My Blog

                   Danielle and I had the opportunity to build an ongoing video blog for one of the pro kids down here. (Carlos Munoz) I've mentioned him before, but now you guys can finally see how good this kid truly is.  Here's the link to his site: www.carlosmunozsurfing.blogspot.com
and here is a glimpse of what you are going to see. Enjoy!

ps if you haven't seen his heats from the Volcom Pipe Pro, they are worth watching.  He was awarded the Todd Chesser Hard Charger award.....

           If you are wondering who that goofy foot kid surfing so well in the beginning of this video, that woud be Jadson Andre. The  Oakley team came back down here for their  year in a row. Once again I am amazed at how well Jadson  is surfing.  He's been labeled a one trick kind of guy, but watch him in person and his versatility is amazing. These are just the first of his clips. I will include the rest in the next two videos. Adriano didn't surf the first few sessions. He's coming off a 40 day  knee injury, but the next video will have his clips. I will try to post the next video in a day or two. Happy viewing!

Barely conscious, I shuffled into the kitchen and poured a cup of strong coffee.  Still shuffling, with slightly increased speed, I managed to make the 100 yard walk to the sand to check the surf.  a driftwood bench conveniently washed up to a cluster of palm trees, where i awkwardly found a seat.
      The sun stroke its rays across the sky from my left and i could almost hear my heart winnie.  We had been back for a week now, and everyday was gray and rainy.  it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but when we left two months earlier a twelve day tropical storm hovered over our town and made it impossible to get the video work we needed done.  those rays of light warmed my soul and sparked excitement. (maybe it was the coffee)   I jetted back to the room and began the tedious process of loading our packs for a long day of filming up the  beach. 
    Playa hermosa is a 6 mile (or so) stretch of black sand beach break. "Town" is a small cluster of small homes, hotels, hostels, restuarants, and a small store.  The whole stretch of beach is surfable, some places with better peaks than others,  but in general the farther from the hotels you go the less crowded your peak will be.  
    Our peak is a 45 minute walk from the hotels,  sadly it is a bit crowded still, but we have to film where other people are surfing if we want to afford to eat every week. its also one of the few places that has a patch of palms to sit under while filming to avoid melting in the dry season heat. 
    Early morning walks up there aren't too bad,  the temperature is maybe  75 to 80 - but the walks back are hallacious.  We're laden with about 18 pounds of gear (camera, waters, food, etc)  to last us the 6 hour shift up there,  plus its about 95 to 100 thanks to the seering hot sun.    At least the water is teal blue and the waves are pretty gosh darn fun.  getting some painting in as well....

A few days later one of the local pro kids we film told us he was leaving for the ALAS Latin Pro tour surf competitions in Guatemala and Nicaragua.  Danielle had wanted to enter comps for a while, but always managed to miss them by a week or two due to short notice, or no notice at all. Aside from the WQS events, Women's contests are really hard to come by.
    We were slightly heartbroken when he first told us-  while Nicaragua is only a few hours away  we had just barely paid rent and a weeks worth of groceries.    We tallied up the minimum cost to do the contest and started asking around for help with butterflies in my stomach and an ache in my heart - just hoping for a way.
          We were in a state of disbelief as we flopped on the bed in Playa Maderas, Nicaragua. We shared a room with our friend Evie-  a closet sized space with no a/c or even a fan to circulate the heavy tropical air.  Irrelevant, after 8 hours of driving, crossing the border, and bumbling down the pot hole ridden dirt road into the beach- a bed was a bed.
          There is only one place to stay at on the beach in Maderas-  Hostel Tres Hermanos (three brothers)  It's a cute little two story shack, with the 1st floor as a restaurant and 2nd floor with 7 rooms and shared bathroom.  Reminded me of an oversized treefort with no tree. We had stayed at the hostel for a few months two years ago, and were glad to see the brothers again.
     Nicaragua is famous for its perpetual offshore winds,  making the waves crest and falls with such balanced precision.  For the next few days of the surf contest- not so much.  Onshore winds whipped the waves into lumpy little wedges, while bringing onslaughts of torrential downpour at 35 minute intervals.  It made for awkward filming and even more awkward surfing.   Believe it or not though, with tons of pro guys and girls in the water, we all managed to get waves.  A handful of competitors from Peru, Argentina, and Venezuela stayed at our hostel - playing games of backgammon and cards between heats.   It was long days of filming but we collected some fun footage of the event.  Enjoy!  

