the iceberg off the island...

I saw it on the first day we arrived. It was odd to see an iceberg floating in the warm Atlantic waters, but then again, Puerto Rico is magical so I just shrugged and began reading. I was lost in the pages of my book when I heard my name called from the water. Louder and louder and with increasing rapidity, my family pleaded with me to join them in the water. Uh, no thanks. I heard there were fish in the water. I buried my head back in my book until my brother came ashore to tell me that the iceberg is an inflatable climbing device that all of us were going to climb. I laughed, rolled my eyes, and continued reading. There was no way I was going to a. swim with fish, and b. climb an inflatable iceberg. It sounds about as fun as trying to open a coconut by banging it with my head.

But alas, peer pressure is not overcome with maturity because the teasing and baiting remarks lured me like a Siren to my death. And like the Titanic, it was humiliation by an iceberg.

My sister and I were the only ones yet to climb the iceberg so everyone bobbed in the water like buoys and and cheered. She climbed first, rung by rung until she made it to the top of a small landing. I was trailing right behind her, grasping ahold of the rungs for dear life. The landing was very small and as I said, my sister was already on it. I pulled with all my strength and swung my legs to the top of the landing. I touched the top with my foot (or my toe, but who really cares?). If this was American Gladiator I would have gotten my points for beating Laser at The Pyramid. If this was the search for the Americas, call me Christopher Columbus because I came right to the tip and completed virtually everything (minus the standing part, but who really cares?). The landing was small (yes, I'm mentioning that again) and inflatable, therefore slippery when wet. By all logical reasoning, there was no way for two people to stand on the landing. Naturally, I fell into the water but I felt like Christopher when he wrote to Queen Isabella to recount the beauty of his conquest. I buoyed with my family members and jeered as my sister was still paralyzed by the heights of the platform. She was frozen on the iceberg :) When she finally jumped off we all swam back to shore and laughed at her.

But somehow in the metaphysical science of iceberg climbing, one must stand on the landing to get the privilege of claiming that you actually climbed the iceberg (she apparently wrote the rulebook on climbing inflatables). My whole family turned against me except my mother (love you, mom!) and said that I didn't complete it. So today I will swim out to the iceberg, climb to the top like an American Gladitor, bang my chest in Columbus fashion while screaming, Viva Espana, and do a double twist half pike dive with no splash into the Atlantic Ocean just to prove that I climbed an iceberg off an island in the Atlantic Ocean.