august 30

I wrote this on my laptop after the hurricane hit, before I got around to setting up this blog. It's a little out of date but gives you a good introduction to life here on Nevis.

The view from my front porch

total travel time: 17h

and that is on the conservative end - many students ended up spending nights in random cities, so i have  nothing to complain about

thurs morning shell and i departed mississauga around 3 am and i successfully navigated my way on to the plane, but not before obtaining my last starbucks for approx. 2 years. the first leg of the trip was from toronto to charlotte and was uneventful. next i had a quick layover in charlotte and was en route to st maarten. unfortunately, it would not be the last i saw of charlotte - about an hour into the four hour flight, the flight crew informed us that there was a "woman making weird noises" so to be safe, we were flying back and deplaning. however it was a terrible and unconvincing lie, and we learned when we left the plane that in actuality, a window at the back of the plane was loose. total delay in charlotte ended up putting me in st. maarten at approximately the time my flight to nevis was to have left. luckily I arrived in st. maarten with a spacious 9 minutes to make it through customs and onto the paper plane that was to take us to nevis. as predicted, my luggage was not so speedy and i arrived in nevis sans baggage at approx 8 pm (the population of students that arrived without their luggage seems close to 50%, luckily mine arrived the next day).

a representative from the university met us at the airport, and took me to the apartment that had been set up for me, as i had no idea where it was (i was soon to discover that addresses are an abstract concept in nevis). i met my landlord at the apartment, and spent my first night there alone. there are a total of ten thousand locks on the premises, and i made careful use of every one before heading to bed (and a supply of kitchen knives in the drawer). pictures and a tour of the apartment are forthcoming - at the time of writing this, hurricane earl makes my tropical paradise look considerably less so.

the next morning as i was in the shower i caught a glimpse of the same van that picked me up at the airport outside my apartment, honking. i took a leap of faith and guessed that this was a bus that was picking me up to take me where i needed to go. vital information seems to travel by word of mouth here and being off-campus I am often the last to know. i waited outside on the porch, and sure enough an hour later a bus arrived to take us into town to set up bank accounts and internet. "island time" definitely exists here and i spent the next two hours at the bank tangling with foreign currency and trying to set up an account. afterward, one of the university bus drivers showed up and took me to the largest supermarket on the island. it's no metro - the largest supermarket is rams, and it's about the size of your average country grocery store. i had converted some money into a couple hundred EC (that's Eastern Caribbean currency - $1 US is roughly equal to $2.5 EC) and blew $200 EC on a couple of essentials. with the conversion, you can expect that items on the island will cost you in US roughly double what you're used to paying, some items more or less expensive. cereal, for example, is between $20-30 EC. the bus driver dropped me off at home (they seem to know where we all live - which is good, because none of us do), and not long after, my roommate arrived from the airport. as comfy as lululemon pants are, i was missing a change of clothes, and we planned to walk to the airport to check on the status of my luggage. the idea of walking is largely regarded as ludicrous, and locals are friendly and will often offer rides. we were driven to the airport by our landlord's friend-of-a-friend, which turned out to be only a 20 min walk away. i picked up my luggage (and a free cellphone courtesy of the internet), and went home to happily unpack.

the next day we bummed around and went to the supermarket again. i met more of my fellow students on the bus, and picked up some things i had missed. we came home to meet up with some of our downstairs roommates, who informed us that some students from the dorms were planning on meeting at the bar down the main road (Rumours). so in the evening i met up with the guys and we walked down to the bar, were i learned that short shorts are generally not acceptable on the island and will net you some much unwanted attention. there was a party on the corner with a bouncy castle, not sure why. met some more students at the bar but unfortunately i can't remember anyone's name. there was a special of 2 for 1 drinks up until 10 or 11, and i managed to get 2 vodka orange for $15 EC (i'll let you handle the conversion). i again wished I drank beer as I would have gotten 2 for $5 EC. 2 for 1 not only means a drink in each hand but that your drinks are mostly vodka, a little orange, so the rest of the night is hazy. i do remember threatening to fight at least three people if they didn't take their hands off me IMMEDIATELY. gotta establish boundaries

the next day hurricane earl edged closer to the islands, and i opted to spend most of the day inside. we shut all the windows and were not sure what to expect. locals seemed unconcerned, and even our landlord dropped by after the anticipated start time of the hurricane and stated that typically, hurricanes are "a lot of rain and a little bit of wind". that amount of rain and wind would prove to be a noisy bedfellow, and we were awake most of the night. power cut out around 0300, and we were unsure if objects were being hurled around outside or not. in the end, the hurricane turned out to be just that, in addition to a lot of rain...in our apartment. the sloped nature of the porch by the back door meant that water was collecting and leaking in. it was no big deal, but i was basically mopping between 630-1130 to keep it that way. others were not so lucky and are still mopping water out of their apartments. orientation was delayed the day of the hurricane and we are anxious to get started tomorrow. no power, no internet, and the fact that most of us didn't bring any books means we are hurting for some means of occupying ourselves. i chose to mop.

pictures and video are forthcoming. would you believe i haven't taken a single one? it's been hurricaning the past 2 days, and wouldn't show how truly gorgeous my apartment and the corresponding views are.

 school starts tomorrow!