mission accomplished

About 5 years ago I decided I wanted to try to visit all 6 inhabited continents (ie, not Antartica) before I turned 30. At the time I already had North American, Europe, Asia, and Africa so it seemed feasible. I saved up money and went to Australia a few years later with Boy & Rational Thought. But then the PhD program started and I became much busier (and much poorer). I had basically given up on my goal until The Manorexic wised up and decided to marry the amazing woman he'd been dating for years. She just so happens to be Colombian & suddenly I had a good reason to drop my Christmas cash on a plane ticket. Last week I hopped on a plane in Atlanta and 4 hours later I was in the beautiful city of Bogota. (Did you know Bogota is over 8,600 feet above sea level? Take that Provo.)

Bogota as seen from Monserrate, the highest mountain in Bogota (over 10,000 feet) 

It was an awesome trip full of site-seeing, family time (with the Manorexic's family - who may as well be my own), trying to communicate (why have I never taken Spanish?), and being overfed. The big event (El Matrimonio) was gorgeous and fun. I was extremely lazy about taking pictures b/c The Manorexic's little sister is into photography and I knew hers would be better anyway. So when I get them I will put some better pictures up (let's be honest, it will mostly be pictures of unfamiliar food I ate)

This building just screams Latin American to me - this little village was so picturesque!

a renaming

You may have deduced that my boyfriend is Jewish. Jewish more in an "I love latkes & mezuzahs"   way & less in an "I attend temple weekly & wear a yarmulke" way. He has slowly been learning about Mormons and tries his best to understand (or at least know) our religious and cultural traditions. For example, one day he proudly presented me with this: 

Printing random things off the internet is his #1 hobby 

As we have dated I have seen just how much my religion affects simple daily life. And how much I define myself and everyone else by religion. When I finally started accepting that I was in fact dating this man and had to admit it to people, the first thing I told everyone was that he was Jewish. It is, after all, the most distinguishing factor between him and everyone else I have dated in the past 10 years. He was not so enamored with the idea of being succinctly summed up as "The Jew" and often complained about how there was so much more to him that his religious traditions. I responded that telling my friends "He has green eyes" was much less informative and I could not possibly lead with that fact. So I let him meet my friends and now they call him by his name rather than "Brooke's Jewish boyfriend." Problem solved.

That is until I let him read my blog. I started getting text messages with all kinds of suggestions of other names I could use for him in place of The Jew. He did not seem to understand that I like to pick names for people that reflect what I love about them and kept suggesting adolescent nicknames his friends gave him. It was ridiculous. I mean, spanning multiple months ridiculous. But since he has asked me for precisely two things in our entire relationship (this & to meet the 'Rents), I have acquiesced. So, henceforth The Jew will be known on here as The Beard (b/c I made him grow a sexy beard/I like the lesbian undertones). Because if he's going to complain that much about his name on my blog (where really he should be honored he was mentioned at all), I get to make it into a lesbian joke.