Hooray for catching up! I'm trying to catch up before I leave, wish me luck, let's see where I left off...
Time has passed by so quick I can't even recall what week this is. Oh well, it was the week after my last post! The week went by as normal, I feel like my blog posts come from the weekends because the weekdays are pretty normal from day to day-we get up early, excavate for a while, come back for two hours and eat or go to the pool, go back to lab, then we go back to the bungalows, eat dinner, maybe read, hang out with people, go to bed and do it all the next day. Wednesdays are generally the most interesting days because we have class from 4-6/7ish and it's the only day we can shower during break and feel clean for the rest of the day-I'm going to come back a dirtcase after being here, I'm so use to sitting around in sweat and dirt all day, I feel like nothing will phase me in NC! Except the heat, it may be hotter there actually.
Anyways, classes are awesome, we get to go out to a restaurant and get a good meal as compared to the canned food we eat in the bungalows-food is ridiculously expensive here, I'll spend $20 EC which is about $8US on a single thing of juice, something I'd never do in the states...my jar of salsa was about $5US and my thing of peanut butter was close to that..therefore we've been chowing down on some beans and rice and pasta for the past 5 weeks! We started doing class at Rumours but we switched to Pinney's and started getting better food-Rumours had a fabulous fish sandwich and is a great place to go otherwise (especially on Karaoke night!) but we get better food at Pinney's so I was thankful for the change...I've been able to get fish, steamed veggies, rice, and a salad for the past couple of weeks...and did I mention we can drink during class? How many times can you say you've been able to buy alcohol and drink it during class? Not enough!
I think the reason why I enjoy the weekends so much is because I've been fortunate enough to make friends on the island that take us out to different places I wouldn't normally see if I were just to hang out in the group. This weekend was the first weekend I was able to experience more of what I came here to do-see the culture in a different way. Thursday night the group went out to karaoke night at Rumours, but most of the group went back pretty early so my partner in crime, Kevin, and I stayed back for a little bit and hung out with our new friends. It was an interesting clash of island/American songs being sang by all different people, and man could some people sing! Needless to say I didn't get up there...Friday night we started off dancing to the local band Green House at the bar on Oualie, it's usually a good starting place for us to meet up with people and see what else is going on that night. So our friend Colis decided a small group of us should head over to this club called Enrique, but the numbers increased and before I knew it we were taking two cars crammed full of people. Enrique's is really nice, it's just outside of town and plays a good mixture of music...they were playing more American rap/hip-hop when we first got there by by the time we had left they were playing a good selection of reggae. Then Saturday night Rachel and I decided to go into town with Colis and his friend Andy for a "battle of dj's"...that's how it was described to me at least. I think it was just a couple dj's playing their music but it was interesting nonetheless...it was really nice to take one of my girlfriends out and go into town with the locals-I absolutely love the group but I tend to enjoy doing things differently than the majority does-many nights are spent drinking in the bungalows or out by the pool and while it's fun, I can play circle of death and drink by a pool back in the states. After listening to the dj's for a bit we decided to go back to Andy's place and relaxed and talked and enjoyed some great wine and cheese. It was nice to talk to different people and hear background stories, I guess you could say I came on this trip more for the cultural aspects rather than the archaeology...although the classes will still help me achieve my minor =)
Besides the nasty weather we had been experiencing all weekend, Sunday was one of the best days we spent on the island. We got up rather early for a rainforest hike with the group, which turned out to be AWESOME despite how much we wanted to cancel the hike. We were able to learn alot about the food/spice sources in the rainforests around the island, the fruit was incredible! I think I had about 5-6 mangos on that trip alone...we also tried soursop, tamarind, fresh cinnamon leaves, a leaf that tastes like licorice (yea, it was a little weird having say here, put this leaf in your mouth..and then being happy you listened), and the best daggon coconut I've had in my entire life-I bought a coconut to crack open later on but the results weren't quite as good...aka I made a hole to drink the water our of and then couldn't crack it open so I just collected ants instead...where's the Hulk when you need him?