 

After a lovely seven week visit home in RI and SD during prime summer season  - catching up with loved ones and enjoying the umbrella packed beaches boasting waveless shores-  we returned to Pura Vida land with new inspiration.  Our "sponsors"  made it possible to get a sick new video camera that could also make magazine quality stills.   After years of filming on sub par equipment we were super excited to move into the professional realm.  
    The first few days in Costa Rica were filled with fun sized surf in blue tropical water.  We were just getting our sea legs back when danielle got a stomach bug that benched her for a week.  Just as she began to feel better we ran into a fellow shooting for Women's Surf Style Magazine who wanted to gather a group of girls for an article.  Our friend collected two carloads of girls and we all hit up a fun lil wave about an hour away.   You'll have to pick up the next issue of WSSM to read the story!   Then the rainy season hit, and thats pretty much all it did- rain.        Our typical day for this time period went as follows:
wake up at 345, suck down multiple cups of strong costa rican coffee, edit until our bums were numb from sitting, walk raven, film and surf (if it wasnt raining), eat some rice and beans, edit, walk raven, sleep.

in other words:

 

 

 

I helped a local Costa Rican (Jason Torres)  put together an Innersection part-  vote for it and others here:

 Jason Torres

http://innersection.tv/video/414

he's a good kid, please vote for him if you like his video! 

I have more videos to upload of our own adventures soon!

write again soon, gary 

The trip into Las Flores was delayed a week and by the time our leaving day came up we were so ready to get out of El Zonte it was ridiculous. It was mainly due to our room having no privacy, an uncomfortable air mattress, and no fan to keep from sweating to death in the evening when the wind died.  The ride came last minute after two other rides backed out sending Danielle into near hysterics. Finally, with another big swell looming, I met a guy in the lineup named William from the canary islands who was willing to pitch in and take a taxi there. 

The very next day we were out of there by 7:00am and by 10:00am we headed down the cobblestone hill into Las Flores to find it…almost flat and looking more like a beachbreak than a point wave. We didn’t care. We had a big swell hitting in two days and there was still the occasional chest high wave coming through. We settled in and contented ourselves with  trying to find perfect rhythm in the small stuff and getting to know the place.  For those of you who haven’t been to Las Flores the place is a gem. At high tide it is a tucked away little cove that feels really isolated but still has a shaded place to get a cold beer or something to eat.  At low tide you can walk the beach to the town of  El Cuco which is a surprisingly bubbly little town. There you can purchase homemade tortillas for five cents each, and get all the fresh fruits and veggies and other provisions you need. I loved walking the dirt road heading north of Las Flores too. It’s shaded with all kinds of trees, there are tons of white herons in the pastures, and there are overlooks to other uncrowded waves.

The locals are really friendly too. Unlike other places, most of the locals here are groms and they are all friendly. To give you an idea, after the groms watched Danielle ripping on her broken nosed beat up board, they decided she needed a better board and tried to give her one of theirs .  They also bought me a popcicle  one point, deciding I had been filming too long without nourishment. That’s the sort of kids they are. I loved watching their progression too. I captured on video the first  ever 360 one of groms pulled  off. It was also  cute to watch them claim a bigger turn or takeoff than they normally do. It’s just refreshing to see such excitement and enjoyment in their surfing. They surf three times a day at least!!! It’s fun to watch.

