Quick Recap of November...

So, apparently i am not so good at keeping up with this... i am making a strong effort to improve the regularity of the updating...

Anyway, November seems to have flown by. I spent the two weeks leading up to the week of Thanksgiving mostly studying for our tests we had that week. Those all went well, and after that the fun stuff for the month started...

The day of Thanksgiving was our last exam, so that night I went down to the Marriott with my friend Kathy for a little treat of a quesadilla and some drinks at the casino. It was the most ridiculous Thanksgiving dinner ever, and I'm really hurting for that French Onion Soup right about now. lol...

But, on Friday we had an *amazing* thanksgiving dinner at Melissa's house, where everyone made something and brought it over... which meant that there was an enormous amount of food! it was all very good, and i had some good wine from the marriott to wash it down with, so it was pretty much amazing. def the best caribbean thanksgiving i could ask for... even though melissa forgot to take the necks out of the turkey! quite amusing...

We also celebrated melissa's birthday that weekend, and went over to a club for it. she knows the guy who owns it, so it was pretty much just us and her other friends... but it was a lot of fun and there was much dancing to be had, which i thought was completely necessary...

Also that weekend was the Dog Jog. Which, in retrospect, i should not have gone out drinking before, but that's ok... it was a lot of fun... it seemed reall short, but i guess that's good :) And it was a little warm. but it was really nice to see all of the different dogs that students have and to get to interact with live animals a little bit... plus afterwards we got a lot of really good beach time! The picture above is from the Dog Jog, and that's Kathy with me... she also ran it and i'm really glad i had a friend running it too... neither of us had dogs to go with, so it made me feel a little bit less like a loser for not having one...

And since then it's been pretty much time to gear up for finals. We had our last trip to the karaoke bar for the semester and we're really getting into the zone studying for all of this stuff... it's a lot of information...

Oh! *and* just so you know, the extreme poker championships are being held here later this year... apparently they are playing underwater... they always pick a different extreme way to play poker and i guess this time it's underwater in the caribbean... very interesting... there's also some big poker championship going on this week at the marriott which means even more tourists than normal... keeps life interesting :)

Anyway, i'm counting down the days until i get on the plane to come home and enjoy the snow! (two weeks and 4 days)

So Much Going On...

Ok, so it's been awhile... it's just been so crazy around here... and i have a lot to talk about...

Some of the more exciting practical things first:
1) We finally signed our lease for our apartment, so i officially have someplace to live come december 15th, when i get kicked out of the dorms. Many pictures of the place will be soon to come (probably when i move in). It's really an awesome place, and my roomies are going to be phenomenal so i really can't wait. The kitchen is even bigger than i remembered it, and there's a porch going all the way around the house. We're living on the second story, so it will be amazing. I even picked out my bedroom. So excited to move in.
2) Amanda (future roomie) and i bought a car last week. It was outrageously exciting because it makes life *so* much easier. We went in half-sies and hopefully there won't be any problems with that... it's a 1995 Toyota Ceres and is midnight blue colored. It's lovely and it's been doing very well so far. Again, pictures to come soon. We named her Samantha Noel and we've been all over so far. Probably the best things were going grocery shopping and going to the marriott, mostly because i enjoyed being able to decide when i wanted to go and not having to bug somebody about when they were leaving. We got the car through our orientation leader, Melissa, who is good friends with a mechanic here. He looked at it before we bought it, so it should be ok for at least a little while. Which is good news because a lot of people have been having trouble with their cars right after they get them.

