Lizards, Water recycling and things

This post is mostly just random little things thrown together. There are tons of little tidbits every day that don't quite make a full topic by themselves so this is a few of them together as one. Below is just a nice shot of a pretty little island right off campus. Megan and I both noticed how this was the first time we'd seen any birds on this small island, but it was also during the highest winds we'd experienced thus far. The birds are smart and know to take refuge where they are safe. I wish I could have gotten closer to them but from our stance it looked like they were something similar to a crane.

(Below) Lizards! I am not really a reptile fan but the lizards here are very cool. There are tons of them and they are very pretty and interesting. So far I have distinguished two types. Below is the smaller type. The eyes bug-out similar to a Gecko but a small body usually about 2-4 inches long, with a tail about an additional 6 inches. It's crazy to see these lizards with tails twice to thrice their own body length. Perhaps it has to do with the low number of cats on the island not pouncing on their tails... ;) Another interesting thing about them is these little ones have a small sack or bag of skin under their throats similar looking to a pelican. They can extend it out so it looks just like a pelican or retract it up against their throat where it's not even noticeable. Oh yeah and man oh man can these little ones JUMP! This is like a frog/gecko/lizard combo. These little guys often jump from trees onto other things jumping a foot or two is common.

The other lizard I have seen around here is like a GIANT blue belly crossed with an alligator lizard. They have extremely vibrant blue bellies, bright green backs and are about a foot or two in length. Jasper and Felicity don't discriminate they try to attack all of them. They don't have a chance in hell of catching one with how quick they are but the dogs don't know this.

(Below) So I am in the grass area behind the apartment complex and I see what's pictured below... That white line across the picture is the rain gutter. It comes off the roof and straight into the water tanks... then the little white pipes go straight into our apartments... hmm so THAT would explain the constant grit and sand in our water.... YUMMY! Apparently this is quite common around this area but it still doesn't thrill us.

(Below) These little guys are all over the place. They seem pretty harmless, (not that I have given them a chance to bite me). Just thought the coloring was very cool looking.

The White Coat Ceremony

So for those not familiar with Med/Vet schooling the tradition in most schools is to start with a "White Coat Ceremony". This symbolizes the student's official entrance into the Vet/Med profession. Each student has their first white doctor's coat placed on them by one of the head people of the school. It was a very exciting event to see my wife with her official doctors coat on, looking quite the part.

The highlight was of course watching Megan get coated (I guess that's what you call it?) along with her new friends. Unfortunately that was but 20 minutes or so of the 1 hour long ceremony. The person leading the ceremony was nice and said some interesting and encouraging things. The guest speaker was quite decorated with President of this, and director of that, and treasurer of this... but he was bloody BORING! I even checked with Megan after to see if I was the only one begging for him to sit back down, she agreed completely. The points he made were good but his 45 min speech could have been shortened down to only 5 minutes worth of info, the rest was just blah blah blah fluff about those points.

Another slightly silly but exciting aspect of this ceremony for me was a chance to really try out the telephoto lens Megan bought me for my birthday. For those into camera's it's a Canon 70-300mm IS lens, I REALLY love it. Unfortunately the lighting was horrid in this ceremony. The hall was lit with fluorescent lights with the very annoying exception of the stage which was lit by incandescent lighting. What this means to those not familiar with photography is that basically if I setup the camera to compensate for the orange incandescent lights on stage then when I took a shot of someone just prior to walking on to the stage they looked very blue. And on the other hand if I set it up for off stage then when they walked onto the stage they looked very orange/red. I just couldn't win. So you'll see some photos have some color variances. I did my best to correct this but there's only so much I know how to do. Also I knew it was likely to be dark in the auditorium so I figured I'd just pick my self up a cheap tripod or mono-pod to stabilize the camera, but upon asking a professional photographer on the island where I could find one he said they simply don't exist here... ugh. So many little things we are used to be readily available in the states that just don't exist here. I think this is something I'll be looking for to ship down this summer.

Moving on, after the ceremony there was a very nice reception with heavenly finger food and deserts. Below I'll throw in some photos from the even including the reception. We had a great time. I am quite proud to have a wife who's going to be a doctor very soon.



(Above) This is just a quick snap shot of the hall before things really started.
(Below) Some important guy with the Mace, not the kind of mace I spoke of last time. The fake sword time that is carried in the beginning of a precession.



