Life on the water

That was part of dinner for P-Daddy and me recently when we headed out for sushi. We both love sushi, but it's not the norm for us anymore. When we were in San Diego, we ate it a LOT, probably way more than we should've. Actually, we ate seafood a lot in general. There's something about living so close to a huge body of water that makes me feel like seafood will be good to eat. Fresh. Tasty. Not having sat in someone's freezer for months. I am fully aware that there are such things as planes, and they fly fast, and that the fish that we can get at some places here in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is as fresh as what we got in San Diego, but I have a mental block about it. Here in Dallas, I'd have to drive a heck of a long way to see a coastline. The thought of my "fresh" fish traveling that far just isn't too appealing.

Growing up here in DFW, we didn't eat a whole lot of fish, and I first learned to love it when I lived in Guatemala. We'd head to the beach regularly, all year round. Our favorite place was about 4 hours from where I lived, so we'd go early and spend the day lazing in the sand, people-watching, strolling on the beach, maybe swimming, and plying ourselves with cold beer (Gallo, how I miss you!) and fresh seafood. And when I say fresh, I do mean fresh - as in, caught fresh that morning by the comedor owner's husband or one of his friends. It was incredibly good!

Living in San Diego fed my seafood addiction further, especially with the addition of sushi to my list of well-loved foods. But we've now been back in DFW for about 2 years, and I miss having a steady diet of fresh seafood. I know it's possible, it's just my own personal opinion that things that live in the ocean taste better when you are close to an ocean.

Yesterday I was lazily looking through my pics when I happened to see this one of our go-to map:

Now, take a look again - do you see that coastline? I cannot wait to explore its entire length, and when I do, I'll make sure to let you know the best possible places to get fresh fish. And cold beer. Yum!

conversion!

I mentioned in my last post that I want to find a user-friendly weather map of El Salvador, so that I can ensure that I do not roast my retirement away at 100+ degrees in the shade. I'm not having a whole lot of luck with that, so I finally just opted for a check of what Lonely Planet has to say about the weather in ES. I'll note here that while I've used Lonely Planet guides pretty extensively in my travels, I find their guide to El Salvador to be far from comprehensive, and I'd love any suggestions for different travel books! Anyway, according to this not-the-best-lonely-plant-guide, weather in El Salvador is as follows:

coastal areas = 22-32 all year
central areas = 19-38
mountainous areas = 12-23

Using this handy-dandy temp converter I found, I am now able to adequately translate that:

coastal areas = 71-90 all year
central areas = 66-100
mountainous areas = 53-73

That's really not so bad! It looks like I have an option of always hot, but not unbearably so in the coastal areas, chilly at times, hot at others in the central areas, and chilly year-round in the mountainous areas. Those mountainous areas sound so great right now! Even after a not-too-terribly-hot day here, the thought of being in or around the 60's all year is quite enticing!

I'm pretty sure that P-daddy and I are not going to agree on which of these is the most attractive. But let's be honest, he's going to be so disgusted at my needing an online tool for temperature conversions that he may never even get to these last paragraphs!

Whether weather matters...

Here in Dallas, we are finally experiencing a welcome break from record-setting temps (40 consecutive days over 100 degrees!) with a welcome rain and a "break" with a high today expected to only be 99. All this hot hot weather got me to wondering:

What can we expect weather-wise in El Salvador?

My go-to site for weather here (Weather.com) tells me it's between 75 and 85 in San Salvador, between about 75 and 90 in San Miguel, and between 75 and 93 in la Union, but their travel maps don't even have El Salvador as an option. In searching for a more user-friendly weather guide to El Salvador, I came upon Weather Underground, which I immediately preferred, since it shows me the weather for 6 different parts of ES all at once. But what about the rest? Since weather will play into our decision as to where to eventually settle, this may be something I need to look into now! Anyone have suggestions for the best real-time weather conditions across the country?

Oh, and yeah, please note that my search is complicated by the Estado Unidense in me, who is really only familiar with temps in Fahrenheit. Perhaps what I need is an app for quick conversion...