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Monday 18 June, 2007

Happy Father's Day Dads!

Clearly we're not very good at updating our blog. Sorry for the long delay between posts. Today is Monday and we leave Barbados next Tuesday. Needless to say, our thoughts lately have mostly been about leaving... what do we want to do with our last few days, what will we miss, what are we looking forward to at home, how fast the time went, how much stuff we brought that we didn't really need, and how the heck are we going to pack it all up. The time really did go by fast, at least it seems that way now. I'm sure these next few days will go by quickly as well.

So, things here are a little busy. Lots of work for me at the university, trying to tie up loose ends and make sure everything here is in order. Lara has been working a lot on different photos for publication and ramping up for self-employment at home. Hopefully we'll get a couple of solid days of sea and sun before we go, but its looking to be hectic up until Tuesday at 7:55 AM when we get on the plane.

Last week we had company - Dave and Vonda visited us from Virginia. Saying we had a great time wouldn't do it justice. They stayed with us here in the apartment (no a/c, no hot water and our toilet was broken for 2 days so we had to flush with a bucket of water), sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of the breezeway (special girl that Vonda), and it worked out great. We saw a lot of sights (the gap, the north point, Bathsheba, a few cool beaches), did some good snorkeling and spearfishing, lots of driving, and of course limed with friends. We were sad to see them leave.

I'll sign off for now. Hopefully Lara will get a chance to put up some pictures before we go.

Love from Barbados, and see you soon!

Pete & Lara

Finally an update...

Saturday 2 June 2007

Hello from Barbados! Its been a long time since we've updated and its been a busy few weeks. Last week we were in Dominica (two islands north of Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean chain) for our anniversary. Dominica is called the "nature island" of the Caribbean, and is roughly twice the size of Barbados, with only 70,000 people (Barbados has almost 300,000). Dominica is very mountainous and lush, has 9 ("potentially active") volcanoes, 365 rivers and dozens of beautiful waterfalls. Flying over it as you approach the airport, you don't see anything except trees and mountains. Very beautiful. The beaches and coastline are rocky (what little sand there is is black) so its not at all typical Caribbean. The island is relatively undeveloped, with only a handful of small towns and villages, a couple of small hotels and compared to Barbados is very poor. The people were nice and the food was excellent and super cheap.

We were there for 7 days (6 nights). We brought only what we could carry in our backpacks, rented a 4WD jeep, and made no reservations except for our first night. We wanted to see as much of the island as we could, so each day after driving and hiking we found places to sleep. We ended up staying in 5 different places (an apartment in the north, a bamboo cottage in the rain forest, another apartment in the south, a bed & breakfast near the capital, then another wood hut in the rain forest), and circled the entire island during our stay.

We did a lot of driving, lots of hiking, saw 5 or 6 different waterfalls, swam in rivers, hot springs and fresh water pools. And of course Lara took a ton of pictures. We also saw a landslide (which completely isolated all the people at the top of one mountain for at least 2 days), and saw a huge tree fall into a river right next to our car. I also almost chopped off my finger in a fan at a grocery store. Given my tendency for accidents, we travel with an extensive first aid kit, so Lara cleaned the wound and patched me up pretty quickly. It was a bloody mess, but I'm fine Mom. And yes, I had a tetanus shot right before we left Wilmington.

When we got home we received some bad news about Jerry the van. Our friend Kerry dropped us off at the airport in the van, and on his way home punctured a tire and the van flipped. Kerry scraped up his arm pretty bad and hurt his shoulder, but is otherwise OK. Jerry on the other hand, is out of commission for a while. So, we now have a little rental car... and likely will have it for the remaining 24 days of our time here. Sad. We miss driving Jerry. Oh, we got the rental car around 8:00 PM on Thursday night, and drove straight to a sports bar to watch a very exciting 2OT Cavs/Pistons game 5. Labron is pretty amazing. I think I'm pulling for Detroit though.

My friend Dave "DK" Kelly and his girlfriend are coming to visit on Wednesday, so that should be fun. I've known Dave since college, when we played ultimate against each other. He went to ECU, who were our rivals. We also played together when I lived in Richmond, and have played on the same team since then. They'll be here for a week, and it will be nice to have company and show them around the island. We'll post some new pictures soon.

