Advanture, continued.

Day 1 in Grenada:

Problem #1: AC in my room is broken. Solution: Move into another room that's empty. After settling in, chatting with some new arrivals and friends, and having a bit to drink, I decided to explore the campus by night. It's a pretty nice campus. Next to the ocean, with a little hill seperating most of the administration buildings and library from most of the dorms. Behind the Founder's Library (seems like the biggest library), you find yourself on the tip of a cliff sorta thing, over looking the ocean. Quite a sight at night, listening to the crashing of the waves; very surreal.

So, as I was laying in bed, thinking I would totally want to get up early, get registration done, then get myself a phone or what not, when I realized that I've been looking at a pretty bright window for a while now. Turns out, not only did I oversleep, I overslept by 3 freaking hours. Awesomeness.

So, after much adieu, I got up half past noon, managed to go to the bank and exchange some cash for some spending money, and actually got myself registered. By then, it's already 5 PM. Ran into a mate I met on the plane into Grenada, grabbed some grub ($9 for a meal! Ok, it's about the same on campus back at UBC, but still...) and started the night.

Turns out, the mandatory week is probably to help people get more booze into their livers. Bunch of us (wish I could remember their names, but after meeting hundreds of new people, names are hard) went down to a pub close to campus called Banada's. Nice pub. Got at least three bars, with a dance floor too. Drinks are decent, 6 EC (East Caribbean dollars, about 2.25 CDN per EC) for a beer.

Long story short, I eventually ended up back at my dorm for some sweet nothings with T.

Day 2 in Grenada:

Capital of Grenada tour first thing in the morning! Well, ok, I almost overslept that one too. But, manage to wake up about 15 minutes before busses leave (never underestimate the convinience of living on campus), and actually showered etc and caught the bus. Went to St. George's, saw the old fort(where my camera decided to run out of battery), the spice market, the fish market, and a nice mall that seems to cater mostly to cruise ship passengers. Pictures to follow.

Afterwards, got a stack of text books (by last count, all 11 books and various manuals), and caught a bus to Concord falls. Long drive there, took about an hour, and when we finally got there, it was pouring rain. Nevertheless, took a jump, about 8 feet, into the fall, and boy was it refreshing. The humid heat, combined with some fresh, cooling mountain rain water, is very, very nice. But, because of the run off from the top of the mountain, we were told to get out of the water after about 5 to 10 minutes. Oh well. Another fall to come this saturday, where I will make sure to take more dips.

After a quick dinner at the Sugar Shack (sorta a fast food place on campus, with spagitti meatball special!), attended a couple of workshops that were of questionable value. On the other hand, enough time to let the food settle, and utilize the school gym. Pretty small, but not alot of people; went for a jog around campus too...even at night, the humidity is very stiffiling.

Wanted to do some laundry too, but people were hogging it. Went to this place called "The Owl"...42 EC per pitcher of beer. That's 21 bucks (almost) for some beer. Not fun. BUT, the karaoke got people going, and it ended up being alright afterall.

Now, I'm looking forward to more advanture tomorrow. Pretty sure my alerm is going to be useless again, but let's play the wait and see game.

My trip

My trip:

Start time: 12:30 PM, PST, Aug 10^th.

End time: 11:00 PM, EST, Aug 11^th.

Total length: 36 some odd hours.

Seattle:

It took an unusually short time to reach SeaTac airport, though that might have something to do with the fact that I slept through most of it, while being nagged by mom for the rest. The check-in, and baggage drop for the first leg was also extremely uneventful. Didn’t want miss my flight, for whatever odd reason, I went through the security check-in well ahead of the actually boarding time. Two things surprised me: mom took it very well, and dad was a little emotional. I had always thought it would be mom that cracks up, but I think that might be a misunderstanding on how dad expresses his emotions.

SeaTac airport has a little tram system! I had always thought it was a small airport, similar to YVR, but it is actually quite large. After some trekking around, I made it to my gate, waited for a long time to get onboard, and watch Delta ask for volunteer passengers to stay behind, cause they overbooked the flight (both mine, and the one before as well). Can’t say I’m very impressed with that; would be choked if my seats weren’t reserved by my ticket.

