Home, Sweet Home

I don’t think I can call myself a local yet. I haven’t even pooped while on the island, which means my body thinks it’s in vacation mode. Hopefully my bowels catch up with my brain at some point.

Moving to Grenada has been a whirlwind. Aside from the actual preparation to move to a foreign country, the plane rides were awful. I threw up on the airplane. Like all over myself. Luckily all I had eaten was a banana, so it just looked like baby spit-up. But it was still possibly the worst thing I have ever experienced. I was sitting by the window and Billy was on the opposite row on the window seat so he had no idea. I had to politely ask the woman and her teenage boy sitting next to me whether I could please get out, because as you can see (and hopefully not smell), I have vomit all over my jacket.  I went to the bathroom and rinsed off my jacket (my whole outfit was black, so the white spit-up contrasted quite nicely).

Another positive to this story is that I was so drugged on Ambien that I don’t think I even had the self-awareness to be properly embarrassed.  I got back to my seat and tried to sleep some more. Our first leg arrived at JFK at 7 AM—hence the need for an Ambien or two. Then, we hit some turbulence and I proceeded to throw up again. This time, a flight attendant had given me 2 barf bags, so it was much more hygienic. Those poor people sitting next to me. And the poor people reading this post—I’ve already mentioned 2 different bodily fluids and I’m not even done yet.

Anyway, I was ecstatic to finally land in our new home. We were picked up at the airport and taken to the grocery store to get a transformer (all the outlets in our apartment are 220v and all our electronics are 110v). Who do we think we are—thinking we could charge more than one device at a time? Spoiled Americans. Even in the few days we’ve been here, we’ve realized what entitled people we are. I’ve never looked at prices so hard as when we went grocery shopping for the first time. Since we’re on an island, most everything is imported—especially our favorite brands. A small jar of peanut butter cost us over 10 USD and a gallon of milk was 7 USD.  And when you’re living on student loans that haven’t even come through yet—you start having to budget and think about costs a little bit more. Plus, we haven’t had to pay rent for 2 years while living at our parents’ houses. When we talk about a lifestyle change, we weren’t kidding.

We live about a 15 minute walk from a small beach. There is never anyone else there, so we call it our own private beach. There’s a volleyball net, so we need to hurry and make some friends so we can get some games going. We tried another beach yesterday—Grand Anse beach, which is famous in Grenada. But we didn’t like it as much as our beach. It was still beautiful, with fabulous views of the capital, but it wasn’t remote enough for our hermit selves. We bought snorkel gear today—which obviously takes a priority over Internet or a car, right?

For some reason, I start crying every day out of nowhere. It’s not from sadness, or loneliness, because we are having so much fun and I’m really loving it here. I think maybe that I’m a little bit afraid and out of my element. I love the things we are discovering about this country and the cultures and customs, but sometimes it all gets too much and I yearn for something familiar. Back in Utah, I was so comfortable in all of my roles. We had good friends that we loved spending time with, we knew what we could afford and what we couldn’t, I was so comfortable at my job, we had our favorite restaurants, and Billy and I spent as much time together as we possibly could. But here, my roles have all shifted. We will need to make new friends, I’ll have to learn how to cook in order to save us money, we still need to figure out how everything works on the island, and once school starts, I’ll rarely get to spend time with Billy. But, I’m going to focus on the positive and let things happen on their own. 

My goal is to make life so easy for Billy that he won’t have to worry about anything other than school. Our time here is about him, and I’m so proud of the sacrifices he has already made and will continue to make so that we can live a comfortable life. I can’t even imagine how hard his studies will be, so I’m taking a vow to be the most independent, non-needy wife there ever was. He will have no reason to worry about my feelings whatsoever! I have to write this on the blog, or else I won’t remember my vow when I’m having a bad day.

Mostly, we are just enjoying this time where we don’t have cell phones, a car, or even an Internet connection. I don’t bother to wash or style my hair, because I know I’ll be getting in the ocean again. Things are simple. We sleep in, and our biggest worry is which beach or waterfall we are going to go to that day.  Real life will begin for us once Billy starts school, which isn’t for a couple more weeks. We feel so grateful for all of the opportunities we have been given and that Billy will be able to receive such a phenomenal education. We miss our friends and family, of course, but we are waiting to see who our real friends are by who comes out to visit us first. 

At the airport with all of our possessions crammed into 6 duffel bags, 2 carry-ons and 2 backpacks

Our own private beach

Billy was suckered into buying a shark tooth necklace that he doesn't even like. Doesn't he look straight out of the '90's?

We have a long way to go working on our tans 

We got caught in our first Grenadian torrential downpour on the beach. I've never been so soaked from rainwater before!

Pretty proud of our wedding ring tan-lines

Sea otters