Day 3

So today marks my 3rd day of being on this beautiful island. Although today is very cloudy and overcast, the temperature is still 85 degrees and very, VERY humid.

Today is tour day....i signed up for the campus tour and the tour of the national rain forest. The campus tour was okay....very short, and very hard to hear. The tour guide spoke so softly. I've noticed that many grenadians speak very softly and of course they annunciate differently, so it's very hard to understand them. The rain forest tour is at 2 pm, although it may be very wet considering there is a very dark cloud encompassing the entire island!!

Yesterday was my first trip to the grocery store. Prices were very expensive for name brand, american items, but cheaper for local items. For example, a small box of uncle ben's minute rice was 16 EC ($6.40), however, a 5 lb. bag of local white rice (not instant) was 5 EC ($2). Naturally, my roomate and I decided to go for the 5 lb bag. Fruit and vegetables were absurdly expensive....1 apple was 2.79 EC, which is about $1.10 per fruit. The capital tour is saturday and many 2nd termers have told us that they have open markets for fish and fruit there....so we will definitely check that out, and I'll inform you as to the differences in prices.

So between now and the tour, I will be picking up my books and having lunch, all in 3 hours of time. The orientation week is great, however, the days are not packed solid with things to do so there is a lot of down time....like now....most students use the time to meet others or explore the campus on their own.

Last night, i went with two other students to a bar off campus...it was fun!! I only had 1 beer, a local called caribe....it tasted like miller lite.....oh...i'll be right back, time to go get books....

okay, i'm back.....we have alot of books.....12 to be exact.....luckily we didn't have to carry them from the bookstore.....a girl down the hall allowed us to ride with her and her parent's in their rental jeep.....

so back to the bar.....it was right on the water and they played alot of 80's and 90's dance music....by 10:30, the bar was packed with students and unfortunately it was very hard to hear with the music. add to that all of the different nationalities and accents, and it was very hard to converse and meet new people, but i tried.....i did meet a guy from south africa, another from brazil, and several from england and scotland. although many students are from the states, most of them are from different nationalities and speak other languages. For example, my roommate stephanie lives in new jersey, but her parents are hungarian so when she speaks with them, she speaks in that language. Joanne down the hall lives in LA, but she is asian....she speaks with her parents in their native tongue.....i met a another guy the other day from nyc talking to his parents in jewish. So it seems i am a minority when it comes to speaking other languages!!!

Well, i'm going to have lunch and get ready for the Grand Etang tour. I'm desperately trying to learn how to add photos...i did sign up for flickr, now i just have to figure out how to get them on this blog.

Have a great day!!