Aside from that, things are pretty much the same... we've been going out a lot. Karaoke is basically an every week deal now. Which is amazing. Didn't make it out last week because we had a test the next day, but this week is looking promising. We also went to the Mariott for Monday night football (aka gambling at the casino) on monday last week, there was a halloween party, and out to Timothy beach (where there are beach bars) on this past friday. That was great, we haven't been out that way in awhile and it was really fun. And then last night we went to the Marriott for the big colts vs patriots game. It was crazy there. It was so packed, there was no where to park. So we had to park a little ways away and walk there. And then there was no place to sit where the tv's were because there were *so* many people there watching the game. It was a blast....

classes are going well still... lots of testing to be had... and our "hell week" is coming up where we have three tests in one week. that should be interesting... lots of studying is in my future... but after that we'll have a lot of fun... on friday night we're doing thanksgiving at melissa's house, and then saturday night is her birthday party... there's lots of beach time in there... and somewhere there's the "dog jog". It's a little fundraiser that one of the clubs is hosting where we run about a mile and a half to raise money for the club... if you have a dog you can bring it, and if not there are a couple of places you can borrow one from. It's going to be pretty great... and you get free lunch at the end, which is always amazing... i'm getting pretty sick of beans, rice, and granola bars!

It's really bizarre having november now when it's still like 80 degrees everyday... i see the weather at home everyday and really wish i was there! especially after watching football this weekend... it just seemed so wonderful to be there in the brisk weather... but i guess i can't complain about being able to get out to the beach every week and work on my tan :)

Hope everything is going well at home, i'd love to hear from everyone!

Certification Complete

Yesterday was the last day of my scuba certification, and i am officially certified! It was just the academic portion, so i don't have any really good diving stories to tell, but it was still really exciting. I should be getting the temporary card and paperwork in a week or two and then i can send it out to get the permanent card. Quite exciting... I should be going on a dive soon. I thought i'd be going with some of my buddies, but it's getting a little hard to work everyone's schedule together and i don't really know if that's going to work out any more. If not, i'm sure i'll be going out in november sometime.

Otherwise, the week was fairly uneventful... more karaoke on Wednesday, which was a good time to be had by all... definitely sang "California Dreamin'" which was amazing. And there's pool there and darts, so we played some games, stayed out way too late, and then got three hours of sleep before getting up and going to class the next day. Apparently we didn't get the memo that most people go out all night on the *weekend*. Interesting...

Spent a little bit of time at the beach yesterday getting some sun and studying. It's getting more and more crowded, so i'm a little scared that one day the marriott people are going to come up and ask me to leave. A bunch of them know me already *and* know that i'm a student, so that could be a sticky situation. But it was fun... and later that night was one person's birthday, so we went out to dinner and then went to the marriott for ice cream/ fooseball/ casino time. It was really fun. The food at the place we went to was really good and outrageously not expensive. I had some chicken with garlic bread for only 10 EC, which figures out to be maybe 4 us. Quite the happy camper. And, of course, the marriott was amazing. it's a little silly how much time we spend there...

We had no tests this week, which was really nice, but i still managed to find ways to procrastinate more than i had originally wanted to... and tomorrow is our second histology exam. i'm planning on studying all day for that, after football. In lab we're dissecting the abdomen now, which is pretty fun until you get to all of the arteries and stuff... and we're going to start the reproductive stuff, which will be fun for me since that's my favorite class... i'm setting out to be really really productive again this week so that maybe i can get caught up in all of my classes so that when it comes to test time i don't have to study only one subject all day every day until the test....

Beach-A-Thon

So the last two weeks have been a little bit hectic. We had four tests over the span of two weeks, and it was pretty rough. A lot of studying to be had... which is generally why i chose not to post last week...

However, after all of the tests were over (Wednesday night to be specific) all hell broke loose. First of all, basically everyone in our class went out to the bar, Sugar's, and sang karaoke. It was basically the most amazing night of drinking and singing this island has ever seen. I pretty much rocked the house with some Beatles and a little Shania Twain thrown in for good measure. The girl in the picture with me is Amanda, one of my future roomies. Possibly the best part of the whole story is that when i went to go pick up my package at the post office on Friday afternoon, the mail lady was like, "I know you." which frankly scared me a little... until she said she recognized me from karaoke on Wednesday. Little did i know that i was so amazing.

After karaoke, the rest of the week consisted of some slacking off which came to it's glorious finale with beach-a-thon... an entire weekend devoted almost entirely to laying around at the beach. Yesterday was the beginning, and i ended up spending the entire day at the Marriott. It was glorious... basically the day consisted of laying around on the beach, playing in the ocean, heading up to the pool to lounge about, playing some in-pool volleyball, meandering back down to the beach, and ending up the entire day with some glorious sushi. It was great. And i managed to get a little bit burnt. My package from Mom really saved the day :D I finally had a beach towel, aloe gel, and new sunscreen... amazing... and what better way to end the day than to come home and have some chocolate. That stuff is like gold around here. It was great....

