florida florida florida

Florida Florida Florida is my home.

I was going to do this big post with pictures and explanations of everything Floridian, to educate (and gloat) those in the North, who are currently very cold. But I kept forgetting to take a camera out with me, and all other excuses etc. So, I will condense this post to three of my favorite parts of Florida, acknowledging that there are many other parts I love, and more importantly people I love who happen to be located in Florida. But for now, I will focus on STARFRUIT, BETHLEHEM, and THE BEACH.

Starfruit






















are really incredible fruits. Not that I'm an expert, but I've eaten quite a few. They are officially called "Carambola". They taste like starfruit. Which, when attempting to pathetically describe with words, might be called a cross between a pear (crisp/soft texture and flavor), a melon (watery-ness), a pineapple (tropical flavors), and a weird star-shaped thing.

When I see these in the grocery store (even in Florida but especially up north), I laugh condescendingly. I'm sorry, but these are the fruits that you really need to eat off the tree (or near by) because they should be ORANGE or a nice SAFFRON color, and they are incredibly sweet. You should either eat them like corn-on-the-cob, eating one section at a time, if you're in a hurry, or for their ideal presentation, slice them through their cross sections to make star-shapes. Take that martha stewart! Nature wins again!

This year, we found a perfectly formed 6-sided starfruit (they're usually 5-sided). It was our Jewish-Star Fruit.

POST SCRIPT:: My friend Kate just told me that she once had starfruit flavored lip balm. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND THIS??!?! This is a find that must be re-found.

Bethlehem



(note that the last picture was taken by sneakily climbing a ladder and peeking over the top of the walls. it's not in it's full glory, but you can get a small idea of what it was like...)

is actually not located in Florida. BUT! Luckily for us, a piece of it is transplanted (almost) every year for our perusing pleasure. The church down the street puts on a VERY exciting and elaborate recreation of everyone's favorite destination. What seems like the whole church comes out and wears costumes and performs in a multi-room, suspense-story version of the night that baby Jesus was born! You are first greeted by the three wise men, who give you a scheckle, and tell you that someone special was born tonight. Then you meet a sheapard who tells you a brief version of the story (of Mary getting pregnant? Actually now I don't quite remember). Then the Roman guards are very mean! They scrutinize you and ask you if you've seen a baby, and then when no one says anything, they let us in but only after you give them your scheckle and then sign the census. Then! The rabbi tells you some more story (maybe it's bad that I actually don't remember what the stories were they were telling us)! and then you enter the Marketplace! and everyone wants to sell you things, but you've already given away your scheckle (one time my brother Sam kept his scheckle and didn't give it to the census. Then, he tried to buy a basket from one of the marketplace people. They didn't know what to do.)! And then the hebrew school (They are reading a scroll with hebrew, and when we looked in one year, they were reading it upside-down. But I appreciate the attempt to use real hebrew text!)! and then you get to the Inn. This is the best part. The same guy plays the inn keeper each y scheckle ear I've been. He's really good. He whispers, "do you want to see the babe? The woman came in, large with child, and I could not refuse her, even though I had no more rooms left." And then you pass by two angels who are standing so still, and then there's sometimes real animals (one year a donkey) with a sometimes real baby (one year it was a doll) and a mom! It's really all pretty great. Sam and I went all three nights in a row the last year they had it.

Unfortunately, it ended the night I arrived this year. So I missed it. By half an hour. I missed my opportunity to visit Bethlehem. However, it is still one of my favorite parts of Florida.


The Beach


is a great place to wear a bathing suit. I fully appreciate Florida and its beaches. So great, that all marine life travel down to get a swim too! Which means that when you're a human, you have to fear for jellyfish, man-o-war (baby jellyfish or cousins or something jelly-fish-like), sea lice (little bugs that burrow into your skin -- but only where your bathing suit is luckily), and I always fear for sharks, but I think that's not necessary really.

I spent one of my days at the beach poking the man-o-war because they are SO BEAUTIFUL and WEIRD! they are like blue blobs with pink little spikes that look like bubbles but actually they're skin! and then they have these incredible jelly-fish-like tentacles or squiggles underneath that they use to lure you into their beauty and then STING you! I was poking one of these and then this kid came up to me and told me to scoop it up with their bucket, cause they were making a holding tank over there to save all the beached man-o-war. We brought it over and so now we had two dead man-o-war (men-o-war?) floating in a little pool of water surrounded by sand walls. it was great.

Not to rub it in too much, but I spent December 30 on the beach and it was perfect.

One Thing That is Stressful About Home
[not pictured]
the tons tons tons of stuff piled up in my room (nicely, neatly, seemingly benign) that encompasses years of memories and collected things and lists and broken bits that cannot be thrown away but have no use. Whole bags of pens that are "sentimental". A stack of calculators (that are no longer usable). clothes I never wore but they have a story, and must be kept. the cement hat I made. art art art. Leaving Hampshire in the spring will be a nightmare of cleaning and throwing away. I hate throwing anything away.


SOOOOOO. Now I am returning back to Massachusetts. I'm excited! So many exciting things are happening this year! January's gonna rock, and then spring is going to be just awesome, and then I graduate and then I'm off into the real world! where REALLY awesome things happen!

(I just heard that the temperature on the ground (I'm writing this in the airplane) is 21 degrees. AHHH! MA here I come! Don't be too cold on me!)
(p.s. I'm in MA now... and I'm cold.)