Jurassic Park Jeep!

So, there are no car manufacturers on St. Kitts. That means all of the cars are imported, crappy, and old. However, there is one shining beacon of hope for Ross students... THE JURASSIC PARK JEEP!!

Ok, ok. It is not a shining beacon of hope. It's just as crappy as all the other cars on the island, but it looks so badass. Apparently, it was originally a total junker, and some kid poured money into it to get it where it is today.

It is red and grey, has JP01 on the hood, official Jurassic Park emblems on the sides, and a genuine Jurassic Park license plate. Oh, and it has a machete in the back. The features listed also pointed out that it is a great jeep for checking perimeter fences.

What doesn't this car have, you ask? No A/C, no radio, no door locks, no window roller-upper, no passenger side mirror, no passenger seatbelt, no back seat, nor a properly working roof.

Despite all this, Trevor (a fellow VIP married to Kate, in our orientation group) decided he had to test drive it. Guess who got to ride along while our sucker spouses had lectures? Yep- ME! It was pretty hilarious. We looked for dinosaurs, Trevor sang the Jurassic Park theme song, and we did in fact check the perimeter fences. Trevor actually likes the jeep.

God, please let Trevor and Kate buy the Jurassic Park Jeep!

Reggae Beach- Live De Life!

The past few days have been kind of a slow whirlwind, which incidentally, made sense when I heard the unofficial island motto- Rush Slowly.

Southeast Pennisula

Saturday we all loaded up in our taxi, Sackville Grey has been our driver, and he took us to Reggae Beach, at the very tip of the island. Reggae has a motto if it's own- Live De Life.  I plan on following this motto during our time here on St. Kitts.  Reggae Beach is really nice; like Shipwreck, there is a beach bar, chairs and umbrellas (free to "Rossies"), oh, and there is a giant wild boar named Wilbur, a goat, and a monkey (I think the monkey and goat are Bff; I saw the monkey hug and kiss the goat, and on the website, they look like they are cuddling). I also made friends with an adorable little kitten!

Part of Reggae Beach

The water was really really clear, and Rob and others in our group when snorkeling. Rob came back with two giant sea urchin shells... or at least we think they are urchin shells!  There were a bunch of upper semester students at Reggae, and a friendly beach volley ball was started, and then interrupted by Wilbur. He apparently hates volley ball and tries to stop any attempt at playing. Rob, which his innate pig wrangling skills, quickly got Wilbur off the court and the game going again. Wilbur, quite dejected, when for a dip into the Caribbean.

After the beach, we went to Rock Lobster for dinner. I had some super tasty sangria (for free!), and some nice shrimp and mussels. Nothing to fancy, but it was nice to finally eat some seafood!

Yesterday we went to the Marriott hotel beach. The Marriott itself is really nice, the pool is pretty, and the beach is nice too. At the back of the lobby, leading out, it has a scale replica of Christopher Columbus' ship, La Nina. It has a manmade beach on the Atlantic side of the island. The water is a bit cooler (just barely), and is a bit more choppy.  Rob snorkeled again, and I slept for just about the whole day, excluding during lunch and the two times I went swimming. I probably slept for four hours.  Live De Life indeed.

El Nino is Spanish for, The Nino!

Last night I cooked my first meal in St. Kitts. Nightmarish. I hate electric burners, I have no oven, and about 8 square inches of counter space. I was out of my element, but managed to pull together a decent meal. I can't wait to start looking for apartments for next semester!

Snorkeling at the Marriott

Today is the official first day of orientation. We got up early and had breakfast, turned in part of Rob's paperwork and got him measured for his white lab coat, and various other odds and ends. Later we have more stuff planned- banking, financial aid, security meeting, getting our ids (yep, I get a Ross ID too!), etc. Orientation is all week, and luckily I am not required to go to everything. The week ends with an island tour (Friday), Catamaran trip to Nevis (Saturday), and Zip-lining through the rainforest (Sunday). I can't wait for Friday.

Marriott Beach

Oh, for those of you without Facebook, you can see all of the pictures we have taken if you click here.

Shipwreck Beach

Just when I thought St. Kitts was great, we went to the beach. Shipwreck Beach. St. Kitts is better than great.

Shipwreck is on the narrowest bit of St. Kitts, with less than a quarter mile of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.  We were on the Caribbean side, in South Friars Bay  (We are living just NW of Basseterre, right on the Caribbean!).

Shipwreck Beach, looking towards the end of the island, with a view of Nevis.

