February 3, 2015

15,000 miles for Pizza



Were they ever this young? Learning about tsunamis when a little one hit La Cruz

Exactly five years ago in La Cruz, Mexico we were invited to our friend’s boat, Totem for pizza. When we got there though rather than being served ‘the best pizza in the world’ (which we had been told about in great and sumptuous detail) we were given a meal of fresh seared tuna. Not shabby, but not the much lauded BPIW.
Mexico
Malaysia
Luckily the Totems are cool people and we enjoyed hanging out with them even if they lied about the menu. The kids played for hours and days on end, Behan and I would go for long walks, Evan and Jamie would do boat stuff. With a few weeks to go before they planned to jump off for their pacific crossing they promised the BPIW would still happen.

Mexico
Australia

Malaysia
But it didn’t. Other meals happened; there were tacos on shore, and potlucks, and a final farewell dinner. And as we waved goodbye when they set off for Australia, Jamie told us we’d just have to meet them in Australia for his pizza.

So two years later we did just that. The kids were bigger, the seasons were upside down, but the family was still very cool. We had a lot of meals together; there was Korean food with Scotch for Gung Haggis Fat Australia Day (Robbie Burns/Chinese New Year/AU day), corned beef and cabbage for St Patrick’s, Aussie BBQ’s on shore and even take out pizza. But six months after reconnecting with them, Totem was again on their way. And when I asked about the long-promised, but never-delivered, BPIW Jamie told us to meet them in Malaysia.

Australia
I’m not sure about you, but traveling 15,000 miles for pizza seems like a lot. Even for really good pizza. But I looked at it this way—if we’re headed around the world anyway, why not get a meal out of the deal? So we put the coals on to catch Totem before they set off for South Africa. Our original plan saw us overlapping with them for about a week. We gave Jamie plenty of notice and let them know we were coming for dinner.

Malaysia
The pizza was great: completely worth the years and miles. Or maybe what was worth it was the discovery that even as nomadic families who have been following our own paths it’s possible to forge a deep, enduring and recurring connection.

One of the questions we’re often asked is how Maia finds and keeps friends. The vision of us passing by on the edges of other people’s lives was one that also one that worried me. I love the history that comes with long-term friendships. I wanted Maia to have grown-up with other kids; to see her own changes reflected in them. That’s hard to find when your childhood spans dozens of countries.

So maybe the pizza wasn’t just a pizza. Maybe the best part of that dinner was catching up with dear friends and having a chance to both reminisce about the past and look ahead to our voyage to South Africa—with the very same people. 
Mexico
Australia
 Or maybe we just take meal invitations really seriously and if you ever invite us for dinner you better really, really mean it.

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