The surf picked up after those two days and I awoke to find the first boats heading to Punta Mango by 4:40am. I paddled out at first light with six others, but by the time I had made it back out from my second wave there were 15 people. Thankfully, the current was strong enough that it supported the crowd. It took a considerable amount of effort and time to get to the top of the point, so it regulated the lineup. As long as you toughed it out to get to the top, you’d find a wave in the next set.  There were barrels at the start of  almost every wave, but that swell pushed the tube well beyond the rocks so unless you were someone like Shane Dorian it was kind of off limits. That was ok though, it made for really fun and challenging turning waves. The strong current was also nice because it tired everyone out and by 10:30am it was empty and stayed that way until the more user- friendly high tide in the late afternoon. Midday was amazing. The wave was as good as any pointwave I’ve ever surfed and here it was running with full swell and I had it to myself.  That’s something to be remembered…

After the first eight days Danielle and I found a little set of cabinas up the road that we could  build a website for in exchange for rent.  Swells last awhile here so it would stay overhead for days on end and finally drop to chest high for one day right before the next big swell would hit. The next big swell was better because the direction allowed you to pull in without being in front of a lot of exposed rocks. Three local pro kids from Sunzal also came for that swell so it was nice to see some other people pushing the limits out there. That’s all for now, I will write again 

To sign up and pay online go to:

 https://www.pacificbeachsurfclub.org/dnn/SummerClassic.aspx

As the newly-elected "Historian" of the Pacific Beach Surf Club, I've embarked on a long-term process of compiling a comprehensive history of the club to be published in book format in the years ahead. Here's the problem I've come up against: No documentation of finalists for the club's annual Summer Longboard Classic for the years 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2009. These were years when there was no newsletter published by the club and all documentation that may have once existed in the past, no longer exists. My goal is to recreate lists of the finalists from the contestants who participated in these events, whether you were a member of the PB Surf Club or not.

Here's how you can help: Check your trophy cases and take note of your placement, division and contest year, then send me an email with your findings. I don't want to leave anyone out, so your help will be vital in assisting me in these efforts. To verify your claims, please include jpeg images of your trophies.

Also, did you surf on the PBSC competition team at any time in years past? Send those findings as well. All contests you surfed in for the club (division, year), whether you made the finals or not, but especially the final trophies received while surfing for the club.

The book, when published, will include an every name index, so surfers will be able to find every mention of their name throughout.

Please pass this message on to anyone you think this message applies to.

Email your submissions to: historian@pacificbeachsurfclub.org

Thank you!

Richard Steadham, Historian

Pacific Beach Surf Club

I 'm writing this on a pretty cloudy Saturday afternoon. You can tell rainy season is starting here because we occasionally get evening rains and everything got really green. We are in a small town with a little point about the size of  the main point  at san miguel (Baja.) It's  made from the cobble stones off a creek-like river that runs out the top of the point.  The locals have built their hostels and restaurants right up to the very water line - using cobbles and driftwood to forge retaining walls. Ramshackle point is what I decided to call it after seeing the place. The overall vibe is friendly here and there are windows during the day where you can surf it uncrowded, but the mornings and evenings here are pretty busy. The wave itself is fun enough- offering big foam climb and carve sections and a big end turn if the tide is right.  There are lefts too on the opposite side of the point and on the far side of the cove. We've been here about a month now (Danielle exchanged building a website for rent at a hostel here)  and are just getting ready to leave for Las Flores because there is a big swell coming and not many places will hold that kind of size. Punta Roca will - that's where we surfed on the last swell, but the wave was so crowded with angry people it was a night mare to weave through them once up and riding.  Also, the second time we tryed to wait out the crowd I filmed an additional 12 people about to paddle out at 10:30am, right when I was about to surf.  Suffice to say we are ready to try a different big swell spot.

         For the most part this area has been good for us though. As long as the swells were of the medium variety we scored plenty of different spots in the area and they were all pretty easy and cheap to get to. A fifty cent bus ride got you to most waves and you could often hitchhike one of the ways. It's not like the states where hitchhiking is thought to be dangerous  and looked down upon. Here it is standard issue for a pickup truck to stop for you and you can jump in the back with your boards.  It feels quite exhilarating to not be in a hot, sweaty, cramped bus and have the wind rushing around you as you realize that you are here in El Sal and you are free!!!

