Last night we had an absolutely marvelous dinner at the Faena Bistro. Seriously, it was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten – a glorious mix of molecular gastronomy and Argentinean traditional. So so delicious.
But I thought I’d use it as an example to show you what the difference is between going out for dinner with a working pancreas, and going out for dinner as a diabetic:
* 7.30pm: We arrive early to shoot a few of the dishes before the other guests arrive (nothing like a bright flash going off every 30 seconds to spoil the mood). I haven’t eaten for a few hours (in preparation of the big meal), and I suddenly start feeling a little light-headed. Turns out that walk to the subway station (which was supposed to be 5 blocks and ended up being 10) was more strenuous than I thought, and I’m going low. Fast. There’s nobody else in the restaurant and everybody in the kitchen speaks Spanish. I have extremely limited Spanish skills. I mutter the phrase, “Soy diabetico, quiero jus de frutas,” which I think means “I’m diabetic, I need fruit juice” to myself a few times, then brave the kitchen.
Thank goodness one of the chefs understands a little English and can get me a Coke. Crisis averted.
* 8.15pm: Our first course arrives – candied spiced walnuts, homemade pretzels, miniature cheese scones and a white martini smoothie (in a shot glass). While I’m enjoying the range of extraordinary flavours, I’m thinking to myself, “How many carbs are in this, I wonder?”
* 9pm: I decide to simply take the plunge and take a rough amount of insulin that will ‘probably’ cover most of the 6 savoury course tasting menu (I’ll deal with dessert later). Roughly two carbs per course, perhaps? Fried egg foam has me flummoxed. But there’s rice and breadrolls, both of which I recognise.
* 10.20pm: I realise I way under-calculated the amount of insulin I should take, and take a second jab, this time hopefully including the dessert, a modern-day interpretation of lemon meringue pie with a soft biscuit base, lime ice-cream and lemon cream (that looks a lot prettier than it sounds – see below).
I am given some top-class stares from the waiting staff and the other guests as I jab into my stomach as discreetly as possible while lifting my already-rather-mini-skirt. I calculate in the 10 blocks we’ll have to walk after taking the subway home, so take a little less insulin than necessary.
* 10.25pm: More dessert! Mini Magnums and three raspberries on a stick. It’s a once in a lifetime meal, so I eat it all…
* 10.30pm: And now it’s time for my long-acting night-time insulin, so another public injection. They must think I’m a heroin addict!
* 10.45pm: The subway that was supposed to close at 11pm actually closes at 10.45pm… So there goes my 10 blocks of walking! We’ll have to take a taxi.
* 11pm: Hop out of the taxi a few blocks early so we can walk off some of the feast. The few blocks are further away than we thought, so end up walking around our neighbourhood for half an hour; but with full bellies and happy hearts, we’re not complaining.
I think the part I love most about the videos we record (apart from the very obvious perk of being able to watch them in a year’s time, when we’ve forgotten some of the tiny details), is that it gives you a chance to see what we’re seeing, only-slightly-second hand.
So here’s this week’s video diary, with some extraordinary views of Iguassu Falls, a glimpse of our helicopter ride, some streetside tango in Buenos Aires, and a quick look at the estancia we stayed at:
And while you’re at it, here’s an Empanada Tour we took in Buenos Aires (totally informally – we wanted to see where the best empanadas were to be found. Empanadas are delicious meat-filled pies. Yum!)
And finally, my favourite, we discovered a slice of Brazilian forest heaven in the mountains near Petropolis. Take a look:
And finally, in case you’ve been curious about the amazing hotels we review for Just the Planet, we’ve started a new kind of video – Luxury Hotel Moments.
Here’s one from Copacabana Palace, the fabulous hotel we stayed at in Rio:
And click through to this one from the lovely Green Bridge House.
All in all, a pretty special week, I’m sure you’ll agree!
The torrential downpours in Sukhothai continued… late into the night. I know because we caught a bus out of the (open-sided) bus station at 10pm, and we were there from 8pm, so we witnessed the truly ferocious rain. It’s no wonder all the ruins in the old city had pockmarks – that rain would pockmark your skin!
After an extremely comfortable overnight bus ride, we arrived in Bangkok at the ungodly hour of 3.56am. We caught a taxi to the train station, and then sat down to wait till 8am, when our train was set to leave and carry us down the coast to Ban Krut, our tropical paradise. Only, the train was fully booked.
Imagine, if you will, what it felt like to be told at 4.30am that you were too late (too late!) and that the train you were going to wait 3 and a half hours for was full, and not only did the next one not leave for another 5 hours, but it was a slow train so it would take an extra 2 hours to get there! All of a sudden our easy 1pm arrival was pushed to 7pm, and we were faced with an 8 hour wait in a grimy, crowded and airless train station.
I was not pleased.
But neither was I freaking out – which would definitely have been my default reaction before this trip. Mark helped a lot, he was totally calm and relaxed, and resigned to the fact that we would just have to sit tight till the next train arrived. “It’s like a lay-over,” he said, but I couldn’t help thinking of all the things airports had that this station didn’t – aircon, padded seats, internet, shops, etc etc etc
I started getting severely antsy around 7.45am, and on a whim I said to Mark, “I wonder if there are any cancellations, do you think we should check?” He ambled off to the ticket counter without much hope, but by 7.52am he was transferred to another ticket counter, and the clerk there didn’t shake his head immediately… In fact, he looked quite hopeful. 7.57am, and as the 3-minute call sounded we got our tickets – somehow they had found two spare tickets! I nearly cried I was so happy. Of course we then had to buy water for the 5 hour journey, and that cost us a precious minute and a half, so that as we ran to the platform the train started pulling away. Dragging our bags behind us, tripping over untied laces, racing to reach the platform, we called out to the conductor, and thank God in Heaven he slowed down for us and let us on the train.
Phew.
You can see why we haven’t blogged since – we needed to catch our breath!
We’ve spent the last five days in beautiful Ban Krut Beach. It’s a long stretch of white sand with a blissfully warm sea, loads of palm trees, and hardly any people around. We’ve been spending our days taking long walks on the beach, reading voraciously (we’ve both finished a book this week), eating a lot, relaxing, taking afternoon naps and getting painfully sunburnt (this sun is HOT). It’s been such a balm for the soul, and I’ll write more about what’s been going on in my head tomorrow…
For now, we have all these delicious Best Moments of the Day for you – http://bit.ly/1amRtW
Check them out, and let me know what you think!
So it’s taken us some time to figure out this whole YouTube thing… Somehow being techno-savvy while travelling is a little harder than I thought!
Still, I think we’ve got it now.
We’ve been recording all these great videos, you see – short 20 to 30 second cell phone videos of the Best Moment of the Day that give you a taste of what we’re seeing as we travel around the world. And we want to share them with you in an easy-to-get-to way. Which we’ve now found!