Love from Barbados,
Pete & Lara

Just a Wednesday

Hello from Barbados,

The sun is setting on an overcast day here. Not too much going on. Last night we drove to a sports pub in Christchurch to watch Nets-Cavs game 2. It was a cool place called Bert's that we'd never been to before. We had a veggie "pizza" that was not so great. As for the game, it was also not so great, with moments of serious ugliness. Cleveland certainly didn't play well (LaBron got hot at the end and they had a good first half of offensive rebounds for second and third tries), but the Nets just couldn't get anything started. Hoping for more from NJ on Saturday.

We worked today from home for the third day in a row. I've been finalizing some survey instruments and its easier and more comfy to work from here. We're both having some computer issues, so much of today was spent running virus scans etc.

Cathy asked about Jerry the van, and how we named it (I can't really give a good answer for the "why" part). The van used to be a taxi, a bus. So we were calling it "the bus", which quickly changed to Jerome (for a recently retired NFL running back who also went by "the bus"). Jerome somehow quickly became "Jerry" and that stuck.

Jerry (the van not the football player) looks OK from the outside, but is an absolute mess inside. The only gauge that works is the fuel gauge, which is good. The speedometer would be in KM/hour not MPH so we we'd be forced to do math while driving to read it, so its OK that it doesn't work. The temperature gauge doesn't work either, but that's also OK because the engine and fuel tank are right underneath the two front seats (if you look at the picture you'll see that there's no front end at all, so the motor is under the cabin) so we can definitely tell when its running warm. Our butts get really hot.

Other than the intact gauges that don't really work, the whole console is basically missing. Its all been ripped out. Wires hang everywhere. We assume they were for radio, a/c, speedometer and other things that are clearly unnecessary for this fine machine to operate. The back of the bus is pretty messed up too. There are two ripped and worn bucket seats and a bench seat. None of them stay put too well and tend to clang around on really bumpy roads. Anyway, it has tires, brakes, a motor and a transmission. We bought it cheap and already have someone who wants to buy it in June. Nothing too terrible has happened so far. We broke a timing belt on the way to pick up Jay and Diane at the airport, and that could have been bad. But Lara got a taxi to the airport and I got towed to a friend's house who has a neighbor who is a mechanic (by two separate people, both with pickup trucks, both for free) and got a ride home. The neighbor fixed it in two days, including a new belt, for $50 total. Not so bad considering an older rental car would have been around $1000 month.

So... not to jinx it, but 6 more weeks of running and we'll have to say Jerry was a great deal.

Love from Barbados,
Pete & Lara

Road trip

Its been a while since we blogged... Happy Birthday to John (May 3).
This post will be about driving. We take a lot of drives, usually on weekends, to explore the country. Its always an adventure, new sights, meeting people, dealing with bumpy roads and invariably getting lost. We're constantly saying: "well, we've never been down this road before...", and take getting lost as a natural occurrence to enjoy (unless we're late for a meeting somewhere). Our van isn't the most comfortable ride in the world, no radio and basically no shocks, and we always get interesting looks from the locals as we drive through new places, the van bumping and creaking all the way. The country of Barbados is beautiful, with different climate and landscape just up or down the next hill.

The intention of our last road trip was to visit this local rum shop called The Viewpoint. We had seen it a few times up in the hills as we were driving along lost but we were not sure where exactly it was located. We started off with a parish in mind (Barbados is broken up into 11, mostly named for saints - John, Philip, Michael, Andrew, Peter, James, Lucy, Joseph, Christ Church, Thomas and George) and we set off. Upon driving for about an hour, we decided we were not going to be able to find The Viewpoint. It was getting dark so we headed home - just not in the same direction in which we started. Driving through an area which "looked" familiar, we ended up driving down a very steep hill taking us to a dead end where about 10 kids were hanging out. Of course as we pulled up, they laughed but asked where we were going. After a brief conversation, we headed back up and through a different gap (small town in the cut between two hills). We continued down new roads and back up the hill only to run into The Viewpoint - small restaurant and bar with an open porch (we indulged in Macaroni Pie, salad and a couple cold Banks). Amazing view from the top of a hill overlooking a valley and on to the Atlantic, hills on either side covered in Coconut trees and a few small farms in the foreground. Here are a few pics from our adventure:

Love from Barbados - Pete & Lara

View from the Viewpoint

Farm

Jerry - resting

Highland Adventures Horses

De Road

More apartment pics...

View of road looking north

looking south

Side porch

Stairs to water

Special Requests... no not singing.

The day is absolutely beautiful in Barbados. The waves have calmed a bit so instead of the loud crashing and pounding on the coral below, we have the nice "swoosh, swoosh" as the sea laps on the beach.

