Journey to our new home!

Bryant and I started our little long journey to Grenada on Saturday evening.  We boarded a plane to Atlanta from Salt Lake at 5:05 pm Saturday night and arrived in Atlanta at 11:00 pm.  My great-uncle Theodore and great-aunt Beverly met us at the airport and took us out to eat at the Steak 'N' Shake and then we went back to their house and crashed.  The next morning we slept in until past 10 then went to church with The and Bev.  They also made us dinner and we had some very good conversations and really enjoyed our time with them!  They dropped us off at the Atlanta airport around 8 that night and we took this picture with them to remember the trip.

Thanks Theodore and Beverly, we really enjoyed our time with you!!

We boarded the next leg of our journey (a flight to JFK airport) at 9:55 Sunday night and landed in New York just after midnight.  After getting off the plane, we discovered that to get to our terminal we were required to leave the airport, walk across a parking lot, go up some stairs, take a train over one terminal, then re-enter the airport through security.  Seriously.  Whose terrible plan was that?! We ended up waiting in the security line for over an hour.  It was very stressful, but we met some other students who had to do the same ridiculous plane switching we did as well as a lot of Jewish people (over half the security line was made up of men with sidelocks and yarmulkes) who were all going to Israel.  Not as a big group, mind you, just individuals and small groups who all wanted to go.  Did you know there is a Jewish airline?  Neither did I, but we had a good conversation with the guy in front of us who was flying to Israel for school. 

We made it on the plane with only ten minutes to spare and the plan took off at about 2 am.  Both of us managed to sleep more than we thought we would and finally landed shortly before 7 this morning.  De-planing was an adventure because we got to use a stair car (the Bluths, anyone?) and walk across the tarmac to the tiny tiny airport. We waited in line about 10 minutes to get to immigration, then collected our luggage and waited in another line for probably half an hour for customs.  We were prepared to pay ridiculous taxes on our electronics as we had been warned was normal, but after declaring everything and producing the receipts, the guy just told us to go through.  Pretty sure he wanted to get done with work and out to party (it's Carnival here right now) so he didn't bother doing his job as well as usual.  But hey, we didn't have to part with any cash, so we were happy.

After finally making it out of the airport, we looked around for the ride we were supposed to have but couldn't find them.  We later found out our ride did get there but barely missed us.  We waited a while, then finally took a taxi (the school pays for it) and got to our new little home.  When we arrived, Kristen (wife of one of the second year students) invited us up for breakfast and we ate eggs, bacon, and pancakes with her and her husband, Ross.  We're new best friends (meaning they're the only people we know on the whole island) and are planning to go over again for dinner tonight.  The stores are all closed for Carnival, so we have no food!

We have unpacked all of our belongings, took a nap, and started planning what we'll buy at the store tomorrow.  There are still things we need to buy here, despite the six bags we brought with us from Utah.  I'll be back tomorrow with a little video/picture tour of our little home and some more information about our island.  Love and miss you all!