Rachel and I opted to spend the rest of the day touring the island and seeing a few interesting sites. Luckily, we had me a guy Zac, who goes to UNC Chapel Hill and was spending the week on vacation a few minutes away from us-small world eh! We were very thankful he had a car and we decided to spend the day finding random adventures. Our first stop was Cottle Church, perhaps my favorite stop of the day. It was built by a man named Thomas John Cottle in the early 1800's. According to the story, he owned slaves because of the British policy but fought to improve working conditions and even hired missionaries to improve their education and faith. He decided to build this church in which both black and whites could worship together-it was not meant as a place where slaves could meet and segregate themselves but rather a place they could be seen as equals among the white community. After spending a bit of time there we stopped by our dig site on Coconut Walk to show Zac what we had been up to-I was able to take some needed pictures of our excavation site and we even found a huge beehive and a "bat cave" in some old ruins near our site-I was glad we decided to adventure around or else I would have never though to look inside those buildings!
We then stopped by the Eden Brown Estate, which is supposedly haunted by a woman named Julia, who tragically lost her brother in a duel the night before her wedding. I found a random door and decided to take a look-it only led to a tiny couple meter by couple meter room, but Rachel and Zac thought it would be funny to throw rocks against the wall to scare me. Now Julia's going to haunt me because of them! Next stop was the Golden Rock, which is comprised of a trail, some ruins, and a gorgeous restaurant. It started pouring when we arrived so we opted to hang out and talk in the restaurant until the rain slowed-we then started checking out the hike until Rachel broke her sandal...poor thing! We did get a couple of mangos out of it though, I think that amounted up to 7-8 mangos in one day...We decided to check out Montpelier (spelling?) after, apparently this now-hotel area contains the oldest house in the Lesser Antilles-honestly, I wouldn't have known the difference unless I had been told, the house was pretty in it's Colonial style but I think it had been redone quite a few times. Last stop was the Jewish Cemetery located near Charlestown, it contained about 10 or so above ground tombs that were covered in different languages. After a good day of adventuring around the island, we stopped by Zac's to clean up and enjoy some homemade pizza! Pretty successful weekend if you ask me.
Time has passed by so quick I can't even recall what week this is. Oh well, it was the week after my last post! The week went by as normal, I feel like my blog posts come from the weekends because the weekdays are pretty normal from day to day-we get up early, excavate for a while, come back for two hours and eat or go to the pool, go back to lab, then we go back to the bungalows, eat dinner, maybe read, hang out with people, go to bed and do it all the next day. Wednesdays are generally the most interesting days because we have class from 4-6/7ish and it's the only day we can shower during break and feel clean for the rest of the day-I'm going to come back a dirtcase after being here, I'm so use to sitting around in sweat and dirt all day, I feel like nothing will phase me in NC! Except the heat, it may be hotter there actually.
Anyways, classes are awesome, we get to go out to a restaurant and get a good meal as compared to the canned food we eat in the bungalows-food is ridiculously expensive here, I'll spend $20 EC which is about $8US on a single thing of juice, something I'd never do in the states...my jar of salsa was about $5US and my thing of peanut butter was close to that..therefore we've been chowing down on some beans and rice and pasta for the past 5 weeks! We started doing class at Rumours but we switched to Pinney's and started getting better food-Rumours had a fabulous fish sandwich and is a great place to go otherwise (especially on Karaoke night!) but we get better food at Pinney's so I was thankful for the change...I've been able to get fish, steamed veggies, rice, and a salad for the past couple of weeks...and did I mention we can drink during class? How many times can you say you've been able to buy alcohol and drink it during class? Not enough!
