Barbados

Yesterday we were on to our second Caribbean island country, Barbados. 

The little porkchop shaped island ranks 191st in country size (at only 166 square miles!) Like it's Caribbean friends, they get a whole lot of sunshine (over 3,000 hours of bright, cloudless sunshine every year), and all roads lead to the beach. On these beaches you'll find the foamy surf (called the 'soup bowl'), and flying fish (they glide through the air for distances up to 131 feet, at speeds up to 34 mph). I hear they also make for excellent flying fish sandwiches on salt dough. I had access to neither, so we passed on those for dinner. For the second time we considered inventing some sort of game like cricket, since Barbados has more world-class cricket players per capita than any other country, but also for the second time, yesterday was freezing, and nobody wanted to go outside. (I promise next month I have more activities planned, so the blogs will get slightly more exciting). 

The boys knew why our landmark was the George Washington house. If you need a reminder, Barbados was the only country other than the United States George Washington ever visited. The house where he stayed, as a teenager, can be toured. In other history news, Barbados was once a British colony. Enemies of the British monarchy were often sent to Barbados to work, or more accurately, be slaves, although they weren't called slaves, they were called indentured servants, and they were generally white people. It was such an common occurrence in the 1640's, the phrase 'to be Barbado'ed' was coined. 

The boys made their postcards (Calib made umbrellas because Rihanna is from Barbados). 

For dinner, we had Macaroni Pie, which in Barbados is usually just called 'pie', Bajan Sweet Bread, Asparagus sauteed with a little butter and lime juice, and grapefruit (as there is an old Barbadian legend telling us grapefruit was first developed in Barbados). While Rum is big on the island (and Asa took part), ginger beer is also very popular. We had to run to Costco and Trader Joes yesterday, so we picked up some ginger beer while we were there. Calib passed on it, but Peyton and Hayden are fans. (If you don't know, it's a non-alcoholic drink, like rootbeer but with ginger). 

Since we were at Trader Joes (which is awesome for this project, by the way!), we looked to see if there was any desert that would fit. They just so happened to have Caribbean Popsicles. They were a huge hit here. 

I apparently didn't take a picture of the table, but we just added another little island dot out there. 

14 countries down, 179 to go! 

Next Up: Belarus