     El Salvador is not what its been portrayed to be. Everyone is friendly and all smiles and most are always wanting to meet and hear about what living in the states is like.  Most of us are clueless to why there was a war here and that's why we equate it to being dangerous. We hear about rebel guerillas fighting for 12 years and we only think how dangerous this country must be. Instead of understanding that  the rebels were fighting against the massive corporations creating a slave like workforce... Our CIA backed and funded the training of the El Sal army and supplied  them with all the latest weaponry to  combat these rebels and they still held out for twelve years until the El Sal government  was finally forced to implement a policy that  had minimum wage requirements.

    The people here aren't bitter toward foreigners at all. On the contrary they seem more keen to let us know the truth about really went on because they realize that most of us have no idea. There is a town called Mozote here which has a beautiful museum and memorial recounting the Mozote Massacre that occured in 1981.  That town and many surrounding villages were all murdered, raped, and pillaged by the EL Sal  army because rebels were known to hide out in the area. It was literally a genocide and one women who survived the massacre  passed on the story.  There is a lady who works with the surviving kin of these villages to create a massive mural that portrays what they will remember of the past and what they hope for in the future. She can be seen on her walls of hope website: http://wallsofhope.org/   It's worth checking out!

I am writing this blog from our room in El Sal. The last bit of time in Costa was nice, but we were ready for a change.  The daily walks up the beach and long filming hours and hot walks back in the middle of the day were slowly killing us. We just didn't have the energy to cook and make proper meals so bland rice and beans and bland pasta with lentils with the same seasonings day in and day out was starting to get really old.  We also were craving a wave with a consistent section so we could advance out of our most advanced comfort trick and into something else. What we really needed was rest though. We wouldn't let ourselves rest down there and two straight days of bussing. (ie: resting, relaxing, and reading books in a comfy chair in an A.C. bus that plays movies, and watching the scenery pass by) was sounding really really really good. Getting up here had a few glitches...We had to postpone our trip a week because the place we were headed to wasn't ready for us yet. Then on our leave day we had to leave at 5:00am get a ride up to the bus station an hour away and wait around for two hours before being told by the bus driver that we couldn't get on with our dog. (even though we had already cleared it with the main office when we bought our tickets) That forced us to make calls and email paperwork and wait around all day for the next us at 2:30pm and hope they sped the paperwork process up enough to get us on that bus. When it arrived it was no problems and although feeling hot, sweaty, more than a little stressed, and just plain worn the f#*k out, getting on that bus was a dream come true. It was an oasis of rest, comfort, and relaxation. The bus had almost no one on it as opposed to the nearly full first bus we couldn't  get on. That meant border crossings were a breeze and everything just sort of flowed along. You stop at their Managua bus station hotel for the night and then are on the bus at 5:00am and get to El Sal at 4:00pm. I could have stayed on that bus another day easily. It felt an entirely too short of time for the rest I was needing. A cheap 30 minute taxi ride got us to our little town town of El Zonte where we found our place still wasn't ready for us. So we lugged all our stuff 200 yards up the road to a hostel and then had just enough time to get down to the waters edge and enjoy a beer under the last light of the day. I will tell you more about El Sal in the next blog

