This is our first holiday away from home. A month or so ago, we wondered how we would be spending this American holiday in Grenada... obviously just a normal day in the Caribbean! But amazingly, in the short time we've been here, we've become acquainted with a few other Americans... who were also looking for a way to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.
So we hosted a group of 9 people... some we just met today... for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner here at our home in Bay Gardens! I'll name them in the order they appear in the photo... from left to right. Dave & Barb are originally from Maine and work at the medical university. (She is a neuropsychologist; Dave is teaching a business course there.) Bill & Debbie are from Alabama and Florida, and are living on their boat... a trawler... for the past 5 years. They are wintering here in Grenada, waiting for hurricane season to pass. By January, they'll be ready to move north again. Then it's Scott at the head of the table. Next to him is Amy & her husband, Ed who both work at the university. I didn't get much chance to talk to Amy to find out what her position is at the university, but I know Ed is a librarian there. Cindy, from Conshohocken, PA, is on the far right & she is here visiting Amy & Ed. This is her first visit to Grenada... and she was not expecting to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner while on vacation!
Everyone chipped in & helped with the dinner. Debbie was a huge help in the kitchen! (Having lived on the boat for 5 years, I think she's been missing working in a "real" kitchen!) The menu was as follows: Crab stuffed mushrooms (appetizer), Turkey & stuffing, gravy & mashed potatoes, squash casserole, peas, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, key lime pie, coconut brownies, and wine, wine, and more wine! Barbara also brought some really good olives stuffed with almonds, pickles, and some kind of Caribbean chow-chow. Although we were missing our families today, it was a fabulous meal, with some really fun conversation! We've decided that we should get together more regularly... maybe have a game night!
Scott & I had been working around the house all week in preparation of the big dinner. I finally got my living room curtains done... and hung. And on Tuesday, we spent some time finally getting some of my photographs hung on the walls. Scott made a temporary table... with a 4'x8' sheet of plywood on top. And we had plenty of chairs. I love having all this space! This house is so much better for entertaining than our Mount Joy home!
We are now talking about getting together for Christmas... probably the day after, which is Boxing Day here (another holiday day off). Scott & I "think" we've been invited to Christmas dinner with one of our neighbors. I say "think" because I have a hard time understanding her! Guess I have a few more weeks to clarify that!
Well, we hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! I'll probably be reporting more after the next hash... it's here at Bay Gardens this Saturday! It'll be a good chance to get out to REALLY see the neighborhood!
Today was Day 4 of a rainy spell we're in at themoment. This stretch of rain began on Saturday... as a matter of fact, we skipped the hash this weekend because of it. Last night it blew so hard during the rain storm that I was awakened by the sprinkles hitting me (from the open window across the room)! Until today, we've been cooped up looking for indoor projects.
I was scheduled to go to town this morning to pick up my new "cruiser" friend, Debbie. We made a plan to test out a recipe for pie dough today, and wouldn't let the rain stop us! Because of all the rain, I came across a number of land slides along the way... many of them closing down at least half of the roadway. I've included a few photos with this entry. The one that covers the whole road was on the way back to my house (the back road to town). When we came upon it, there was no where to turn around, so I ended up backing quite a distance down the hill before I came to a driveway that I could turn around in. Since I'm not very familiar with some of the other back roads, plus the thought that I might run into more land slides on the smaller roads... I chose to go nearly back to town to get on the main road home.
By the way, we've heard a new term here... apparently their word for land slide is: land slip. Well, let me tell you... I'm sure the road workers are very busy right now trying to keep after all the land slips! We actually heard that someone's pool slipped down the hill!
Debbie brought the Thanksgiving turkey with her today, along with some other supplies for our upcoming dinner. She doesn't have a car here, so she's become very experienced at getting around on the bus system here. Instead of driving her back to her boat, she had me take her to town to catch a bus the rest of the way. So I took a route I don't normally take to get her to the bus station in St. George's... that's the photo with the cruise ship in the background. Woo-eeee! Is that street ever steep!!! I was a little nervous driving down the hill, thinking I was going to start slipping! But I had no trouble at all. There were 3 cruise ships in today. I felt bad for the passengers because of all the rain. I don't know that this is normal for this time of year. Well, I'm back to working on my living room curtains! Looks like I'll still have at least one more rainy day to fill... they say the sun isn't expected to come out before Thursday! Speaking of that, you'll notice a gray pipe on the left side of one of the photos here... that's the water line. I noticed today that we no longer have warm water coming out of the kitchen spigot... because the sun hasn't been out to warm it! (We don't have a hot water heater.) And for those of you that are envious of us being able to wear shorts and sandals year round... I've been wearing long pants for the past day or two because it's chilly! Enjoy the photos! Now, go back up to the top of the page and check out the new poll I've added on the right column! Tell me what you want to hear more about!