The water at shipwreck was completely clear, and the sun makes the water look like a kaleidoscope of blues and greens. Not only is the water beautiful, it's really warm. I love being able to get right into the water without freezing to death. The best part was probably the overall scenery. the beach is self is fairly narrow, and a lush green landscape rises sharply and the edge of the sand.  The day was very clear, and you could see Nevis just off the coast. I would say, "I could get used to this," but I think I'm already there.

Rob the beach, and the lush landscape

I had brought down a snorkle, and Rob had it on the moment he stepped in the water. Less than five minutes later I hear, "LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!!" In less time than it took me to get up to my chest in water, Rob had found a conch shell! We plan on using it to spice up our apartment, since right now its decoration is blander than plain oatmeal!  We found a bunch of smaller shells, and we saw another person find a conch shell. Just as we arrived at Shipwrek, a guy had found a starfish that had to be about two feet across!

Rob and his treasure

We were at the beach for about five hours; I swam, I read, I took a walk, I napped. Seriously, I'm never leaving this island.

Today we are heading to Reggae beach, located at the very end of the island, on the Southeast Pennisula. It is directly across from Nevis, and it is also where the Atlantic and Caribbean meet. Cassie (our Orientation Leader), said you can actually see waves coming from the Atlantic and Caribbean crash into each other.

Black sand at Shipwreck

Before we go to the beach, we are going on a campus tour. I am excited to see around the rest of campus; we have only been around the apartment area so far.  While I can't wait to see where Rob will become a veterinarian, I am more excited to find the path to the beach and the gym! Is that selfish?

St. Kitts: Day 1

Greetings Family and Friends!

Rob and I landed on St. Kitts yesterday about 2pm.  After waiting forever to get through immigration (tons of students arrived with us yesterday), which was NOT air conditioned, we met up with the Ross University delegation! We met our orientation Leader Cassie, and she provided us with our new cell phones, introduced us to the other new vets in Rob's group, had our bags brought to campus, and then brought us to campus.  It all took about 2 hours from when we got off the plane til we left the airport because a few people in our group did not get their bags. Rob and I were able to collect all of our bags, thank God!

Cassie told me and Rob that our room was special, but wouldn't tell us why. Once we got to the campus apartments, we collected our bags (again) and headed up to our room, Woods 301. There was even a little sign on our door with our names!  We walked in, and the two bedroom corner apt seemed normal enough, compared to pictures we had seen. Once we started to poke around the second bedroom we noticed instead of a double bed, desk, and set of drawers, we had a day bed, a couch, two end tables, and a wall unit... with a TV!!! We even have cable! The Ross website said that none of the rooms have television. Rob and I were actually assigned one of the rooms used by visiting professors or lecturers.  The digs are alright; the buildings are about 4 years old, so they are a big dingy in places, but hey, it's not any worse than when we moved into our apartment in Egypt. For those of you who have been to our Egypt apartment, you may remember our spectacular views of the Nile. Well, now we have views of the Caribbean Sea from every window! From our kitchen and living room windows you can also see Nevis, St. Kitts' sister island. It is pretty amazing. By pretty amazing I really mean REALLY FREAKING AMAZING!! :)

After kind of sorting out our things and settling in our room, Cassie took us all to Best Buy, a grocery store. Now, some of the people in our orientation group could not hide their disappointment in the variety, price, condition of the store. Rob and I, however, were real pleased with the selection (tons of American products). It totally blew Metro and Alfa out of the water! (For those of you who don't know, Metro and Alfa were our grocery stores in Egypt). The prices were a bit high, but we expected that since everything has to be imported. We only picked up some breakfast foods and some cleaning supplies. Just to hold us over til we are finished settling in and can really do a big shop.

We briefly returned to the apt to drop off our purchases, and headed to dinner. I was insanely excited when I heard that Cassie was taking everyone to Mr. X''s Shiggidy Shack! 1. The name is so cool, how could you not want to go? 2. It actually sounded cool when I read about it online! Cassie told us that it is in fact one of the cool places to hang out, but like all the places on the island, the service is slow and unhurried. We pulled up and I was NOT disappointed. It is right on the water, and has some open and some bamboo walls and ceilings. They had a live band playing reggae, a bonfire on the beach, a dude who does a fire dance, and a limbo contest! One of the girls in our group won the limbo contest.  Once the regular contest was over, fire man lit the limbo pole on fire and did some fire limbo-ing. It was interesting, the whole time I was freaking out his horrible blue rayon pants were going to melt into his skin!  Dinner itself was slow in coming like Cassie said, plus, they ran out of the first two things I ordered (shrimp, and a burger... the burger delivery man never showed up, so says our waitress), so I got some ribs. To wash down my scrumptious ribs, I ordered the house special: the Shiggidy Jig. It was some kind of fruit and rum drink, luckily this is my favorite kind of libation. I will be ordering more of them in the future. I love Mr. X''s Shiggidy Shack.