Today, we played football and then went out to Cockleshell beach (this is the first beach we visited here on the island). It was really fun, but less so because we got there a bit late. Basically by 3pm the sun stops baking you, and breeze picks up and you get a little cold. Yes i realize it's ridiculous to tell you people that i'm freezing at the beach when it's probably down to 75, but it's true. So, we got cold and headed up the the bar to sit and chat a little bit. It was very relaxing. And the best part is that i didn't even consider doing homework all weekend!

Now i just have to catch up this week....

We're about half way done with the semester now, and i can't wait to get home and see everyone! I definitely think about the end of the semester every day... i can't wait to spend those last few days before i come home laying out on the beach and then get home to see everyone... the first place i'm heading is to starbucks!

The Thorax (not to be confused with the lorax)

This week in anatomy lab we started working on Buddy's thoracic cavity. It's been pretty exciting, but slow going since there are a lot of nerve and blood vessels to try and identify and it's pretty difficult to pick the right one out of the crowd for all of them. But, it's going well and there's a test coming up on that stuff on this Thursday. There's another test in Physiology the day before that, and it's all exciting.

We've also been working on getting some t-shirts made for our flag football team. They're going to be orange and we've got a really nice design to go on them. It's been pretty entertaining, we got together and tried to come up with nicknames for everybody to have on the back of their shirt which resulted in quite a few hilarious yet random things...

I've started to befriend the donkeys on campus. They come in wild and were pretty much just running away from us every time we walked by, but now they will come up and let themselves be pet and try to eat your legs. It's pretty amusing. They get the donkeys from Kittitians who catch them on the island and then sell them to the school. Then they get used for surgeries for a class in one of the later semesters. Unfortunately, the last surgery they do is terminal... so it's all the more important to go that visit the little guys and make nice with them now.... One of them also has a problem with having a prolapsed uterus, apparently. On two separate occasions we've walked by and her uterus has fallen out and is just hanging out there. It's wild, but i'm sure they'll do some surgery on her to try and keep it from happening more.

It looks like we've definitely found a place to stay. We first looked at it a week or two ago, but apparently i neglected to mention it, so i'll just start at the beginning... First of all, we had to find this place using the Nursing school's website because our school's website said that there was nothing left in the area that we wanted, but the other site had a bunch of stuff there. That was really annoying because i was under the impression that the off-campus housing people were really helpful when you were trying to find a place to stay, but that has not been the case so far. It's ridiculous. Anyhow, so we found the place and got a hold of the landlord and went out to check the place out. The area where it is is about two minutes away from campus and other people we know live nearby, so we know it's a good neighborhood. And the houses here are really deceiving because from the outside you think that the apartments look small, but once you get in they're huge. This was no different. You first walk in and there's an awesomely huge kitchen and living room. The ceilings are pretty tall so it feels really spacious too. And the bedrooms looked really nice too. A/C in all of the bedrooms, TV, everything is lovely. *Except* for the fact that we were going to try and cram in 3 (actually 4) people in there. She had advertised it as a three bedroom, but the third bedroom was basically the size of a walk-in closet and had no A/C in it. *And* there was only one bathroom for all of us to share...but we really liked the place and the price was really good so we were figuring we'd just work with it. So we called her back and were talking to her about it and she said that she's going to do a little work in it before renting it out to us. There's a room that she was using for storage which is actually the master bedroom. So, she's going to fix it up a bit and put another bathroom in with it so that there are two baths and a real third bedroom. So, now we're thrilled about living there. We haven't signed anything or put down a deposit yet, but we'd really like to... the landlord just wants to have all of the work done on it first so that we can see how everything comes out and then sign for it. She said she's hold it for us until then, i'm just worried that somehow we are going to end up not getting it and then have no place to live next semester. But she seems really nice and honest and not the type of person who would screw us over...