Upon sending the blog URL out to the Schuhmann's, Dad S. has requested we post pictures of our apartment. It just so happens that in our library of about 10,000 pictures , we have a few. The may be a bit smaller than the others on the site since I compressed them to save uploading time.

We love hearing from everyone, so please, if you have any requests (any requests at all), send them along and we will do our best to post a response.

We miss and love you very much.

Lara & Pete

Blogging & missing

So its been a week since we last wrote. Funny, we talk about blogging and funny posts to write, but sitting in front of the computer and writing is ... apparently much harder. Don't know how schubee does it. That's why he gets paid the big bucks.
Things here are good. Two words: hot and slow.

Happy birthday to Elena! We can't wait to see everyone this summer.

Speaking of "can't wait", living away from home has a lot of pluses. But three and half months in, the minuses are starting to appear. Not to be negative, but what follows are random thoughts about differences. We both like lists (me more than Lara - top 5's and top 10's ala High Fidelity) so here goes. Pete first.
I REALLY MISS (family, friends and pets are not included in this list. They are of course the t'ing we miss most) ...

Pizza. Easily my #1. Pizza here is a complete joke. There's a chain called "New York Pizza" or something. Everyone raves. Quality is on par with the cheapest (I'm talking $2) frozen over-sized hockey puck with fake cheese you can find in the Food Lion. And it's like $20. The sad thing ... we eat it. Lara's turn:

Car Radio... and I am talkin just the radio here. I mentioned in an earlier post we have our van (similar to a VW bus), Jerry. To expand on Jerry a brief moment: Jerry is a '96 Suzuki Carry (we don't have them at home). Both of his windows have trouble going up and down and are missing their crank. I could go on and I will later complete with photos, but not now. Getting back to topic, Jerry does not have a radio. He has GREAT speakers, you know, the big ones that blast the base... but nope, no radio. It makes our car trips, especially in the hills (usually 3 - 4 hours) very long. Not because we don't enjoy each other's company, but because the music is so happy and uplifting that you just sing and dance right in your seat. It really is fantastic! Right now we are listening to UB40 (who plays here on the 29th).

#2
Pete - Our couch. I guess its really a package. Couch and TV. We don't have a couch and we don't have a TV. Not having a TV was a decision. We knew it would be great to not be subject to 150 channels of hype, fear and media news-making, and it is. We can read what we want (and we've both read more books in the last 3 months than in the last 5 years - maybe we'll post about that later) so the disconnection factor isn't the point. It's the quality time with the couch. Flipping channels, watching a good show on Discovery, catching the end of the game, Sportscenter! We have to drive to watch TV, minimum 10 minutes, then wait another 15 minutes for them to find the right channel. Then its in Spanish. On a really small crappy TV that's far away. And of course there's no couch. For some reason its just not the same. When we get home, we're going to order pizza and lay on the couch for at least a week.

Lara - Unfortunately, I have to agree with this one. And I really do hate to agree with Pete 'cause I was the one that was so excited about not having the TV. The only thing I can add is, when we get home, we will also be buying a new couch - one that is fluffy and can fit the two of us better than the one we currently own.

#3, 4 ,5
Pete&Lara - Did I say pizza? Oh yeah. Well, we're not going to make it to individual top 5s much less 10 so we'll wrap this up, collectively.

#3: Yard. Ours here is water. Very nice. But walking in the grass is cool, as is the garden.

#4: Privacy. Neither of us has had a roommate for quite some time. Our "landlady" Barbara is not technically our roommate, but she does live upstairs and spends a good bit of time either on the steps that look into our kitchen or actually in the house or on the porch. Don't get us wrong, we do love Barbara, just not first thing in the morning. And she never leaves the house.

#5: Our house. Its a project, but its a project we enjoy and we've dedicated ourselves to. We've made so much progress on in the last few years its tough to be away from it, knowing its not going forward. The window in the sunroom is still leaking ( 2 years ) and it kills us. Our house also has different rooms. The main door to our apartment leads straight into our bedroom and also has the bathroom. The bedroom leads into a small sitting area with a door into the good-sized kitchen. The porch is large, but seating is not great. This layout is tricky when guests visit. The only time we can't hear each other is when one is in the kitchen and the other is in a running shower (of course except when the waves are crashing and then we can't hear each other two feet away).

Love from Barbados,

Pete & Lara

Can someone please send us a pizza?