Hola Chicos,

As I sit in my kitchen office reading my favorite food-blog sites, emails, and fitness articles I begin to make loose leaf Chinese Green Tea (really from China). With a simple kettle.

Now for those of you who do not live in Uruguay or are not quite kitchen savvy, the kitchen tools (i.e.; oven, fridge,blender, and coffee maker, etc.) are not so great in quality.

Unless, you go to certain “Centro” kitchen stores that actually sell “top of the line” kitchen tools. Which I do now, but before I ever found out about said places, I shopped at the mall for my kitchen tools.

I say this because for the first year of residence in Montevideo, Uruguay I sipped coffee and or espresso ah, about three to four times in the morning. Reminisce from my college life. I had to wake up at 6:30 a.m. every weekday morning to commute to school. To sit in a three hour biology lecture plus lab. Then straight to a grueling math class. After, an English class, and a chem. class, teach yoga, and finally a circuit class.)

But living with a more “relaxed schedule” in this charming South American country has not changed my caffeine habit . Until last week that is when my coffee maker just broke. How, dare you ask? Well, as I described earlier, some stuff here are cheap in quality.

It’s my second coffee maker that just plain broke. So my other half suggested that I just go purchase a more “higher end” one in Centro. Well, I could, but I wanted to use this wonderful opportunity to quit said habit. So, I did. Cold turkey as a matter a fact.

Life without vices, is not Life at all.

I am a light weight and have a moderate to sometimes severe reaction to any alcoholic beverage. Now, I don’t know if its my Chinese blood (you Chinese people out there should know what I am talking about or even other Asian people), but I get hives and my face turns bright red, my tongue swells and I get supper dizzy.

I know I am probably going to get some flack about this, but I am not really into chocolate. I did not like sweets as a kid and thankfully as a young woman. Which is a bit difficult because my other half loves anything sweet including milk chocolate and white chocolate.

Either have I ever craved salty stuff. I don’t like the way it makes me feel bloated and dehydrated. Again, even when I was a kid I did not like salt. Maybe its my Island blood. I don’t know, but its a good thing for me because I have Meniere’s Disease (more about that later).

Furthermore, at one point in time, while new to Montevideo, Uruguay, I socially experimented on cigarettes and cigars while sipping on an alcoholic drink. I know its such an evil thing, specially being in my 20’s. The atrocity of it all!

But, my Meniere’s Disease rebelled and so did the rest of me so I quit. Luckily for me, I have never really had any sort of habit I could not quit when I needed to.

Even when I was a “shop-a-holic” and realized I could not find comfort in shopping, I quit. And never looked back.

So what is my vice? The sun? A day at a gorgeous beach in Thailand? Delicious food? My family? My love of my life? The personal satisfaction when people in my life and around me happy and comfortable? Can those be real vices? Ah, I don’t want to spend any more time thinking about having a vice. So what if I don’t have one, that does not make me a perfectionist person or an abnormal person.

I’ve learned a ton of life lessons in my short time living in Montevideo, Uruguay and I’ve come up with a new motto;” Be nice, but don’t love lots, trust very little, and always surf your own wave”.

Ciao Ciao

O