Hashing... Yesterday was another "hash" day... a special one because they usually only do them every other week, and we just had the Halloween Hash last Saturday. Yesterday's hash trail was set because a local guy (Jah-wah) wanted to set it for his birthday. I tried (unsuccessfully) to talk Scott out of going. I didn't want to go because it was raining in the morning, and I'm still having trouble with the shoes I wear for these things. Here's the problem... I have a great pair of hiking boots that I wore to our first hash (in the mud, remember?). But since your feet and ankles swell down here, they've become too small and cause severe blisters on my heels. (I didn't think about that when I bought them back in PA!) So the only other pair of shoes that I can "sacrifice" to the mud trails are a pair of old sneaks that I used for mowing grass... they're not very good at gripping on hillside mud trails. So I knew that the rain in the morning would cause a muddy trail and figured I'd end up on my rear end at some point along the way!
Well, after a few graceful splits, and another near splat... I actually made it through with only a little mud on my hands (from catching myself during one of those splits)! There was one point in this trek where I had to use my hands to help climb an extremely steep road. It was a concrete road (with grooves cut in for traction) that was so steep I couldn't stand on it! My shoes were slippery and wouldn't grip on the wet road very well. When I peered back over my shoulder, I envisioned myself skidding all the way back down to the bottom! And THAT would have been the end of my hashing! I'm thinking... this is a ROAD that someone actually drives up???!!!
The photos show some of the reasons we enjoy doing these hikes... the views are spectacular, and the people who live along the way are so friendly! (Notice the Christmas tree on the porch!) There were a few times when we failed to notice the trail marks (because we were talking) and started on a wrong path... the people in the homes nearby would set us straight & help us along! On this hike, when the locals realized we were American (and not Brits), they would smile and yell "Obama"!
Anyway, I had the most fun on this hash because we met some more fun people!
Another month is over and we're now in the final few days before the historic presidential election. We'll be watching closely, along with a majority of the local Grenadians!
Today we attended our 3rd hash. Since Halloween was yesterday, we were told it was "mandatory" that we come in "fancy dress" (costume). So we both threw together a costume, with items we had in our closets. I found a pair of Scott's camoflaged army pants and a camo "do-rag", so I decided to try to build a costume around that. End result was... I was Rambo-ette and Scott was a lumberjack. The hash started at Grand Anse Beach (the tourist beach) and took us nearly 2 hours to finish! That first hill was so steep... and long... that I thought we were hiking all the way to heaven!!! It was actually a road, but I can't imagine actually trying to drive a car up that hill! The locals don't really celebrate Halloween like we do in the states, so we got quite a few questionable looks as we passed by their homes along the way! Nevertheless, we were greeted with numerous smiles when they realized we were in costume (and not just a bunch of wierdos)! At the end of the evening, they awarded prizes to the best costumes and Scott & I both won a bottle of rum each! It was loads of fun! We also met a few more people that we may spend some more time with in the coming weeks. One girl (Debbie) is from Florida, but has been living on a boat with her boyfriend for the past 5 years! She was dressed as a pirate. I was happy to meet another American... there are so few of them here! Most of the Americans we run into here are students at the medical university.
It looks like the cruise ship season has begun! During the month of October there were only a total of 5 ships that stopped here. But Friday began a run of at least 3 straight days when there was a cruise ship docked at the pier. During the month of November Grenada is expecting nearly 40,000 cruise ship passengers to visit... a very welcome time of year for the locals.
On another note... tonight those of you in the states will be turning your clocks back an hour. Here in the Caribbean, there is no need to use daylight savings time... since we're closer to the equator, we have nearly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness year round. So there is no need to change the clocks. So starting tomorrow, we'll be an hour ahead of the east coast.
Today is a national holiday in Grenada. Their Thanksgiving Day commemorates the arrival of US military forces when they intervened during a political revolution in 1983. Although many people might refer to this event as an "invasion" of Grenada, it is often pointed out by the locals as an "intervention". You can read more about it here at the following link... Operation Urgent Fury. Today marks the 25th anniversary. President Ronald Reagan was also dealing with the bombing of the barracks in Beirut only 2 days earlier. We didn't have any special plans for the day... we're hoping it's nice enough to get to the beach tomorrow.
On Thursday, we took a drive around the island. Well, we covered about the top 2/3. Originally we planned to do it on Wednesday, but there was a lot of rain in the forecast. Thursday's weather didn't look much more promising, but we decided to venture out anyway. Amazingly, we must have skirted the rain all day because we only came into one downpour. We were watching some very dark clouds over the mountains all day... even saw a waterspout out in the Caribbean Sea. (That's a little tornado over water.) When we got home later that day, we could tell there had been quite a bit of rain here while we were out. The news then showed that many streets were flooded in the city and along the tourist section of Grand Anse. One restaurant (along the main highway) had 3 feet of water inside! Here's a photo from the day... along the northern edge of the island:
We had a great day for the hash last Saturday! I forwarded some photos from the day so they could post them on the Grenada Hash Harriers website. If you want to see all of them, keep an eye on this site: Grenada Hash Website/Photos (Watch for the link for "Hash 601" photos, which haven't been posted by the time I write this.)
