The importance of travel

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

I've only travelled internationally once. I visited Venezuela for two weeks when I was 10 years old (a little before Chavez went completely nuts) with my older sister and my aunt (my aunt lived there for several years working for some corporation). We had a lot of fun. I remember it all quite vividly. We landed in Caracas which is where my aunt lived at the time. But we spent most of the time at this city near some beaches (the city name started with a 't', can't remember). I also remember going up into the mountains to this town that was where a bunch of germans settled a long time ago. There was a german restaurant there we ate at. While we were eating there, Chavez's wife just happened to visit at the restaurant. She was surrounded by several armed men and they walked right past our table.

I remember there were ice cream men everywhere in Venezuela. It was freaky to me because they don't have them in the states. They were even out in the shallow water between little islands selling ice cream from floating igloos to tourists traveling on small boats.

In Caracus there was this really weird restaurant we visited. It was huge and they had horse riders performing tricks on horses in the middle of the restaurant.

The hotel we stayed at near the beaches had a small zoo. I remember there were at least 2 monkeys, a lot of birds, and they had alligators. There were also like gerbils I think running around the lawn of the hotel. A large snake was there too. They served different fish every night.