you guessed it, beef and eggs.

It's been interesting the past few days as I've told people what happened in Nicaragua. I've been surprised how uncommon it is. At the race I talked to a lady I knew who was in the Dominican Republic and had robbers burst into her hotel room at night and take stuff at gun point. I also just received an e-mail from my advisor in Norway who had something similar happen in Argentina. Crazy. I just hear the Gnarles Barkley song playing over and over. It's just frustrating to try to travel well, respecting the local culture and exploring the world without a throng of tourists, and getting punished for it. I know it does show one unfortunate side of life for millions of people, but I hate having to think twice about exploring and having to have loved ones worry when I talk about traveling anywhere outside of Europe. I've also been thinking how unfair it is that I can get on a plane and escape the situation while people living there cannot escape the conditions. I'm not sure how to use these thoughts yet, but hopefully I can channel them into something positive at some point.