Our New Home

It occurred to me that some of you might be wondering what our apartment and the surrounding neighborhood looks like.  So I took a walk around the circle we live on and took some pictures of the neighborhood and our apartment.  Enjoy!!

Our apartment building.

Street we live on.

From the top of the hill.  We live at the bottom of it.

Example of one of the houses I talked about in my other blog.

The view I have when running.

Our apartment is to the right.

The view from our bedroom and bathroom.

Our apartment.

Living room/Kitchen

Living room

No explaination need :)

Bathroom with the window in the shower.  From the other apartments that I have seen, all apartments have windows in the shower.  Weird!

We have towels and sheets on the windows because our bedroom stays in the sun all day.

And that was the grand tour!!!  Hope you enjoyed it!!!

Not Much to Write Home About

I hesitate to even do this post.  It is not my intention to bore anyone and that is what my week has pretty much been, a bore.  I have been in the apartment all week long because of lack of transportation, not to mention Josh is getting ready for finals and has been studying after school everyday this week.  But luckily for you, I decided last week after my "whoa is me" post that I am going to take each day and make the best of it no matter if I am stuck in the apartment all week long.  This motivation could be coming from knowledge that we will be heading home in two weeks or maybe not, hopefully not. :)  I have to continually remind myself that this is not forever, two years to be exact, and things will get better once I have some wheels.  But I am not going to dwell on the things that I don't have, but be grateful for the things I do have!!!  So here is something I get to see everyday because it is right outside my backdoor, and for that I am grateful because it makes me think of my eternal home.

Weekend in Review

So early last week I informed Josh that he would be taking me out to dinner this past weekend because I had been cooped up in the apartment for far too long and I needed to get out.  Seeing that we don't have a car I told him early enough in week so he could figure something out as far as our means of transportation was concerned.  Friday afternoon was the usual for Josh, going to play volleyball at one of the many beaches here, then he and some other guys from his semester meet to play cards (not something he normally does on a Friday night, though).  Oh wait Friday afternoon Josh did get home early from school so I talked him into going down to the beach that is below our apartment.  Now some of you might think, "Hope why don't you go down to the beach and quit your complaining about never being able to get out of your apartment?"  Let me explain.  Our apartment is situated on the cliffs of the beach, and the trail down to it can be quite dangerous if you are not careful.  But the main reason I do not venture there by myself is because it is just not safe for me to go alone.  Example: periodically I will see local men walking by our apartment to go down to the beach with machetes in their hands.  Now this is quite disturbing, but the more disturbing thing is, when they come back up from the beach they have nothing but the machete in their hand.  My question is, "Where is the animal or fish that they killed with the machete, and if they weren't going down there to get some animal or fish to take home for dinner why do they need the machete?"  I don't know and am not planning on finding out.  Anyway we went and did some exploring before he had to go play volleyball and here are some pictures.

 This is the lovely walkway down to the beach from our apartment.  Nice huh??

View when you come out of the bushes.

This is a "Black Sand Beach."  It is volcanic rock.

Goes from sand to pebbles to rock.

That is our apartment in the distance.

So on to Saturday.  It started out like most other Saturdays.  Josh got up, ate some breakfast and then headed up to school for some studying.  He came home in the afternoon and my first question to him was, "Did you get a car for us to go out tonight?"  Luckily Ryan, one of Josh's friends from MTSU who is in second semester down here, offered to drive us.  He is super great because he picks Josh up every morning for school and always tries to help us when we need to go somewhere and have no way of getting there.  So me, Josh and Ryan headed to the Marriott for some dinner and after, a movie at the local (well only) movie theater.  At the Marriott, I was trying to decide what to get and I knew that I wanted some french fries, as I had been craving them early in the week, and was torn on whether or not to try the "Marriott Burger."  As I have said beef can be kind of sketchy down here even at an "American" hotel, but I decided to go ahead and chance it.  I was so happy that I did!!!!  Although it was not what I would consider a great burger by American standards, it was wonderful for here and especially for someone who hasn't had a burger in four months.  After we finished dinner I went down to the "Pizza Shack" beside the pool and got some chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone!!!  Yummy as well.  We then headed to the Caribbean Cinema to see "I Am Number Four."  I am pretty sure that was out in the states a while back, but we just got it down here.

Sunday, Ryan, came and got us for church, just as he does every Sunday morning.  Didn't I say he was super great?!?!  We got back home and watched a little bit of TV and then I talked Josh into going back down to the beach to walk the other side.  My argument was that I probably would be stuck in the apartment  for the next three weeks because all of Josh's time is going to be devoted to studying as he is preparing for finals.  This time we went the other direction towards the vet school.  We had a great time and got a few souvenirs.

Josh's green rock.

Later that afternoon Ryan came yet again to pick us up for the men's and women's bible study we attend on Sunday nights.  At the women's bible study we celebrated one of the girl's birthdays and so another girl brought chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  Luckily there were leftovers and I left with a few pieces to get me through the week!!!  All in all a great weekend, but what's even better about the weekend was that is marked only two more weekends here on the island!!!  Continue to pray for Josh with his upcoming finals and my sanity to live with him!!

Beginning of the End: Semester 1

So as I sit here and type we are one day and three weeks away from getting on a plane and heading back to the states.  I can not even explain how excited I am to get back home for a little while.  I am sure most people think we are so lucky to be able live where we do for a while, but I beg to differ.  It is very true what Dorothy says, "There is no place like home."  The phase, "Island life is much slower" is true, but not very suited to the way us Americans are use to living.  Now some of the you might think that you would love to live like this.  Hanging out on the beach, never have to worry about cold weather, flip flops all year around, beautiful views; all in all paradise.  NOT!!  We currently live in an over priced apartment complex that is not yet complete, but that is the norm here.  It takes five times as long for construction projects to get done.  The landscape is scattered with half finished homes.  The groceries cost twice to three times as much then back at home.  When going to the grocery store you have to check the dates on EVERYTHING because you never know if it is out of date.  I have yet to buy crackers that don't taste stale.  Milk day is Wednesdays, and all of it has the same sell by date.  So if you don't get to the store until Friday or Saturday you run the risk of not getting any milk or having to buy milk that will be out of date in 3 days and cost you twice as much.  Nothing is made down here as far as groceries, so everything is shipped in once a week.  And the beef selection, oh the beef selection is horrible.  I think Josh is going to consume at least 4 whole cows by himself when we get home.  His school has some people from the island that sell "Grade A beef" at school on Wednesdays at lunch.  Well we bought it a couple of time and thought it tasted a little strange, but thought it was just because the cattle are probably grass feed.  Then there was the night that I made hamburger steak, and we determined that it had to be goat meat!!  Needless to say we have not bought it since and have been eating ground turkey which Josh is just loving.  There are three fastfood restarants here: Subway, KFC, and Dominos.  We have been to two out of the three and were not impressed.  If you go out to eat, here a again you can expect to pay twice as much for your dinner and it may not even be worth eating.  I could talk all day about why we can't wait to be home, but I will not do that to you.  I will close by saying as much as we wish we could be home, we know that God has placed us here for a reason, and we are eagerly waiting for Him to show us what it is.  So keep the prayers coming!!!