And yesterday was my last dive before i'm certified. It was awesome. We went down to 60 ft this time and worked on a few skills... like doing a course with a compass (basically swim out and back in a straight line), practicing ascending while buddy breathing, putting our gear on after we're in the water, transferring from the regulator to using a snorkel at the surface, and the emergency ascent. It was pretty fun. Of course the best part is when we're just having fun at the bottom. This time the instructor caught some lobster while we were down there. The first was a little guy, and then we saw this huge thing right next to him. It was a 7 lb. lobster! huge, just huge...there were also like eight sting rays down along the sand.... a barracuda... a *gigantic* green eel. Like the things from the little mermaid, but brighter green. He looked kinda like a dinosaur, it was crazy... and *the highlight of the day* a sea turtle! I've been waiting forever, like since i got here, to see one and now i finally did. It was pretty big too. We first found him hanging out under a rock, and then the instructor kinda got him out from under it, he came out, looked at us for a second like "holy shit" and then ran away as fast as possible. They're really fast... it was *so* cool. So, we had a really good time yesterday... the only sad part it that now i won't be diving again for awhile. We just have an academic section left and the final exam and then we'll be certified and can go diving whenever we want. So exciting.

And today will be the typical Sunday. Off to football in about an hour, which will be fun. And then to the beach at the Marriott to try and get some studying done. Should be a good time.

More Scuba Adventures...

... although scuba diving is certainly not the only thing i'm up to down here, it *is* the most exciting. So, i'll start there. This week we went for our first ocean dive. We met up at the dock where the instructor runs his business from (he has a boat and a dive shop and takes tourists out to dive) and jumped on the boat and headed out to our location. The first dive we did was at a ship wreck where there was also a sunken bus and tractor. During this dive, we didn't practice any "skills" to get certified, just got used to swimming around down there. It was really cool and there were tons and tons of fish to see. They were swimming practically right into my face. As we went around, the instructor picked up a sea cucumber for us to hold and we all passed it around. It was so cool, and it felt like crazy. Very soft and squishy, even though it looked more pokey and slimey. There was also a sea anemone that he poked and scared back into it's "shell" (for lack of a better term) and some crazy spider like stick thing that i held. Fun stuff. Then we came back up and relaxed for awhile before going on our second dive. This one was at a coral reef. It was super pretty down there and almost as soon as we got down there, these huge things came swimming right up to us and then by. Turns out they were eagle rays (it's what the picture is of, although that isn't the one we saw) and they were so cool. I was a little scared it was going to try and kill me, but they didn't and they were so cool to see. They just flew by us. The rest of what we saw was basically more of the same... and there were puffer fish. We got one to puff up and then passed him around a little so everyone could pet him. He was also much softer than i would have thought. And then we practiced our skills for certification, and i was the smart person who put the breathing thing in upside down and couldn't figure out what was wrong when we were "buddy breathing". So cool.

On Sunday we played flag football again, and we lost again. We are really amazing, much like the Bills. But, we did better and it's a lot of fun. Plus afterwards we can go out to the Marriott and get some really good loser ice cream!

As far as classes go, i had my first two tests since the last time i wrote. One was on Thursday and that was our Anatomy lab exam where i got to identify all of the different parts of the front leg. And yesterday was our histology exam where i got to identify all of the different things on a bunch of microscope slides. I ended up getting an A on both, which is wonderful. It was a good way to start the semester off. And our next exam is next week on Tuesday. It's pretty hectic, and i've been studying like mad, so i don't really have much more to say about classes.

Last night, as a little "we got our first tests out of the way" celebration, we went down to the Marriott to watch Monday night football at the casino. We ended up watching about 5 minutes worth and spent the rest of the time losing money and drinking. They give you free drinks there if you're gambling and i ended up spending $20, so i like to call that breaking even. I had the worst luck. But some of my friends had amazing nights. One person walked out with $200 from the Monopoly nickel slots! It was outrageous... so the whole night was a lot of fun and a nice way to unwind.

Week 2

So, another week has gone by... really fast.