(Above) The processional started with all the Vet students entering the room, that's Megan just coming through the door. Notice the high male population in this profession?
(Below) A good shot of the mace. It's a dragon wrapped around a sword. The dragon has something to do with Saint George whom the school is named for. The end of the sword's handle is a nutmeg representing the island of Grenada the school is located on. The sword it's self you ask? It's now made of wood so for decoration only but traditionally it was used to clear a path through the crowds... uh yeah, that's one way of crowd control. Seriously hacking a path through a big crowd is a good way of saying get the heck out of our way. By the way this is one of those shots where I REALLY appreciated the new lense, even though it looks as I am standing just two-three feet from it, when in reality I am actually about 70ft from it!



(Above) So this is the ceremony moving along with boring guy number one. He droned on a bit about something that I chose not to bother recalling. The lady on the left was leading the ceremony, she was a good speaker. The guy with the red "POWER TIE" is the dean. He said very little, I liked him. The guy to the far right staring at his toes... I'll get to him in a second...

(Below) Boring old guy number two. Now THIS guy really took the cheese. The fact that he's from Georgia and has quite the slow slurred drawl didn't help things at all, but man he was painful to sit through...

(Below) YAY WHOO HOO!!! (Crowd goes wild!) In order Erin, Alicia, and Megan. All three only seconds after being coated. The only problem with someone coating you from behind is that they can't see the fact that most every one's coats were sitting crooked and off, but oh well who cares.

(Below) If you didn't already notice Megan literally stands quite a bit above the rest. She's wearing flat flip-flops in this photo. It's great for me, I can always find her in a crowd.

(Below) Handheld shots with shutter speeds of a full quarter second never turn out perfect but hey! you can at least get a vague idea of the party in the background!(Above) Megan and Ashley, one of her littlest friends, but one of the sweetest.

And that's a wrap for the white coat ceremony!

Nutmeg, Mace & Water Falls

It's Sunday, day 7, we've been here a week now. Time is flying by. I have had little time to post what's been going on because we've been up to so much and frankly blogging seems to take forever. People said the speed of life down here is slower which is true, kinda... things take forever but that doesn't mean we don't still have a million things going on at once. Most of the "slowness" of life here is waiting for buses. The bus schedule is difficult to understand, I've decided they did it that way because the schedule doesn't mean a whole lot anyways. Buses come when they come and don't when they don't. So getting onto a bus can take a while, but hold on tight once you get on board. Grenada has two speed limits officially 20mph in the city of St. George's, and 40mph everywhere else on the island. All buses try there hardest to make sure they exceed that limit as fast as possible, that is of course until they come to a speed bump, grate, or disturbance in the road (even very small), then they slam on the breaks and cross it as if the buss is made of glass, then the gas is on the floor again and we rocket off down the road. There is an entire language with driving by using the horn, for example one short beep is a warning to a pedestrian they are driving up on them, three short beeps is used while passing someone to tell them your passing, one long beep is equivalent to the U.S. %*&# YOU! That's about all I've picked up on so far, it goes on and on but i have been spending most my time trying to not notice the oncoming parked cars in the middle of the road, the blind corners were wizzing around, or the general lack of maintenance of the vehicles screaming around the island. Generally the SGU buses aren't too bad, but the taxi's are another story. The other main form of transport around the island is the public bus system aka "Reggie Buses". I have yet to ride one but from what I've seen and heard they are like the taxis but you have to add BLASTING Reggie music and someone hanging out the passenger side yelling at people on the street if they want a ride or not. Another odd note about the buses they all have individual names such as "God Sent" or "Earthquake" or even "King Elvis" as in the below photo...

I took this photo of the rain forest we were driving into as this Reggie bus came barreling towards me. I pulled my head and camera fully back into our buss as "King Elvis" zoomed by. More about the rain forest later.

This past week was "orientation week", essentially every day packed full with social events to get everyone comfortable with each other and the island. There have been some interesting quirks to being involved with a graduate program out of the country, for one there apparently is no "drinking age" in this country, not to mention everyone in grad school is "of age" anyways. The point I am getting at is any large gathering where food is served, beer flows just as freely as the water... at no cost to the attendees. The beer is always Carib, which is the only beer made in Grenada. As I am not a beer drinker all I can say is it looks about the same color as Corona and tastes just as terrible as every other beer out there. At least I can say I tried it.

Among the many events was a tour of the Nutmeg factory and a waterfall. The nutmeg factory in Grenada provides 80% of the worlds Nutmeg... kinda crazy ehh? Something else interesting nutmeg is the pit of a fruit... i don't know the fruits name... and in between the pit and the fruit is a fibrous layer which is blood red when the fruit is first split open, it looks a bit like muscle wrapped around the pit. Anyhow this fiber is Mace. Yes i think it's the same Mace they spray in people's faces when they don't like you. As you can see if the photo above left this factory that pumps out all this Nutmeg is an old warehouse like building, pretty beat up and 100% manual processes for everything. To take a better photo would have required standing in the street which would have been a bit like playing Frogger while trying to take a photo, instead i opted for this poor side shot. Below are a few shots of the nutmeg drying racks, up close of the nutmeg nuts or pits, and the mace sitting next to a pit.


