Water lemons are so yum. When Jared's family came to visit last month, we went for a tour around the island, and our taxi driver bought us a bag of them. The inside texture is like passion fruit--seedy and slimy. But instead of the sour taste of passion fruit, it's extremely sweet. I like to tear off a chunk of the thick outer layer and just suck out everything from the inside. There' nothing better.
Now that Jared's term is officially over, we've had lots of time to play. This morning we went on a hike to Concord Falls with a bunch of friends, this afternoon I played with some new hairstyles while Jared vegged out with a well-deserved computer game sesh, and this evening we ate authentic German food at the Schnitzel Haus with friends and watched hilarious YouTube vids that probably aren't at all funny unless it's late at night and you're hyped up on fro-yo. Ah, life with my husband back is prettttty great.
My birthday comes at a good time, because Jared has this philosophy where until I actually become a mother, I have to pamper him on mother's day. So it was good to have the birthday pampering fresh on the mind when all my IG babyless married friends were all like, "Husband surprised me with breakfast in bed--best mother's day ever, I luv being a wife!" And I was over here like, "Here Jared, I nuked you some frozen chicken nuggets for dinner. Good thing our power finally came back on after that 20-hour outage." That sounds bitter, but I promise it's not. Mother's Day was actually hilarious!
As I walked into church, this Grenadian guy shook my hand and was like, "Pardon me for asking, but are you a mother?" And I smiled and told him no, and then he unapologetically waved me away from the giant basket of candy bars he was holding and into the church. And then the same thing happened AGAIN on the way out! Hahaha. I stinkin' love this place. The culture is the funniest. Buuuut, that actually would have been a really sad moment if we were trying to have babies right now and couldn't, which is something that several girls over here are struggling with right now :( After church, we couldn't help but take a long nap, since our place was crazy hot, what with the power outage. Unfortunately, if I don't set my alarm on afternoon naps, I get this creepy sleep paralysis thing where my mind is trying to wake up but I can't move anything, and then I hallucinate scary men standing in the corners of whatever room I'm in. After I finally was able to roll my body off the bed (without using arms or legs, mind you), we went for an hour long walk to catch a breeze and clear our heads. There were some guys kitesurfing at a nearby beach during our walk, so we watched them for a while until the power came back on throughout our village.
But a bit more about the hike, since it was one of my Grenada bucket list items, and that's what this post is supposed to be about. The Mt. Qua Qua trail begins in this jungley area where you go if you want to see wild monkeys. Unfortunately, they'll only come out if they're hungry and you have a yellow banana, so no matter how many hilarious monkey calls we made, they were not having it. I'm going to drag Jared up there with me after his finals and we'll try again!
The trail is steep and about an hour long, but the scenery is magnificent. There are palm trees and jungle all around you, and at the top there's this incredible view of three sides of the island and a giant crater lake. It's so good. I made a video, but I'll add it later because it's bed time and I don't want to figure out how to upload it.
Ok, that's all. One more reassurance about how much I love Jared and think he's the bomb diggity. So proud of this guy for rockin' his finals, even though he's crazy burned out by now. And also I'm feeling grateful that in the middle of finals week he took off an entire afternoon and evening to make me feel special on my birthday. I don't know what I did to deserve him, but I'm one lucky lady.
Over and out! Next time I post, there will be more pictures and fewer words. I pinky promise.
Our power was off and on for most of yesterday evening, and then around 2:00 in the morning it went out for good. Seventeen hours later it's only just come back on again, so I'm going to bust this post out before we're thrust back into another evening of darkness. Thanks for this experience, Grenada! (And also the experience last night when I got out of the shower and my towel was covered in tiny sugar ants that all started biting my flesh at once. Oh, silly Grenada!)
I've been hoping all day to be able to do a post about the two most important ladies in my life: my mother, and my mother-in-law. Here are some pictures from their younger days, because they were the first pictures I could nab off of Facebook, and also because, well, look at these bombshells!
Without these two ladies, I would have no floral dresses and the most boring hairstyles.
Kidding. Kind of.