We started our anatomy lab this week. We got dog cadavers on Monday, and we'll be keeping them all semester and dissecting them the whole time. It was pretty exciting. Our dog is rather large, with the temporary name "Buddy". We've been working on him the whole week, we're currently dissecting the front leg. It's crazy, we've got to memorize all of the muscles, blood vessels, and nerves in it. It's crazy, we've been spending a lot of extra time in the lab to try and figure it all out.

I also went to check out some of the clubs here. They look really exciting, for the most part. AAEP is the Equine Practitioner's Club it looks amazing. They do a bunch of wet labs that I can go play in.... the first one is a phlebotomy lab. And they also have a bunch of lectures so you can learn more about equine-specific stuff that they don't always cover in class. I also signed up to groom horses on the fourth Sunday of every month, that's going to be really fun too. The Emergency Club looks amazing. We get to volunteer in the clinic and they also have phlebotomy labs where we get to learn/practice how to put in catheters and draw blood. It sounded extra cool...


On Friday, we had our white coat ceremony. It's a ceremony that's like a welcome to the profession, and you take an oath about how you're going to be a good doctor and take good care of animals etc. etc. So, we all got decked out in our best business casual gear and got to walk aross a stage to get our white coats put on us and then shake the dean's hand and get some pictures taken of us. It was pretty nice. We had a nice reception after with some free food, which is always good. And we got to look like actual doctors for a little while, so it was a little bit of an ego boost.

On Saturday morning was my first scuba class! It was the highlight of my week, and the most fun ever. We did our first class in a pool because it's safer and if somebody starts to panic they can just shoot up to the top without really hurting themself. Next Saturday we're going out into the ocean to dive, it's going to be amazing. In the pool, we practiced a bunch of skills... like taking the regulator (thing that you breathe out of) out of your mouth and getting it back, taking off your mask and getting that back on and clearing all of the water out of it, and breathing out of someone else's tank in case you run out of air. It was pretty fun... except for the mask part, when some water got up my nose and then i proceeded to freak out a little because i was coughing into my regulator and everything. It was a little crazy. Hopefully I get better at it....


After that we went out to lunch at the Marriott and later we went out to a bar for karaoke. One of my professors was there singing, he did a little Johnny Cash and Jimmy Buffett. It was pretty cool... and of course all of the crazy students got up there and acted like idiots. It was pretty exciting... I sang "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Cher with Kathy. It was hilarious.

And then this morning was pretty busy. I went to a dog training class for the dogs in the kennel on campus with the AOCC club. It was really interesting and good to do... but I don't know if I'm going to have time to do it every week... and after that we played flag football. It was so much fun. We almost didn't have enough people to play, but luckily Ian jumped in at the last minute and we did... All of the other teams in the league are pretty serious and very good. AND we played the best team in the league today... and we're really not all that good... but we had a lot of fun and it was a really great stress reliever. Everyone had a really good time.

Other than that we didn't do a whole lot... besides class, going to the beach to lay out in the sun, and hitting up the occasional beach bar. It's amazing, gotta love being able to go take a study break by laying out next to the ocean!

Longest Post EVAR

Ok, so it's been a little while since i last posted... apparently they weren't kidding when they said i would be busy at vet school. So, i'll try and pick up where i left off and cover mostly everything from there....

On Thursday of last week, we went on an island tour. And basically the first stop was to see some Kittians that our orientation leader, Melissa, was friends with. This is where I got to see my first monkey! And, as you can see, got to hold him as well. The guy had a bunch of them, he goes up into the rainforest and gets them as babies and then raises them so that they are used to people. It was pretty neat. He also had a bunch of hand-made crafts out for sale which were gorgeous, and they were kind enough to share some mango that was picked right here on St. Kitts. It was the most delicious mango in the world, and I'm still looking for another one on the island to buy... This is also where the sacrifice rocks were. They were neat to see, they're black lava rocks that have some tribal-like painting on them about sacrificing a pregnant woman to the gods...