write again soon,

-Gary

It is 1:55 on a pretty darn Hot Thursday afternoon. Dry season here can be brutal if you are walking two miles in the middle of the day back to home after surfing and filming for six hours.  As for the surfing itself, Danielle and I are both so focused on getting a few specific clips on film that we are crashing a lot and sometimes and not having as much fun as we normally would when you are just cruising and just content to have fun. Occasionally we will go an entire session and only get one section that allows an attempt for what we are trying to get and all that pressure and expectation and anxiety causes  us to blow it, under commit to it, hesitate, etc.  It's not very fun. thus the downsides of trying to improve.  I watched Carlos Munoz today just having a blast. Some waves he surfed to his level and others he would be crashing spectacularly just laughing it off. I watched him try two backside supermans that pitched him face first and belly flopping into the flats and he just doesn't care. Shakes it off, laughs, and tries again. It is something both Danielle and I need to become more comfortable with. It is the bane of all advanced surfers.  You reach a point where you become so comfortable performing what you know and it looks good and feels good enough that it's hard to let that go knowing you are probably  going to fall and possibly look ridiculous and ungainly again for a bit and that's just something we all try to avoid. But without it, progression stops. Here's to trying!!! Here's to falling!!!  May they bring us good laughs in the future!!!

     On another note, Danielle and I got to surf an empty left point yesterday that brought back the pure essence of surfing for us. With almost  nobody around and all sorts of waves coming through it was a pure joy and ecstaticness just to be surfing. No real progression went down that day. It was like having a day off and just getting to surf for the sole purpose of having fun.

 February 19th 6:53pm
It was a lazy saturday today. The morning extreme low tides prevented surfing out front and it was too big to surf up the beach and the wrong swell for terraza. Instead, we enjoyed our own version of a midday matinee and watched the movie inception which I thought was a great flick!!!  If you had a vehicle though and the gas money to drive, there were some waves to be had from this swell. Barranca went off, Quepos went off...Yesterday I talked to a buddy who got multiple tubes on one wave at a semi secret spot low tide spot down the way. The waves did get surfable on the high tide in the afternoon, but I was content to skip the surf and film the backyard bar contest instead.  The surfing coming out of these kids is incredible. Top WQS or even CT level and they are doing it in front of us on the waves we surf everyday. It's inspiring to say the least. I get stoked filming it because I get to witness it once and then go back and watch it again the next day in slow motion and see how they did it. Not to mention it gives you guys a chance to see it too. In the video I'm posting right now check out Luis Vindas' two airs on one wave with cutties and vertical turn mixed in!!! That kid is !%*!!! He's all non chalant about the whole thing too. Comes in five minutes early that comp confident he won the thing because he had three other sick waves and it's time to have a beer, watch the tail end of the sunset and start celebrating.  Gilbert Brown is back now too. I'm almost running down there today because it's already 4:30 and it's starting and I see gilbert in the lot just chillen waxing his board and not even changed yet.  Not even hurried. He knows despite the 20 agressive overamped other competitors all in the water at the same time he's somehow going to get some sick ones and probably place in the top three and make some money. Not a bad Saturday at all. Gilbert had a bad fall at Salsa recently. His knee buckled into his face on a late drop and knocked out  a tooth, bent one back and hurt his knee. He should have been in hawaii right now, but instead he is recovering and that gives us a chance to watch him surf out front and that's always fun. His clips will make the next blog video we post. For the time being if you want to see some of his clips check youtube under his name. We made a 6-7minute video for him of a bunch of his good clips just to show his team manager how well he'd been surfing for that period. (Put on some of your own music though when watching it... they disabled our audio for that one. )
    I surfed Escondida  yesterday afternoon with only two others for an hour. The tide was still a little high and I didn't read it as well as I would have liked, but it was still fun enough. I prefer our beachbreaks though and I can't wait for tomorrow because the swell is finally dropping enough for all the beachies to be surfed again. I love how the report will say it's 3.2 ft and you look out back and it's eight foot faced and really fun looking. We had our buddy Branden (the regularfoot  we made the innersection  part for) leave this week to go to San Diego to pursue some sponsorship so it's a little sad to lose a phenominally talented filming buddy, but our friend Evan came back into town that same day.(he's the goofyfoot we made the innersection part for) So there's always a balance Now, It's time to eat and relax into the evening. I want to be in bed early so I can actually be in the water by 6:00am tomorrow for the mid tide. I'm reading a book called the icewind dale trilogy by R.A. Salvatore that is great. Maybe not quite Lord of the rings status but up there. Every time I open the book it literally sweeps you into a different world for awhile. I highly recommend it.
That's all for now,
CHeers,
Gary and Danielle

