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.