What lives in those holes by the road?

One thing we've had a hard time adjusting to here is the fact that when you walk down the road (especially in the evening) you hear things rustling in the bushes and grass at the roadside.  It scares me every time but I know it's just lizards/frogs/stray cats.  Seriously, every five feet you hear more rustling.  Tonight Bryant and I went for a walk down a little side street that has tons of these holes on both sides.  We had noticed the holes before but thought nothing of it.  Tonight we noticed movement at the holes and started looking closer.  You know what lives in all those holes?

I'll let you guess.

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Crabs.  Land crabs.  Who knew?  They seem to like hanging out above their holes right at sundown, but scuttle back down when someone walks past.  We saw probably 70 of them along the tiny stretch of road.  Anybody else seen any land crabs lately?

Women, know your place!

Today Bryant and I went on campus to pick up his student ID card and start the process for me to get mine.  In order for me to get an SO card (Significant Other) I have to fill out some paperwork and get it approved before taking my picture and getting the card.  We wandered up to where they had Bryant's card, he gave the lady his name and she handed him his ID.  As she was giving it to him, I said, "Oh, and do you know where we can get paperwork for an SO card?"

In response, the lady holds her hand up in front of me and says, "I prefer to talk to him."  Then stares pointedly at Bryant, ignoring me.  Did that really just happen?  Yes, it did.

Bryant finally said, "Oh...ok..." and then repeated exactly what I had already said.  She replied and the two of them had a conversation (always referring to me as her or she) and she never once looked at me again.  Bryant and I have only two theories:  one, she thinks women shouldn't talk when their husbands are there, or two, she decided she would only talk to students.  Either way, I was astounded.  Welcome to Grenada!

Sticker shock

Now, we knew the exchange rate out here was $1 US to $2.67 EC.  Meaning the prices seem much higher than they should be.  For example...

 

this bottle of vegetable oil.

 

However, even taking the exchange rate into consideration things are EXPENSIVE.  We went shopping today and bought some minimal groceries.  I want you all to look at the pictures and then guess how much it all cost.

 

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Did you guess yet?

$239 EC

$91 US

Seriously.

Apartment Tour

As promised, I am back to give you a tour of our little home.  It is small, but not as small as we thought, and is MUCH cleaner/nicer than I expected.  I just used our Microsoft Surface to walk through the apartment and show you where everything is.  I'm awkward in it and my camera skills are sometimes lacking because I stopped looking at the screen sometimes.  So...enjoy!

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!

Crossed pipes?

The other day, I heard a strange noise...

a blub...

blub...

blub...

I tracked the noise to my toilet...

Yup.  Bubbles.  Honest-to-goodness soap bubbles.  And this has now happened more than once!!  Am I the only person in the world who has bubbles coming up through their toilet?

Zoo

Last Saturday I got to go to the zoo with my sister and nephew, and I realized just how fun the zoo is when you have a nine-month-old little boy to help you appreciate it!

 All bundled up!  It was a little nippy out.

 With his mommy by the big, fake elephant.

 He was kind of tired and out of it at the beginning.

 But then he warmed up to the lemurs...

 and the birds...

 and the kangaroo-thingys...

 but not so much to whatever this animal was.

 However, he LOVED the giraffes (or he just decided to be happy when we were with the giraffes)

 I love this face!  He makes it whenever he's excited about something.

 Look at that grin!  I love this kid.

With his favorite aunt. =)

He also adored the merry-go-round!  

So, in summary:  I love the zoo and my nephew is one of the cutest boys in the world! (My other nephew is another of those, and my two nieces are the two cutest girls in the world)