Day Three: Something Green

There are so many possibilities, aren't there?

I choose a green friend whom we see frequently underwater:  A parrotfish.

Parrotfish are fairly common in the Caribbean, but it makes no difference.  Any time I see one, I have to stop and marvel at its beauty.  And those beaks are pretty amazing, ripping off bits of coral.  And I do believe there is no fish that is a better POOPER than a parrotfish.  Seriously, you can hardly make a dive without seeing a parrotfish poop :-)






Ethan:
So, I'm in a fruit mood after doing the last post, and green fruits kept coming to my mind, so I'm going to post about another classic fruit: kiwi

I can't remember when, but at some point growing up I learned that you don't need to peel the skin of kiwis. You can theoretically just eat the brown skin.... provided you can get over the slightly hairy feel.

If you don't want to eat the skin, then you do one of two things: you either peel the skin off or use a spoon to scoop it out after you have cut the kiwi in half. If anyone has seen me peel/cut anything, you'll know I'm not very good at it. When I tried that approach I was left with like 2/3 of a kiwi to eat because so much has been lost with the skin. The other idea, using a spoon, was always a sticky endeavor that left a whole bunch of kiwi at the bottom because my spoon couldn't get to it. 

When I was living in Brussels, there were always kiwis for breakfast and lunch, but I never wanted to take a spoon for lunch and skinning it always left it messy. So, slowly but surely, I started eating the kiwis with the skin on. Just bite right in, just like an apple. I got some weird looks the first time anyone saw me do it! It's definitely not the typical way to eat a kiwi, but I don't mind the skin and it turns the kiwi, a delicious fruit, into a easy fruit to eat instead of the hassle it can be using a knife or a spoon. Give it a try!

~Allison~

So my relationship with the color green has been an interesting one. As a graduate and former rower at the University of Michigan, green was hardly an encouraged color (it wasn't outright despised like that obtrusive color of the school down south, but still relatively frowned upon). In fact, it was only this year that I acquired both of my green shirts that I now own, as they say "old habits die hard".

It was also this year that I found a reason to actually love the color green, and that was due to my amazing visit to the Green Isle aka Ireland aka "the place I dreamed of for fiveever and the Kennedys were gracious enough to let me crash their Irish adventure" place.

Seriously though, when Ireland is referred to as the Green Isle it's a totally accurate name. Everything I saw while I was there had some sort of green involved, whether it was the picturesque, rolling hills, grassy moss covering castles older than the US has been a country, or waving proudly on the Irish flags flying all over the place. Everything was green and I absolutely loved it!

I'm so grateful for my opportunity to travel and for being able to go to the place I'd always dreamed of and having it be so much better than I could've imagined! I'm super excited for my next opportunity to embrace Ireland and its everything green lifestyle!

Glo:
Green is like the best thing in the world.  I mean anything that is naturally green, like in nature, is bound to beautiful and cool.  The best type of green is the one right after it's rained or is raining for about a day and all the trunks of the trees are a really dark wet brown, but all the leaves everywhere in the forest are this epic bright green color.  Like I wish rain wasn't so wet cause I would literally sit in the forest and watch it rain cause the colors right then are so amazing.  Green in Pennsylvania is SO IMPORTANT.  Like you know something is wrong if it isn't green, so I just think green in nature is such a great feeling.  Like when it starts becoming spring, and you get that spring smell in the air after a super long winter and you start seeing green, it just makes you so happy.  Green in the best.

Rebecca:

I'll be honest, green is not one of my favorite colors. Not sure why, I've just never been that into it. Green does have some redeeming qualities though. Mostly nature. For one, I love the rolling green hills in Pennsylvania! The trees, the corn fields-it's all beautiful and it all represents home!

And of course I can't pay tribute to the color green without mentioning Ireland! It must be the greenest place on earth! Thanks to the Kennedys I have the opportunity to visit Ireland twice. As far as vacations go, these pretty much top the list! Ireland lived up to all the hype, and then some!