After dinner, Rob and I finished unpacking and did some cleaning.  We still have to find homes for a lot of things, but I think we can do four months here on campus. Although, I am hoping to find a sweet apartment for next semester! After nearly 22 hours of being awake, Rob and I crashed late last night.

This morning we got up to a message saying the water would be off between 10 and 11 (it is now 11:15 and still no water). So we rearranged our living room (much better now), and did some more cleaning. Later on we will be going to the beach with our group.  I haven't really taken any photos, so there is nothing to show just yet. Maybe after the beach I will have some beautiful shots to share with everyone! Also, once we are finished cleaning the apartment, I will post some before and after shots.

We love and miss you all!

Seerley Summer Spectacular!

Rob and I are leaving TOMORROW for St. Kitts!!!!!!

We are all packed and ready to go, our flight leaves Atlanta at  7am tomorrow morning. We will have a short layover in Miami, and we should arrive in St. Kitts around 2pm. Rob and I are really excited to begin our next adventure together!

Last week we visited with Rob's grandparents in Washington state; they were vacationing there. We flew out late last Wednesday, and got back Monday night.  Thursday and Friday we took the ferry (our ship was called the Coho and was built in 1959) from Port Angeles, WA to Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.  It takes about 90 min to get to Canada from Port Angeles, and we saw a WHALE!! I only saw its back, but it was awesome. I've never seen a whale in the wild before. Once in Victoria we walked around town, and I got to see my first real life Totem poles! Our hotel was right next to the parliament building, which is all lit up at night like a Christmas tree. Very pretty. We all had dinner at a nice little Italian place called il Terrazo, and Rob and I walked back to the hotel along fisherman's wharf.  The weather was amazing- cool and no humidity. 

Friday we drove up to the Butchart Gardens and the Victoria Butterfly Garden. The gardens were amazing, my favorite flowers were the tuberous begonias, they looked like big fat roses. Rob's grandmother LOVES flowers, and Saturday was his grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary, so it was only fitting to spend the day at the gardens! The butterfly garden was a lot of fun. I spent most of my time there trying to take a picture of the Blue Morpho butterfly, but the stupid thing is so selfish and shuts its pretty wings whenever it lands. I got a couple out of focus flying shots and ONE fuzzy shot of the butterfly flapping on the ground. There were tons of other beautiful butterflies who were more courteous and willing to pose for pictures.  We ended our day in Chinatown, one of the oldest in North America. After our yummy dinner we headed back to the Coho to head south back to Washington.  

Saturday we just vegged out, and had a special celebration dinner for rob's grandparents.  We went to this great little restaurant in Sequim, WA. The food was really nice, and it was so amazing to see people celebrate 60 years of happy marriage! I hope Rob and I make it that far plus some!

Sunday we had an adventure day! We spent the day hiking in Olympic National Park!  We started out hiking Hurricane Hill in Hurricane Ridge (clearly preparing for Hurricane Irene!).  We did about 2.9 miles round trip to the summit, and there was a 660 ft gain (I guess that means elevation change?). The hike goes through the subalpine meadows that cover the mountains above the tree line. The hike was really pretty, and we even got to see some snow still piled up in the higher parts of the trail! At the summit we could see Victoria all the way in Canada, and Mt. Baker, which is in the Cascade mountains (the same chain that Mount St. Helen and Mount Rainier are in). After our "alpine" hike, we headed back down to a part of the park that is "Old Growth" forest. We hiked through said forest 1.8 miles (roundtrip) to Marymere Falls.  The 90ft cascade of water falls from a tributary of nearby Crescent Lake.  The forest around the falls is mainly made up of old growth Douglas Firs and Red Cedar.  I think the forest is technically considered a rain forest, and the trees are so tall they form a canopy.  New trees can only grow when the really old ones die of old age, and fall so that a spot of sunlight can make it through to the ground! I've never seen trees so big before, it really made me want to visit Yosemite so I could see the big Sequoia trees!

Monday we got up early and headed to the airport.  After a LONG day of traveling we made it back to Atlanta. Yesterday and today have been spent packing and running last minute errands.  This time tomorrow we will be settling into our new home on St. Kitts!

Working is for suckers!

Yesterday was my last day of work at International Sugar Art Collection. For those of you who don't know, I worked for a famous pastry chef/cake decorator, Chef Nicholas Lodge. He has been a judge on the Food Network Cake Challenges, and made Princess Diana's wedding cake, and Prince Harry's christening cake.  He has a school in Norcross, GA, and I worked in the retail gallery where we sell tons of cake decorating tools. It's a far cry from my chosen field of Egyptology, but it's really fun!