I think the reason why I enjoy the weekends so much is because I've been fortunate enough to make friends on the island that take us out to different places I wouldn't normally see if I were just to hang out in the group. This weekend was the first weekend I was able to experience more of what I came here to do-see the culture in a different way. Thursday night the group went out to karaoke night at Rumours, but most of the group went back pretty early so my partner in crime, Kevin, and I stayed back for a little bit and hung out with our new friends. It was an interesting clash of island/American songs being sang by all different people, and man could some people sing! Needless to say I didn't get up there...Friday night we started off dancing to the local band Green House at the bar on Oualie, it's usually a good starting place for us to meet up with people and see what else is going on that night. So our friend Colis decided a small group of us should head over to this club called Enrique, but the numbers increased and before I knew it we were taking two cars crammed full of people. Enrique's is really nice, it's just outside of town and plays a good mixture of music...they were playing more American rap/hip-hop when we first got there by by the time we had left they were playing a good selection of reggae. Then Saturday night Rachel and I decided to go into town with Colis and his friend Andy for a "battle of dj's"...that's how it was described to me at least. I think it was just a couple dj's playing their music but it was interesting nonetheless...it was really nice to take one of my girlfriends out and go into town with the locals-I absolutely love the group but I tend to enjoy doing things differently than the majority does-many nights are spent drinking in the bungalows or out by the pool and while it's fun, I can play circle of death and drink by a pool back in the states. After listening to the dj's for a bit we decided to go back to Andy's place and relaxed and talked and enjoyed some great wine and cheese. It was nice to talk to different people and hear background stories, I guess you could say I came on this trip more for the cultural aspects rather than the archaeology...although the classes will still help me achieve my minor =)
Besides the nasty weather we had been experiencing all weekend, Sunday was one of the best days we spent on the island. We got up rather early for a rainforest hike with the group, which turned out to be AWESOME despite how much we wanted to cancel the hike. We were able to learn alot about the food/spice sources in the rainforests around the island, the fruit was incredible! I think I had about 5-6 mangos on that trip alone...we also tried soursop, tamarind, fresh cinnamon leaves, a leaf that tastes like licorice (yea, it was a little weird having say here, put this leaf in your mouth..and then being happy you listened), and the best daggon coconut I've had in my entire life-I bought a coconut to crack open later on but the results weren't quite as good...aka I made a hole to drink the water our of and then couldn't crack it open so I just collected ants instead...where's the Hulk when you need him?
Rachel and I opted to spend the rest of the day touring the island and seeing a few interesting sites. Luckily, we had me a guy Zac, who goes to UNC Chapel Hill and was spending the week on vacation a few minutes away from us-small world eh! We were very thankful he had a car and we decided to spend the day finding random adventures. Our first stop was Cottle Church, perhaps my favorite stop of the day. It was built by a man named Thomas John Cottle in the early 1800's. According to the story, he owned slaves because of the British policy but fought to improve working conditions and even hired missionaries to improve their education and faith. He decided to build this church in which both black and whites could worship together-it was not meant as a place where slaves could meet and segregate themselves but rather a place they could be seen as equals among the white community. After spending a bit of time there we stopped by our dig site on Coconut Walk to show Zac what we had been up to-I was able to take some needed pictures of our excavation site and we even found a huge beehive and a "bat cave" in some old ruins near our site-I was glad we decided to adventure around or else I would have never though to look inside those buildings!
We then stopped by the Eden Brown Estate, which is supposedly haunted by a woman named Julia, who tragically lost her brother in a duel the night before her wedding. I found a random door and decided to take a look-it only led to a tiny couple meter by couple meter room, but Rachel and Zac thought it would be funny to throw rocks against the wall to scare me. Now Julia's going to haunt me because of them! Next stop was the Golden Rock, which is comprised of a trail, some ruins, and a gorgeous restaurant. It started pouring when we arrived so we opted to hang out and talk in the restaurant until the rain slowed-we then started checking out the hike until Rachel broke her sandal...poor thing! We did get a couple of mangos out of it though, I think that amounted up to 7-8 mangos in one day...We decided to check out Montpelier (spelling?) after, apparently this now-hotel area contains the oldest house in the Lesser Antilles-honestly, I wouldn't have known the difference unless I had been told, the house was pretty in it's Colonial style but I think it had been redone quite a few times. Last stop was the Jewish Cemetery located near Charlestown, it contained about 10 or so above ground tombs that were covered in different languages. After a good day of adventuring around the island, we stopped by Zac's to clean up and enjoy some homemade pizza! Pretty successful weekend if you ask me.
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