 

(Friday Feb. 4th 6:05pm)
I am writing this from the bed of our cozy little room in Hermosa The room comes with A.C. and mini fridge and shelves to store stuff so this is one of the better rooms we have had in awhile. We left RI just as it was going into massive cold weather and came back to find beautiful not too hot conditions down here with great waves. As we drove in from the airport through those mountains there was a feeling of warmth spreading through my heart and soul. We were coming home!  On our first day back had better waves than the entire three weeks we spent in San Diego. Just me and Danielle on our own peak with overhead wedges swinging through. Our second day had us discovering that Adriano Desouza, Jadson Andre, and two other oakley pros were in town and we spent our first week filming them everyday in great surf. We also discovered our south african buddy Branden (who we made the innersection part for) was still in town so we've got to film with him a lot too. We are just chillen. We're going to do a wall mural for the place we are staying and Danielle will build them a website. It's always a little tense and  when  waiting for final confirmations on projects like this when you don't have much money and you need them to come through, but worrying does no good anyways so it's best to just be stoked and doing we love to do everyday. We come back from our days so tired and exhausted I am passing out by 8:00pm most days. It's been really fun though. Danielle and I surfed/filmed Terraza today and she got a sick little barrel clip and I got a few fun ones as well. We are setting a 4:30am alarm so we can dawn patrol the mid tide tomorrow. Tomorrow evening is the backyard bar contest too so that will be fun to film as well. That's all for now, I've still got to pick photos and I want to finish posting this blog so I can have a little time to read a book before passing out.
Until next time, Enjoy the video and I hope it inspires you to come down and visit.
Cheers,
-Gary

 

It is 7:18pm on a sleet filled Tuesday here in Rhode Island. I just got out of the jucuzzi which felt really nice in the rain with a beer in hand and snow on the ground. I spent all day editing down our newest blog video and finishing a book I’d been reading (the return of Merlin-Deepak Chopra) Dinner is almost ready and I’m just taking a moment to relax and breathe this all in. We leave in five days and I’m exhausted and feel like we just got here.  We flew into Boston at 6:00pm a week ago and Danielle’s mom picked us up and drove the two hours down to Rhode Island only to pack snow clothes, have a beer some crackers, get back in the car and drive four hours back north to New Hampshire for our ski trip. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but a big storm was coming in later that night and Danielle’s Mom didn’t want to have to drive through a blizzard all the way up to New Hampshire the next day so we just charged.
             We got to our place at about 1:30am just as the snow was starting to fall. The storm blew all the next day too and we just holed up and rested, ate good food, soaked in the jucuzzi, and prepared for the following day. The storm brought over a foot of new snow so the conditions were really good on the following day. The sun came out and it was beautiful!!! Thus began a four day skiing/snowboarding adventure at four different mountains. Photos and video do better justice than words so I will show you what it was like. We drove home after our fourth day on the slopes and promptly passed out. Yesterday was spent recovering.  Today rained sleet all day and we didn’t even leave the house. I have no idea what tomorrow is going to bring. There is supposed to be waves, but they come with wind so we will have to see if we can get ourselves motivated enough to do it. We shall see…

 

It is Friday Jan. 7th at 4:30pm as I'm writing this. Danielle and I just got home after a fun little surf at a little reef wave between South Bird  and P.B. We almost didn't surf today. We got to the beach this morning to find no places except for blacks picking up the swell we had and blacks was packed. Knowing the La Jolla reefs would be crowded we gave them a miss and on whim checked this little reef and found it really fun. The water here is cold though and mixed with a long period swell I only lasted about an hour before I was ready to go in. That's what San Diego's been like for us. One hour surfs and trying to find gaps in the crowds. Sometimes we squeeze in two of these sessions a day, but other days not so much. We have had a few fun sessions at northside Scripps  and a couple other spots so I'm not going to complain. It has been  nice to come and visit and I can't believe three weeks have flown by so fast.  We are going to leave in a few days to go visit the east coast for a bit so I will post a San Diego video once we leave. For now, I will post some photos and a video of the two weeks of December down in Costa. Enjoy