After the nutmeg factory we headed towards the center of the island and drove up to a waterfall in the rain forest. The drive up there was as much an adventure as the water fall was itself.

(Below) 2nd term students joined the trip and knew to bring bathing suits. We want to go back to do some waterfall swimming our selves without 200+ people watching. The pool under the waterfall is about 18 feet deep.(Below) the waterfall, note the nice smooth water effect? ;) I am enjoying playing with our new Digital Rebel to be able to make effects like that.(Above) Ahhh... the guard rail... yes this blurry shot is of the guard rail we hit TWICE on the steep windy mountain road up to the waterfall and on the way back down. I took this shot planing on making a comment about hitting it on the way up. The photo is blurred due to hitting the rail the second time while taking the shot. One student shouted after the second hit "TWO FOR TWO!!!" trying to lighten the mood. Like I said it's been an adventure. Living here you have to just learn to roll with it, which we are, it's been fun.


So There is lots more to talk about but I've run out of time. More later. By the way PLEASE send comments, or at least shoot me an email that you've read it. It's just nice to know if someone is keeping up with our activities.
More later ~Kris

Day 3 - Get'n da ang of et

Day three and were still alive and well. If you didn't pick up on it already the title is my interpretation of the way most locals talk around here, translation "Getting the hang of it". Some of our biggest challenges have simply been understanding what the heck the locals are saying. Try to imagine this, mix a Jamaican and British accent together, then talk REAL quite and mumble at the same time... almost completely incomprehensible. There are a few locals we've met who are loud and jovial who are quite entertaining and easy to understand but they are rare.

Moving on, we made it the SGU campus yesterday for the first time, it's GORGEOUS!!! If you've ever seen Pepperdine Univ. campus this far more impressive, and that's hard to do. I didn't think I'd every find a prettier campus. Below are some photos I took of the campus...

(Above) Megan Peering off one of the patios on campus.

(Below) View from a dining spot.

(Below) Half way up the hike to the top of campus... notice the steep steps? huf huf!!

(Below) Megan strolling along one of the black sand beaches, notice the campus in the background.

(Above) A view of the other direction of the black sand beach, this one is very little but very pretty.

(Below) There are some HUGE places on the mountains across and around our apartment... looking closely it's hard to tell if it's one giant house or divided into a million apartments, either way it's teetering on a steep hillside, luckily no landslides that I am aware of here.

(Above) This is just the view from the drive way of our apartment complex looking up the hill.

(Above) Driving in Grenada is an interesting experience. I could write a whole story on it. To start with they drive on the wrong side, err I mean left side of the road. The good old British influence. Which to us Americans is un-nerving. Horns are used as a warning anytime you pass a pedestrian, or anytime a cab is trying to hail you... yes there is NO problem getting a cab OR Bus here. They both honk, slow down and ask if they can pick you up no matter where in the street they are. Lanes as can kind of be seen above are just... ehh well guidelines i guess. Everyone passes any where they can at any time, if there is room for two cars on the road then they drive side by side until they find a parked car, curb, pedestrian or some other obstacle in there way. At this point they honk once and slide back into single file. It works, it's just scary as hell to wittiness. There are very few signal lights... only one that I can recall and it's only for a left turn. But there are LOTS of round abouts... again unnerving going the WRONG way. No one really stops at these, they just kinda merge at speed, some how it works, but I prefer to close my eyes and try not to think about the lack of seat belts, or maintenance.

We made a quick trip to the beach today, Grand Anse Beach, rated one of the top 10 beaches in the world by National Geographic. I have to say it was pretty nice. The watter was comfortably cool, and quite lovely. Didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to leave my camera on the beach, perhaps next time...

One last item I didn't have the camera with us for... A vet who graduated from SGU told us most Vet students don't bring animals down but almost all of them bring one back. We can see how now. At first the thought of wild dogs wondering around is scary, but once you witness how sweet most these dogs are and how much care they need it's easy to see why so many have been adopted. Case in point: My beautiful wife and I walked down to the market to grab some food for dinner, a dog greeted us about 1/3rd of the way there and "led us" the rest of the way to the market, constantly looking back to make sure we were following him, happily wagging his tail. We entered the market, did our thing there, and came out about 30 min later. The dog just re-appeared out of no where next to us and just followed on our heels most the rest of the way home. It was hard not to stop and pet him but if we had he would have followed us ALL the way home and that would have made Jasper and Felicity just a tad jealous...

