Plate o' Shrimp

Land O' lines

For the present I have the luxury of privacy-my roommate does not arrive until tomorrow. I have yet to swim (..and the beach-my god the beach is surreally beautiful) but got a great deal accomplished today. I found myself saying to someone at registration today “welcome to the land of lines” and I have stood in MANY MANY lines since arriving here. The lines at the airport were insanely long first at immigration, then the one I needed to stand in to report my lost bag, then the “laptop line” where all the St. George's students were dutifully declaring there laptops. Then there was the line at registration, the line to get my financial aid check and mailbox, the line at the bank to get an account.
Grenada is still the Grenada I remembered, that is to say I got hit on by a beautiful Grenaden man within 5 minutes of walking into the grocery store. Folks here seem helpful in ways that would never be considered in the states.. When I bought an electric kettle, they took it out of the box for me and filled it with water and turned it on, and waited till it boiled so I knew that it worked while a man behind me was having the sales clerk try out the light bulbs he was buying.

Because it is the dry season, it was raining horizontal when I showed up, and it has been fairly soggy since then. My dorm room is in an old hotel property on Grand Anse Beach and it is a little run down, but it is spacious and .. I have mentioned the beach?! Last night I slept on my single bed on a layer of tee shirts covered by a 2/3 finished shawl I am still crocheting because the bag that had all the sheets and towels in it did not arrive with me. Tonight I have the prospect of either sleeping on the sheet provided to me by my kind RA or a trip to the airport to get my missing bag-although after having spent the previous night at JFK pretending to sleep in a chair with my feet propped up on my baggage (it wasn't like “the terminal” I didn't see tom hanks, I didn't find a bench to sleep on, I didn't have a date with any cute flight attendants,) I had little trouble sleeping on my ad hoc jersey sheet set.

I nearly panicked when I saw how young most of my classmates were, then I began to see a FEW other non-trads-my RA among them and I felt better. I have made an acquaintance with an earnest and sweet young woman named Ruth.. and am now nodding acquaintances with a few more folks. There seems to be multiple opportunities for bonding. There is Plane bonding, dorm bonding and a generalized line bonding where much information is exchanged. The weekend is FULL of events.. things to do and see including a tour of town tomorrow. Classes start Monday.

There is a big outdoor kitchen on the beach where “the ladies” cook. There are a few ladies actually, I bought my dinner from Rosie. Chicken tacos consisting of two freshly made tortillas filled with a generous amount of chicken, cheese and salsa, a small salad, a big helping of rice, a serving of mac and cheese, and a side of veg.. all for about $12. Dinner seemed expensive at first, but I only ate about 1/3 of it and will comfortably get two or more meals out of it.

I have also learned the interesting tidbit that in order to get wireless internet access (called firefly here, much to the delight of my internet lovin heart) I need to leave the room and go down the hall-which I will do now so I can post this missiv.

Peace out

posted by Sa @ 10:16 PM