On the tour, we also stopped at the gardens, which are beautiful. Apparently there are weddings there occasionally too... And at the gardens is a batik artist's shop. She gave us a little demonstration of how she does batik and then we walked around and took a look at all of her work. It's really amazing and can take a very long time; most of the time she does multiple dippings of the material into the dye with different parts of wax removed.

We also saw where the Caribbean meets the Atlantic, which was really interesting because you can see how different the two are. The Caribbean is much more of an aquamarine color, and the Atlantic is a deeper blue. Also, the Atlantic is much choppier than the Caribbean.

Also, there was a place called the "Black Rocks", which is a place along the edge of the island where there is a big grouping of black rocks that formed when the volcano erupted and the lava from it met the ocean and cooled. They are very beautiful, and it's really relaxing to watch the waves crashing up against them...

After the island tour, we went out to a beach bonfire which was interesting... nothing like starting up a nice warm fire in the outrageous heat of the Caribbean. But it was fun, we tried to roast marshmallows, but our roasting sticks were too short. And somebody broke out their guitar and started playing and singing a bunch of songs.

Friday we spent most of the day relaxing at the Marriott, which is always amazing. And we went out to eat that night at a restaurant that is basically just a porch. There are no walls around it, and it's so nice to be able to sit out and enjoy the outside without having to worry about the weather!

Saturday was probably the best day of the orientation: the Catamaran trip! The Catamarans themselves are really cool, you basically just sit on top of the boat and cruise around. But, that also means that you can really easily fall off... which clearly is a little scary. But, it was so amazing and relaxing. And at the front of the boat, the bottom is made up of a mesh-like flooring, so you can sit over it and watch the water rush past... it's really cool. They took us out to a good place to go snorkeling, and gave us gear to use for it. This was my first time snorkeling, and it was amazing. I could have stayed out there all day looking for stuff... unfortunately, i didn't find anything that was really cool. I saw lots of pretty fish and stuff, but some of the other people in the group got to see a sea turtle and someone saw a big school of squid. So i was a little jealous, but i'm sure i'll get a chance to see lots of sea turtles...

After a little while, we loaded the catamaran back up with our people and headed over to the sister island, Nevis. There they gave us lunch and we headed over to the Four Seasons to hit up a beach bar that's supposed to be really good. At the bar they have a drink called "killer bees" and it's really amazing... and strong... but it was definitely worth the walk over there. The Four Seasons is nice, but not nearly as great as the Marriott... so i'm glad the school is on St. Kitts! And then on the way back, we were walking along the ocean and i managed to find a rock hidden in the sand and trip over it, throwing my bag into the water in the process of falling to my doom... and my camera and newly acquired cell phone hit the water and are ruined. Hence lack of new pictures. It was awful, I'm pretty much ridiculously bummed about it... And the rest of the day was pretty much uneventful...

Sunday was registration, and then classes started on Monday. After classes started, it seems like time is passing ten times faster and there's no time for anything... I have class from 8am-4pm on Mon and Tues, and 8am-3pm for the rest of the week. And as soon as I get back, I study for the rest of the night... go to bed early so that I can get up early and then go jogging. It's crazy all the time... but not too bad, i guess. The classes are interesting, and at least for the first week are just going over the basics, so it's not too scary yet. Yet being the key word there....

This week there was also a student club fair on campus, and I got a chance to check out all of the different clubs they have and sign up for the ones i'm going to participate in. A lot of them look like they'll offer a lot of good experience. There's an emergency club, where i'll be able to volunteer at the emergency clinic on campus. And a turtle club that goes out and watches the sea turtles lay their nests and then makes sure to keep the site protected. The horse club gets a lot of time spent with horses and starting to network with other horse vets around the country... same goes for bovine club... and finally there's an "animals on campus" club where i'll be able to go over and spend some quality time with the kennel dogs that belong to the school. And that's everything i signed up for, I'm going to go to the first meetings for all of them and then i'll be able to pick what i want to do with each club. AND the most exciting club of all that i joined is the scuba club! I'm going to start certification within the next week and hopefully i'll be all certified within a couple of weeks and i'll be able to go on dives with the club. They try and go on two dives a month (which can be hard this time of year) and there's a big trip once a year to the best diving site in the world (apparently). That will be fun, but i'll have to wait until next year to go on the trip, because you have to be a little bit more experienced to handle the dives they do on that trip.