And today I finally did it! I made my first batch of soft pretzels... from scratch! They taste prettygood, but I'm missing the coarse salt. Snack food here is quite expensive so we've never bought a bag of chips, etc. (and I haven't seen any pretzels in the grocery store). We now make popcorn the old-time way... in a covered pot on top of the stove. It's great!
I forgot to mention... I received my first package (mostly forwarded mail) from my sister. I had to open the box in front of the customs agent so they could look through it to see if there was anything inside of "value". (Meaning: anything there to tax!) They saw that it was mostly mail, with some iced tea mix so there was no charge for duty. But we discovered that every time we receive a box, it'll cost us $20 EC to get it... that's about $7.50 US. In addition to that, there will be a percentage fee added to the value, which could be as high as 35-55% for electronics! (The root beer barrels she threw in were a real treat!)
Actually, it started last week... but we missed seeing the "Arcadia" at the pier. The Grenada Board of Tourism has a posting of the cruise ship schedule on the internet, so we knew there would be another one arriving this morning. Today's visit was from Holland America's VEENDAM, and has a capacity for 1,266 passengers... not so large compared to some of the newer cruise ships. We decided to go to town to get some photos and to see the city come alive! Of course, there is a hazard to us in walking around town on a day when the cruise ships are here... because of our skin color, we are constantly approached by the locals with offers for taxi rides, spices, and other souvenier items. So our answer to this dilemma was to stop at a hardware store to buy a gallon can of stain! (No one seemed to bother us after that.)
We thought there might be a good number of Americans on this ship, and we noticed that many of them seemed much older than us... I saw a few being pushed around the streets in wheelchairs, and one even was pushing along her oxygen cart... not an easy feat if you've seen the streets & hills in the city! I finally stopped a couple walking past our car and asked them from where the ship departed. They told us they were Canadians (from Vancouver) and this ship is on a 5 week trip which began in San Diego... through the Panama Canal and they were headed to the Amazon! (That explained the reason for all the senior citizens we saw! A younger crowd usually has more difficulty getting that much time off work.) Our neighbor at Bay Gardens said he had a group (from the ship) in this morning to tour his gardens. In case you're interested, here's a link to the itinerary for this trip: Veendam Itinerary
While in town, I took another little video clip while driving on the city streets. I know you'll enjoy this one! FYI... the red van in front of us is what they consider a taxi, and we stop for a moment at a traffic signal (look for the box where the traffic cop used to stand to direct traffic here). Further along this one-way road, we come to a speed hump. Now... fasten your seatbelts! (There's not much audio to go with it... sorry.)
We've heard about this group that meets every other Saturday for something called a "hash"... which is really a hike. Today was their 600th hash, so we decided to finally catch up with them at 2:30 today & see what it's all about!
First I have to tell you that last night we woke to some strong thunderstorms & heavy rain beginning around 3 am. At 10:00 this morning, it was STILL raining hard. I have no idea how much rain we actually got, but it was the most I've seen in one stretch since arriving here! On our drive to the hash, we noticed a number of landslides along the way, and one car looked like it had been submerged in an overflow across the road. Although it finally stopped by now, we are surely going to get muddy today!
We were prepared for the mud... extra set of clothes (and shoes), and camera in underwater housing (in case it rains again!). I wore my high-topped hiking boots... which are not that comfortable, but I was told it would only be about an hour hike so I could handle that.
At the beginning, we had to sign in (then sign out when we get back)... indicating that we were "virgins"... first-timers. There were quite a few virgins on this one, I guess because this was their 600th hash. They have different people who lay out the trails each time, so the guys who set this one were acknowledged. In preparation for these hashes, they usually need to cut the brush back to create the trail to follow. Sometimes I hear these guys get a bit over-enthusiastic in creating a challenging trail. Today we heard there were 3 trails for: walkers, runners, and ironmen. (We're doing the "walkers" trail... we're not nuts!)
I'm including a link to the photos I took: Webshots Album I've captioned most of them, and there are a couple very short video clips to really give you an idea of what the environment was like. Overall, we had a good time, although it took us about 1-1/2 hours to finish! (Sometimes the trail got bottled up when people had to go single file to get through an area.) We're looking forward to doing it again since it's really great exercise! (At least it's a way to work off the alcoholic beverages consumed during the event!)
Upon returning home, the first order is to clean up the mud off our boots and get the clothes in the laundry! Then after a shower (and some medical attention to relieve the blisters on my heels), I'm sitting here posting the photos. In a few minutes, my head will be meeting the pillow for hopefully a restful and QUIET night of recuperation!
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