Gretchen, Emily, and Ann

While I am kind of excited that I get to be on "vacation" in St. Kitts, and I don't have to work, I am really going to miss my friends at ISAC.  I worked with some really great people. Gretchen, Molly, Ann, and Renation work in the retail gallery with me, and Emily is Nick's class assistant.  I was so sad to leave them last year when Rob and I moved to Egypt, and it's just as sad this time around! :(

Thursday night they took me out to dinner, and I was surprised with two gift bags full of supplies/presents to help me assimilate to the local culture of St. Kitts. I got a sweet straw hat, super stylin' glasses, a blue blow up seahorse, a pail and sandcastle shaped bucket, several sand shovels, festive plates, cups, napkins, and drink koozies... I am ready for beach life.

Looking good in my hat and glasses!

Yesterday, my two bosses, Nick, and his business partner Scott, bought pizza for my going away lunch (I freaking love pizza). They also sent me off with a really sweet card and a 20th anniversary apron (the store is celebrating 20 years of business).

Molly and Emily

I am so thankful that I had such a great work experience at ISAC. Not everyone is lucky enough to work with such amazing, fun, and talented people everyday. I will miss you Gretchen, Molly, Emily, Ann, Renato, Nick and Scott!

Summer in the city

Before Rob and I leave, in 21 short days, we are trying to spend time with members of our family that we don't see a lot. We plan to go out to Washington state on 8/17 for 5 days to spend time with Rob's grandparents, Bob and Norma.

This past weekend, we went to NY and NJ to visit with some of my family. We flew up on Thursday night, and got back Monday. We had a really great time. Friday, me, my mom, thea (aunt for those of you who aren't Greek), and papou (grandfather) took Rob to the Central Park Zoo. It is much smaller than the Bronx Zoo, but it was closer and Rob has been to the Bronx Zoo. They have California sea lions, polar bears, all kinds of penguins, snow leopards, snow monkeys, red pandas, lemurs, mongooses, and a WHOLE lot of tropical birds (my favorite was the hot pink Scarlet Ibis). While we were there we got to see the sea lion enrichment, which was super cute. Those guys are really smart! They could salute, smile, dance, flip, kiss, and bark on command. Of course, they all got yummy raw fish (bleh) as positive reinforcement.

After a few hours at the zoo, we went to La Bonne Soupe. It is one of my favorite French restaurants, and Rob and I ate there the night before he proposed. They have a really great au poivre sauce that Rob loves... really loves. After our late lunch, we headed back to my thea's house where we vegged out and had homemade pizzas for dinner, 8 homemade pizzas, to be exact.

Saturday, thea and Uncle Paul had all of our family and friends over for a big backyard bbq/party. We had SO much food: bbq chicken wings and thighs, 10-ish racks of ribs, spanakopita, pesto pasta salad, shrimp and orzo pasta salad, Italian cookies, apple pie, cheese cake, homemade tasty cakes, lemon meringue pie, brownie cake, brownies, fruit salad, butter cake, banana split pie, and a birthday cake for my dad and a keg. Oh, and at about 11:30 that night we made hot dogs until we ran out of propane. We had three grills going at once. There was beer pong and wiffle ball, gossip, chatting, drawing on faces, and fascinators. It was great. I love my family more than anything, and I am so sad they all live in NY, and we live in GA... soon to be further away in St. Kitts.

Sunday was another veg day. The boys decided they should finish the keg and my cousin Chris, Rob, my dad, and my uncle started drinking beer at, oh, 10am. Eggs, bacon, and beer. Breakfast of champions... and morons. I ran some errands with my yiayia (grandmother), and she was generous enough to get me and Rob some supplies for our big move.

On Sunday night we ate in the city at Carmine's, one of my dad's favorites. It is always packed and really loud. Carmine's is family style, and we ordered a lot. Calamari, salad, baked clams, stuffed mushrooms, scarpariello style chicken wings, two gigantic orders of linguini and white clam sauce, rigatoni with marinara sauce broccoli and sausage, veal parmigiana, and for dessert- a foot tall strawberry shortcake, and the Titantic (an enormous sugar coma with cake, ice cream, fruit, and whipped cream, kinda shaped like a boat). My family eats way to much.

It was really sad for me to have to say goodbye the family again, but at least I get to see them at Christmas!

Side note: I learned about geocaching yesterday from my friend Melissa's blog, and Rob and I found our first geocache yesterday! So fun.