Aside from all that, i haven't been doing too much... we went out the the Marriott yesterday and today to get a little sun before the week starts again... and we had sushi at the Marriott yesterday. It's really good (not the best ever, but really good) and it's a decent price, so i was excited about being able to go out and get sushi once in awhile...

The weather here has been great... it's still warm and hot all the time. But not so hot that it's too uncomfortable to get anything done. There's a nice breeze that helps cool you down a little... and it rains just about every day. Just for short spurts though, nothing prolonged. And when it rains here it really pours. It's really nice... except for the fact that they're predicting five more hurricanes to develop this season... hopefully none will hit here!

Ok, i think that's mostly everything... updates will be more frequent from now on, guaranteed to be at least once a week on sundays...

Brimstone Hill & Fortress

Today we went out to a historical site on St. Kitts called Brimstone Hill. The hill is formed out of cooled lava that pushed its way through the underlying rock layers. It's about 800 ft above sea level.

Christopher Columbus discovered the island on his first voyage, and when it was colonized all of the native Kittians were killed. After this Britain and France divided up the island and began to colonize it and bring in slaves. Eventually Britain decided to build a fortress on top of Brimstone Hill, and used the slaves to build it. The stones are made of lava rocks, and they used limestone to make the mortar. Because of that, everything is black with a white mortar. It looks beautiful.

After the British built the fortress, the French decided that they wanted it and tried to overtake it. They came in with around 8,000 men, and there were only about 1,000 British in the fortress. The French surrounded the fortress and cut off all access to food and water, so the British were basically starving to death in there for a month before they surrendered. Later, the British took the fortress back in a similar manner.

Since then, the government at St. Kitts has been working to keep it preserved and to restore it somewhat so that it can be used as a tourist location. There is a historical audio you can purchase to listen to the story of the hill and fortress, and it's really very lovely.

From the top, there is an excellent view of the island and you can also see four other Caribbean islands near by, including St. Martin.

Finally!

Ok so, the last post was a little sparse... because my internet and phone connections weren't working in my room, but they were in my roomates, so i was borrowing her internet before she moved in and was a little bit distracted....

But today it finally got all settled and now i'm all hooked up. My phone number to my room is a New Jersey number, so you all can call it and it's not such a long distance... if you need the number just IM or email me and i'll be glad to give it out...

Yesterday we spent basically the whole day on the other side of the island at a really really nice beach... The drive was wonderful because we got to see so much of the island... here are a few pictures from the drive over:


This is the part of the island that is called "the neck", because the island is shaped kind of like a guitar and this would be the neck of the guitar. On one side it's the Atlantic Ocean and on the other it's the Caribbean Ocean. It's probably the most beautiful view of the island and our bus driver was nice enough to stop and let us get out to see and and to take pictures....


And the is a picture of the beach we were actually at. This is the bar/restaurant that is there and the volleyball net.


And this is where we were swimming at the beach... The water was wonderfully amazing. It's the perfect temperature and it's so salty, which makes you more buoyant and makes it easier to swim. There was lots of cool stuff in the water, and some people were snorkeling and collecting conch shells (which are illegal to bring back to the states) and star fish... but i think they put everything back.... We even saw a little sting ray! It was so cool! We also layed out in the sand and just enjoyed the place. But the sun is so strong here, I got a bit burnt. Not too bad though...

There are also a lot of free-roaming animals on the island and we got to see herds of wild cows just hanging out next to the road as we drove back from the beach. There are also goats and sheep around.... the sheep aren't wooly though, so it's a little difficult to tell the two apart.

We've also been going out to eat a lot, and they have so much here that I never expected. I had a fabulous burger at the Marriott (more info on that soon enough) and we also had pretty good Italian at a little restaurant in town. There's also KFC, Dominoes, and Subway. But all of that's a little bit expensive, especially considering I'm living off of loans.