My mom is a babe. She has great fashion sense, and the best sense of humor. She and my dad have the driest humors ever, and she can always get me to crack a smile. She's a nurse, and has always stressed the importance of education. She's the first person I would go crying to at night when life seemed hard, and she'd give me a hug and tell me, "You're just like me--go to bed and it will all seem better in the morning!" My mom knows how to do Sunday dinner. This is something that I think she got from her mother, my grandmother, who is another of the most important ladies in my life. My mother and grandmother are so classy, always bringing out the nice china for Sunday and filling our plates with pot roast and potatoes. Sure beats our mother's day dinner of chicken nuggets (the universe's mother's day gift to me was that the power outage thawed out all the food in our freezer, so it only took 2 minutes to nuke the nuggets instead of 4!)
My mother-in-law also is a babe. Today one of our friends asked Jared in the car as we were driving home from church, "Jared, what's your mom like?" And in his most -5-year-old-esque voice he could put on, Jared said, "Aww, I wuv my mom!" And then our friend gave him a weird look so he switched back to his 27-year-old voice and said, "My mom is the coolest. She always makes me feel happy and she would always do way rad things, like skiing and running and playing the guitar." These things are all true. She belongs to an "adventure club" that goes out once a week and does ropes courses and bike rides and stuff. It's awesome. I'll never forget the first time I met Jared's mom: she immediately gave me a hug and said that she hardly knew me, but she loved me already, and I immediately felt the same way about her. Moms are so great. The have this supernatural ability to spread happiness and love around like nutella on toast.
Eek, I just heard some electric-ish crackling so I'll wrap up. I'm just so grateful for mothers, and especially my mothers, and their mothers, and so on. I'm so excited for when we have children of our own and we can carry on some of the traditions and lessons that we learned from our wonderful mothers.
Ok, I think I've said the word "mother" about 50 times in this post, even though in real life I'd probably just say "mom" or "mama" or "mamacita." I'm feeling weird about it, but no time for revision. Just one final "Happy Mothers' Day!!"
I've been hoping all day to be able to do a post about the two most important ladies in my life: my mother, and my mother-in-law. Here are some pictures from their younger days, because they were the first pictures I could nab off of Facebook, and also because, well, look at these bombshells!
Kidding. Kind of.
My mom is a babe. She has great fashion sense, and the best sense of humor. She and my dad have the driest humors ever, and she can always get me to crack a smile. She's a nurse, and has always stressed the importance of education. She's the first person I would go crying to at night when life seemed hard, and she'd give me a hug and tell me, "You're just like me--go to bed and it will all seem better in the morning!" My mom knows how to do Sunday dinner. This is something that I think she got from her mother, my grandmother, who is another of the most important ladies in my life. My mother and grandmother are so classy, always bringing out the nice china for Sunday and filling our plates with pot roast and potatoes. Sure beats our mother's day dinner of chicken nuggets (the universe's mother's day gift to me was that the power outage thawed out all the food in our freezer, so it only took 2 minutes to nuke the nuggets instead of 4!)
My mother-in-law also is a babe. Today one of our friends asked Jared in the car as we were driving home from church, "Jared, what's your mom like?" And in his most -5-year-old-esque voice he could put on, Jared said, "Aww, I wuv my mom!" And then our friend gave him a weird look so he switched back to his 27-year-old voice and said, "My mom is the coolest. She always makes me feel happy and she would always do way rad things, like skiing and running and playing the guitar." These things are all true. She belongs to an "adventure club" that goes out once a week and does ropes courses and bike rides and stuff. It's awesome. I'll never forget the first time I met Jared's mom: she immediately gave me a hug and said that she hardly knew me, but she loved me already, and I immediately felt the same way about her. Moms are so great. The have this supernatural ability to spread happiness and love around like nutella on toast.
Eek, I just heard some electric-ish crackling so I'll wrap up. I'm just so grateful for mothers, and especially my mothers, and their mothers, and so on. I'm so excited for when we have children of our own and we can carry on some of the traditions and lessons that we learned from our wonderful mothers.