The flight was pretty normal. As usual, tried to nap onboard, without much success; instead, watched a bunch of different shows with the onboard TVs.

Disembarking at JFK was an interesting experience. The airport itself is HUGE; it has 8 terminals, with an AirTrain system connecting the airport with the NYC subway system. Very well build, though the AirTrain system is very difficult to decipher. The tracks are clearly marked, but not the direction; announcements about the next stop are only made once the door closes, which, in my opinion, is kind of counter-productive. Fun note: AirTrain is build by Bombardier, which begs the question; will the new skytrain line to the airport be a similar build?

After a very uncomfortable night, where I watched Bride Wars, listened to a lot of music, and finally a half hour nap later, I went to check in with American Airline. I had thought that at 5 AM, I would have ample time to check in with the airline, cause, come on, it’s 5 bloody AM. Wrong. There was two huge lines, one for Caribbean flights it seems, and another for domestic. It took some 45 minutes before I managed to check my bags. With that done, I went to explore the airport, and hurt for some New York style pizza. After much hassel, I finally found this pizza joint. One slice, $4...suddenly, I missed Fresh Slices 99cents slices. In addition to that, the two slices that I had ended up adding up to 1000 Calories. Yep, you heard it right: 1000 Calories. So, before most of you who read this is up and running, I’ve already consumed half of your daily caloric intake. Awesomeness!

The flight to Barbados was similarly uneventful, with the exception of that I have actually managed to sleep about 2 hours on board. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. The approach to Barbados was very, very nice. Imagine: sky blue ocean, unbroken shore line, sail boats that look larger and larger as we approach the run way. Barbados seems to have no single city; instead, houses, complexes etc seems to stretch from the shore, all the way in-land, as far as the eyes can see, one giant metropolis. This view is further cemented when I took off (more on this later). Barbados international is pretty nice as well. Not as open aired as the one in Punta Cana, but has its own charms. A small, busy airport, with almost as many people trying to help you with your luggage; at least, here it seems that you can actually say no, and have that respected. After a bit of lugging around, accompanied swiftly by some sweat (it is freaking humid! Almost as if I was somewhere tropical!), I managed to dump my luggage with LIAT. I prompted ate, and went into the lounge, where I proceeded to sit for the next 8 hours. Wow, simply, WOW. It’s freaking ridiculous. Original flight was supposed to board at 19:40; that didn’t happen until 21:40. So, I ended up not getting to my new home until nearing 11PM.

Some redeeming qualities: it’s a propeller plane! The head rest is freaking plush and soft, much better than either Delta or American Airlines.

Taking off at night on a propeller plane, with the drone of the engine next to you, it can easily conjure up images WW2 pilots mounting a night raid. Sitting there at the window, it wasn’t hard to imagine myself as a navigator, or a gunner on a bomber (maybe I watch too much documentaries?). The plane took off, and was soon in the clouds. The lights of Barbados sprawl as far as the eyes can see, reminiscent of maybe old Europe landscape, with clouds occasionally engulfing the plane, or flowing under it.

The novelties of it, however, soon wore off. The sounds, and the vibration of a propeller plane is unbelievable. Don’t know how I was able to sleep, but I actually managed to nap for 15 minutes on board. All in all, it was actually a bad delay. Met some new friends, going to school here, got some more info, so it all worked out in the end.

Being as smart as I am, I forgot to pack on an Ethernet cord. So, after unpacking (and again, meeting my new neighbour L), I went for a walk around the campus to explore, armed with my trusty LED flashlight. It’s a pretty damn big campus. Lots of dorms, and lots of big buildings. I think most of the lectures and what not are pretty much centralized in a few big buildings, and the rest is just good for you to get some studying done. I got to admit though, kind of disappointed with the lack of star light. I expected a bit more than I could see in Vancouver, but alas, that is not the case. The walk took me to the edge of the campus too, facing the ocean. Pretty glorious sight, and likely would be even more impressive if I managed to see it in the fullness of day light.

Really wish I could share this moment with you people (you know who you are), but especially you T. Miss you guys lots.

If it seems like alot of rambling, it probably is. It’s 2:40 AM, and I’ll be up in another 6 hours (or less), but I really wanted to commit this down on paper before sleep erode any of the details.

As for the rest of the adventures, to be continued.