Today I got my driver's license, student visa, and set up my bank account. It was a lot of paper work and waiting in lines, which was awful... and we also went shopping in town. We went to TDC, which is kind of like a Home Depot meets Walmart... and we went to the other grocery store (we went to IGA on Saturday). This grocery store is call Rams and it has a lot better selection, as far as I'm concerned. They even have a lot of ethnic foods that are hard to find in the US. There's also all kinds of things that you would normally eat at home, but it's all very expensive.

After that, I ordered pizza and had a movie night with some of my friends from my orientation group and just had a kind of quite night. This was actually a nice change from the fast-paced, always going out lifestyle we've had for the last few days!

The rest of the week is going to continue to be busy with orientation stuff, but not much more paper work. I should also have plenty of time to write and update here, as well as plenty of interesting things to write about...

On Friday we're going back to the Marriott to hang out at the beach. It's so beautiful there, I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. The pool has over a hundred chairs around it, and the beach has probably the same amount of little shade-huts where you can just relax. There's also a cigar bar and a really nice casino (i'm told it's like a mini Las Vegas). The restaurants in there are really really nice too. AND we are allowed to go there and just hang out whenever we want... they like us to stay away during tourist season, but there are still ways to sneak in. It's really great... i'm planning on doing a lot of studying there if possible....

There's also a Scuba club that I'm thinking about joining. I can get certified through them and then go diving periodically... it sounds like a lot of fun and there's a shipwreck to dive near too. A lot of pretty fish live near there...

It's all very exciting, but I think that's all the news I have for now. More soon, I'm sure!

Well, I've made it down here. The trip was relatively uneventful, which is always good...

I'm still not all the way unpacked, so I'm working on that here and there, but I've gotten to see a lot of the island so far...

My dorm-apartment is pretty small, but very new which is nice. The phone and internet in my room isn't working yet, so I'm mooching off of my roomate's hook up for now. So I probably also won't be online very much for the next few days. However, the view is *amazing* absolutely gorgeous, and the windows are nice and big so that a lot of sun can come in.



These are two views from my apartment, and i posted some pictures of the inside of my apartment on my online picture album, so you should check them out....

Last night, we went out to the beach. There is a strip of bars there right on the beach. The bars here are different from "american style" bars, because they are basically just little shacks along the beach, with no walls so they are completely open. So people can just get a beer and go out and hang out / dance on the beach. Quite wonderful. They have a couple of locally brewed beers, so that's not too expensive either...

And this morning we went down to Baseterre to do some shopping for groceries and stuff... later in the week i'll get a tour of the whole island, so i'll have more to say about that soon... but shopping was interesting. All of the locals are very nice and like to be helpful. And everything is pretty expensive, but i was pretty much expecting that... except for the coffee, that is just crazy. One of the giant containers of folgers costs $55 EC which just sounds crazy to me.... but a lot of the sticker shock comes from the exchange rate...

and that's about it. Tonight we're planning on going out some more and my roomate is moving in, so that will be exciting. More stories soon...

It Starts

As I'm sure you are all aware, I'm moving to the Caribbean in t-minus 3 weeks!

For those of you who don't, I'll throw in a little background: I'm moving to St. Kitts (which is just a little bit South East of Puerto Rico) in order to go to vet school. There I will learn all of the wonderful things necessary to becoming a vet while getting an outrageously good tan! Unfortunately, this means leaving behind many things that I love. The bunny, Ollie, will be staying with my mother. She will hopefully become a glorious bunny wrangler and be able to let him out often. The Steve is staying here as well, and he's handling that in a good way thus far. And it seems that I'm leaving at just the right time to miss exciting events, particularly the birth of my very good friends Donna and Shawn's first child. Rather depressing indeed. Regardless, I'm still jumping out of my skin with excitement to go. It will truly be a grand adventure....

Hence, the purpose of 'ze blog: to try and stay in touch with people/keep people updated/provide interesting stories of my life while I am away. So, come back and visit often, I will try to post at least once a week once I get there. And there will be many, many pictures.

So, the next update probably won't be until August 25th, the day after I fly in....Speaking of which, make sure you are at my going away party on the 23rd. Drop me a line and I'll give you the details.

Ciao.