Ok, I think I've said the word "mother" about 50 times in this post, even though in real life I'd probably just say "mom" or "mama" or "mamacita." I'm feeling weird about it, but no time for revision. Just one final "Happy Mothers' Day!!"
I've never been much of a bucket list person, but my friend Ashley made a bucket list last year of all the things she wanted to do before she turned 23, and lo and behold, because of the list she did most of those things! Go figure! So basically, I'm gonna hop on board the bucket list train in hopes that I won't leave this beautiful island for good next May with any regrets about missed opportunities. I'll do my best to blog about each of these entries as I cross them off the list. I'm sure I'll add a few things in the future, because I know I've left a few things out.
THE GREAT GRENADA BUCKET LIST
1. See the leatherback sea turtles (mamas and babies). These largest turtles in the world come to the north side of the island in May to lay their eggs, and then the eggs hatch in June and you can watch the babies scramble into the sea.
2. Feed a Mona monkey. It's kind of an intense jungle drive to get to the monkeys, which is why I haven't seen any yet, but I'm dying to.
3. Visit the petting zoo. I've heard there's a little petting zoo somewhere on the island, complete with armadillos and possums and goats and other goodies. Although, Jared and I did find a dead possum in the gutter across the street from our house yesterday, so I could maybe count that...
4. Slide Mt. Carmel Falls. This is a massive natural water slide that I NEED to experience.
5. Do a whale- and dolphin-watching tour.
6. Learn how to cook lobster, and then do it.
7. Volunteer at the orphanage. I've enjoyed volunteering at the home for people with disabilities and at a Grenadian after-school program in the past, but I haven't visited the orphanage yet.
8. Go hashing. This is, like, a big thing here. You go on a hike/race through the jungle, following clues to get to your destination. Then there's a giant beer party afterward or something, so I'm sure there will be some excellent people watching to be had.
9. Eat at the Aquarium restaurant. This is not an actual aquarium, but it is an actual fancy restaurant.
10. Swim at the Radisson hotel pool. Apparently the Radisson hotel here has a super legit pool on the beach that we can visit once in a while as long as we buy some food while we're there.
11. Go boogie boarding at Levera Beach. This beach is on the north side of the island, where the sea turtles are. It's on the Atlantic Ocean side, so the wives are bigger than they are here in the south.
12. Try the smoothies and wings at Fort Matthews bar. This place has the best view on the island and the coolest Caribbean feel. Also, bats. And probably rats. We'll try to stay away from thats.
13. Visit the stadium. Did you know there's a legit stadium here? It holds events, like the Grenadian Independence Day celebration and cricket games.
14. Hike Mount Qua Qua
15. Hike to all of the 7 Sisters waterfalls
16. Get scuba certified? If there's any one thing on this list that might not happen, it's this one. Jared's already certified, and I'm not sure I want to do a bunch of dives alone to get certified myself. I'll try to round up some other med school widows to do it with me, though.
17. Bet on the crab races at Mt. Cinnamon. It costs $2 EC (.75 US) to place a bet. What can I say, I'm going for broke here.
18. Bury treasure. Jared had the brilliant idea to bury some treasure here and make a map, so our children can come dig it up some day.
19. Build one blanket fort to rule them all. We built a blanket fort on our veranda last week, but it was fairly wussy. We'll go big next time.
20. Visit Carriacou. This is Grenada's beyond amazing sister island. The beaches are even more beautiful there, and you can swim with sea turtles, so...
21. See the sail boat regatta. This is a giant sail boat race that happens once a year. It starts in Europe and ends in Grenada. A few months ago we saw lots of boats pulling into Grand Anse beach from a distance, but next time I want to get close.
22. Visit the spice plantation
23. Buy fish at the fresh fish market
24. Eat Grenadian food at Patrick's restaurant
25. Have a picnic and fly kites at Golf Course park
26. Convince Jared to go night swimming. I've done this once on Grand Anse beach with some friends and the water was so calm and beautiful. Jared's chicken, but there's literally nothing to be afraid of in the water here, and also no seaweed or anything. It's the best.
27. Go to Savvy's on Friday night for a bonfire, steel drums, and dancing
28. Attend an on-the-ocean dinghy concert
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)