So much happens in a day here i'd need days just to tell all about it... Oh don't forget we have an "805" area code number which anyone can call for free and we can call anywhere in the US for free so don't hesitate to call. Shoot me a comment or email if you need our number.

We made it!

I'll blame the lack of posts on the extreme insanity Megan and I lived in the past month (like selling my car literally 5 hours before we left for the airport). But through it all we made it finally to Grenada.

(The picture to the left is our apartment, we are on the bottom furthest away.)

Today is the evening of day one. Technically we arrived last night but it wasn't till about 10:30pm that we got to our apartment, at which point we just crashed.
Don't you just hate it when your faced with talking to someone who has complete control over your situation and you can't do anything about it? This comes to mind after our experience with American Airlines at LAX... I called two months in advanced, asked how much extra to bring pets on board after giving my exact flight numbers destinations, etc... "$80 per dog", OK thanks, how much luggage is allowed... "two checked items per person, 50 lbs max each, one personal item and one carry on bag"... OK great, anything else? "nope have a great trip". .... OK so now fast forward to Saturday afternoon I spent about an hour balancing every suitcase out to exactly 50 or 51 lbs each. We had four suitcases between the two of us, two dog carriers (as carry-on), and two back-packs. We arrive at LAX and, now the situational control issue comes into play, at the check in desk the lady tells us "you can have two check in items per person but they can't be above 70 lbs combined" this means our 200lbs of luggage had to be reduced by 60 lbs. After arguing for a while and getting now where but just more frustrated we were given some trash bags, and opened up all our luggage in the middle of the terminal (for all to see) and started tossing things out. Thankfully my mom came with us when we checked in and was able to take this stuff home with her. Next she said "the dogs are $100 each", I said that AA told me $80, "That's domestic flights only". In situations like this there isn't a single thing you can do.

After that stressful, embarrassing and frustrating experience we said our good byes to my mom and headed for security where there was a bit of an interesting experience... anyone ever brought two dogs on board before?... We learned as we got there that first our check-in lady screwed up something about our receipt for the dogs, we found this out as the security lady read us the riot act about how our paperwork wasn't correct and that the check in lady screwed up... (um OK thanks but it wasn't our fault and what can we do about it now?), next we had to hand carry each dog (out of their crate) through the metal detectors, not a big deal unless you have two completely freaked out dogs who's natural impulse when scared is to bolt. We caught jasper before he got too far, and after seeing that I kept a tight grip on wiggly Felicity. After this point the rest of the journey was pretty smooth. The 7 hour lay over in Puerto Rico was pretty long, but we were so tired we really didn't care.

So today, we started off by sleeping through half of the day waking at 11am. This was largely due to jet lag as CA time this was only 7am. Either way we woke up to growling stomachs and TOTALLY empty cupboards and fridge. Nothing like hunger to spur our first outing, luckily for us it was less then a quarter mile down the road, not too bad. We filled two hand baskets to the top (not heaping, just full) of some basics, shampoo, PB & J, bread, mac & cheese (yay!), two bottles of water, ect... it all came to a nice sum of $254 EC which equates to $94 US dollars... OUCH! Yeah stuff is EXPENSIVE here. Later we did find a larger grocery store down the road a bit further that has a larger selection and slightly better prices but still expensive.

Anyhow we are happy, HOT, and getting a little more comfortable with our new place. Tomorrow we will be off to the SGU campus, for the first time, for a meet & greet event. I've taken a few shots of our place which I'll do my best to post. More later!

OK, So I can't stop quite yet, check out this shower head-ish thing. It points perfectly straight down with no option to bend it forward, annoying but we can deal. We have absolutely NO idea what the hose thingy is for. I've fiddled with the only "switch" if you will, on this thing and it doesn't seem to make a difference.
This looks like a boring door jam picture right? well take a look at the small box way up above the door with the red switch on it. Didn't notice that until i mentioned it did you? Neither did we. After waiting over 10 minutes for our shower to get warm to no avail we took ice cold showers, which wasn't that bad considering it was 83 inside but it was still chillier then we like. Later on, Megan spotted that little box which has very light print which says "water heater"... apparently we are supposed to turn on the water heater (which is IN the shower head) just before hoping into the shower and presto we should be getting warm water, I'll let you know how that turns out later. By the way that is the ONLY hot water in the entire place, all sink water is cold only, unusual but oh well.

(Above) This is from our front door looking south-ish. (Below) This is a small pictorial tour of our apartment.

(Above) Our bedroom



(Above) The dog's room... our YOURS FOR FREE!!! if you visit... hint hint nudge nudge...

(Above) Bars on the windows... the idea is a little scary but they do a good job of making them look nice. Every single building on this island seems to have these, we aren't too worried though.