Day 2 we got to visit the mall where HoneyBee store, the family mall kiosk is. They have an agreement with a friend who does watch repair to help work at the store most days and he uses it as a base for his business. A large percentage of the business is custom order and by appointment so it so they’re pretty flexible on time spent there. If anything it is within a few minutes drive of the house so Scarlett will run over there if someone needs anything complicated. Its mostly stocked with clothes from Ross and TJ Maxx, and then shoes and other random things from Costco. We still haven’t figured out what if anything the store should focus on. Kirkland produts like vitamins and medicine are carried in some grocery stores we’ve seen. Clothes are easy to ship and are more appropriate for the location but don’t sell quite as fast. The mall is not very crowded in the morning so most stores weren’t open but in the immediate vicitinity there was an empanada restaurant, a cell phone repair shop and the copy/office kiosk where we obtained Genesis’ entirely legitimate drivers license.

It was claimed that I would not be ready to drive around here, since the rules of the road are mostly a suggestion. On the contrary I believe I would do great in the minor chaos, but I’ve only driven stick a few times and we aren’t sure if they’d accept an international drivers license so I’m not planning to do any driving for the duration of the visit. During the day most people follow the stop lights but at night they act more like yield signs. Most of them have countdowns on the greens and reds which is something I saw in other countries and would really love to have implemented in the US. Honestly there are no negatives I can think of. It would help all the people texting at lights figure out that they need to put their damn phones down and it seems to help deter people from trying to run through yellows. Horns are used liberally, but not aggressively.

We stopped at Digitel to get eSims for the phone and a local phone number. Verizon has a travel plan that costs $10/day which we used the first two days but that’s as many days as I was willing to pay for. A surprising number of things require using your government ID so we needed Scarlett to put the phone plans in her name and then we’d pay her back. For a month of usage and 12GB of data it costs us about $30 per line. They don’t have 5G here but the LTE works well enough, its not that fast but its better than 3G at home. Good enough for Whatsapp for sure. I think the internet at the home runs off a cellular connection as well. We stream Netflix and Disney+ with only small delays, although for some reason its significantly slower at night.

After Digitel we dropped Genesis off at the nail salon and went to buy some food at the store. Contrary to years past, the store was extremely well stocked, better than some Jewels I have seen back home. The fruit was all fresh and luckily for me they have a large supply of gigantic passionfruit. Its very difficult to get passionfruit back home, they’re usually as much as $3-4 each and yield a very small amount of juice. From these we can blend one and mix it with water for a least a few glasses of juice. Fresh passionfruit is one of my absolute favorites and its a shame it only grows in very tropical climates. To check for ripeness you pick up the fruit and shake it to feel and hear how much juice is inside. You can use it for many things but blended with some water and then strained of the seeds with a little sugar is perfect for me.

The church where we were having Mila baptized is on the North East side of Maracay. We vastly underestimated the time it takes to get ready and ended up leaving at 3 when it was supposed to start. We threw Mila in her carseat wearing only her diaper and gave her a PB&J and then drove as fast as we could to get there where everyone was waiting. Somehow they were almost ready to start less than 20 minutes late. The church was very pretty but was open to the outdoors with no air conditioning, so combinging mid afternoon Venezuela heat with 4 sleep deprived babies meant a lot of crying. Mila calmed down and tried to hug the baby Jesus in the manger up on the altar.

After pictures at the church we had a restaraunt rented out for a celebratory meal and party. The other 3 kids being baptized are all family so there were about 40 family members there for the meal. We arrived early so I was able to sample two of the local brews, Zulia and Polar. Polar is probably easiest compared to a bud light. Zulia has a little bit of skunkiness like you’d get from a Heineken. Genesis prefers Zulia which I would have guessed since she told me her favorite beer was Heineken when we met. Once people started showing up the food and real drinks came out. They really like Johnny Walker, which I have seen in other countries. I believe its due to the image of being like a “classy” whiskey. I preferred to try the local rums which have more interesting flavor and are harder to get back home. Most people drink their hard alcohol with only ice and water as a mixer.

We got a few appetizers first were bite size cheese balls on crackers, almost like ones you’d get for the holidays covered with dried nuts and fruit, but with goat cheese instead of cheddar. Second was a queso crema, not like cream cheese that you put on bagels. It has a consistency that’s closer to sour cream but with a light cheese flavor. This was topped with a pesto and served with crostinis. They were supposed to bring us every Venezuelan’s pride and joy, Tequenos, but we had to ask them to bring us any. Tequenos are best compared to mozzarella sticks, breaded white cheese deep fried or baked, but the cheese is much tastier and they use a different breading that is much more satisfying. These were not like the ones I’m used to, sporting a puff pastry outside and fluffy white farmers cheese inside. It was quite easy to eat an entire plate of them.

Venezuelans love their cheese. While stuffing my face with 3 different kinds I was also told all about some of the other regional cheeses you can find, how they differ, what parts of the country they come from, etc. They are all soft white cheeses but some of them they will age to make hard cheese more like a parmesan. I won’t go into detail on the varieties now because by the time of this writing I have eaten them all and have actually started to try and limit my excessive cheese intake.

By this point the party picked up, the live music began and the bottles of whiskey started emptying. The main courses were a choice between a relatively straightforward chicken and mushrooms or steak with potatoes. Mila ran and danced until she barely could stay awake and we left at a very early 930. Witness accounts say the party continued until 2am but we were not destined to stay that late.