 

It is 9:24am on another beautiful day down here. The waves are still a fun chest to head high out front as they have been all week and you know Hermosa is overhead right now.  The way the tide is right now, it was surfable early and now the tide is going low so it gives a nice break for second breakfast, a little bit of work, and surfing again at 11:00am as the tide starts to fill back in a bit.  the nice thing about this tide window is that it stays good the rest of the day on days like this. Three surfs a day is never a bad thing. The weather has been amazing for the past week offering partly cloudy skys making for not too hot days and beautiful sunsets. Last night had one of the best sunsets I have ever witnessed. Both Danielle and I were surfing at the time and when you looked out to the horizon It glowed yellow and gold with a yellow sun sending pale cream colored rays through all the surrounding clouds which had hues of dark purples and grays with lavender and pink accents.  The water was amazing too. Between the sets it had a unique dark blue with the yellow gold shimmer and when the waves came they turned green with golden lips throwing little tubes.  There was an ecstasy  in just duckdiving. You'd purposely wait to have it barrel over your head and take it all in.  As I'd look over to Danielle she'd be glowing too from the lighting. To cap it off, when you looked back toward the beach there was a rainbow coming down from the lavender mist over the mountains and extending down to end on our place.  it was a cool moment.  The whole time I was wishing for a camera, but didn't want to get out of the water to miss any of the actual experience. Bill had a camera on it, but in the evening as he was trying to get them onto the computer it asked him if he wanted to reformat the camera and he accidentally did. That deleted anything on the camera, which was tough, but some experiences like that are illusive and  are better left as experiences and mental memories. I will do my best to paint my impression of it for you and I will try to get it up on this blog or the next one.  One of the nice things about down here is that they get in the Holiday spirit early. They don't do Thanksgiving so they start marketing Xmas now. Trees are up in places and the poles and pillars of the grocery stores are wrapped in ribbons and bows and their is holiday music playing. Danielle and I have been getting into the spirit drinking hot cocoa in the evenings and watching holiday movies on youtube.  It's been nice.  Groups of Americans down here are always doing a thanksgiving too so we will probably celebrate that as well with some friends in a few days. For Danielle and I we will make homemade stuffing, coconut rice with black beans, yummy salad, and pumpkin pie. Never a bad day. For those wondering how to make really yummy coconut rice use the same ration of two cups rice to four cups water, but then add 3/4 of a can of unsweetened coconut milk. and leave it uncovered and just boil it down until almost no liquid remains then stir it, take it off the heat and leave it covered until the rest of the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. At the same time you were doing that  stirfry up lot's of garlic, onion, and red bell pepper in olive oil until the onions caramelize.  Dice up a tomato into small chunks and add it to the caramelized onions and let that all cook down. You had already put 1/3 of a  bag of black beans in a crock pot in the morning with a diced onion and some whole cloves of garlic to taste. So once the tomatoes have cooked down dump scoops of your black beans (strained) and your onion/garlic/red pepper/tomatoe mixture into the rice. Add the remaining 1/4 can of coconut milk, hot sauce, curry powder, black pepper, and a tad bit of raw sugar to taste. and complement it with a simple home made salsa (tomato, cilantro, onion, jalepeno) Delicious.!!!!!  Vegan stuffing is really easy too. Peparidge farm bagged stuffing is vegan and then chop up an apple and some celery and steam them for a few minutes with a handful of chopped walnuts that you throw in the bottom of the pot of boiling water to soften them. Dump those into your stuffing mixture and bake for a bit and your vegan thanksgiving is almost ready. Most pie shells are vegan so is the pumpkin filling. Throw the pie in when you stuffing is done and don't forget to take it out.