Ode to Bilbo

Today is a pretty fancy day in my life. 7 years ago today, Billy got home from his 2-year LDS mission serving in Mexico City. 4 years ago today, Billy asked me to marry him in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco and I said "yeah". So, October 1^st is one of those forever-good ones. No matter how bad my menstrual cramps are kicking my trash. (Sorry I said menstrual in my ode to you, babe). And no matter how long Billy has to stay on campus tonight. And there’s no way it could be ruined by a torrential downpour starting as soon as I hang my sheets up to dry on the clothesline. 

Because I’m so grateful for that punk. I’m grateful that I didn’t know him when he came home from his mission (from what they tell me, he was pretty awkward with his chipped teeth and sermons about not watching TV on Sunday). I’m grateful that I met him at a time in our lives when we both needed to turn things around. I’m grateful that he challenges me to become better by not putting up with my crap. I’m grateful that we both love Tosh.0.  I’m grateful that he works so hard at school to do something that he loves. I’m grateful that he wants to travel the world with me. I’m even grateful when he shoots my trip ideas down because we don’t have the money.  I’m grateful that he laughs at me when I'm taking myself too seriously. I’m grateful that we love the same sports (even if I can’t quite get on board with watching EVERY SINGLE NFL and NBA game. But at least he’s over his “not watching TV on Sunday” phase). I'm grateful that in spite of my dilapidated fallopian tubes, we have been able to have so much time together--just the two of us. Life is just so much fun with this guy.

***If I show up dead in the next month, it's because he murdered me for posting this***

Hippies and Tings

 Somehow, I earned myself a nickname with the locals in our neighborhood. I’m not 100% on what they actually yelled (they speak English, but sometimes that Grenadian accent is a whole other language, son) but I’m pretty sure it was either “hippie” or “yippie”—variation of yuppie? I’m praying it’s hippie, and also hoping it’s because of my clothes (my sister calls my style "eclectic") and not because I never brush my hair. There’s this street corner right by our house with a huge tree, and there are ALWAYS at least 3 local men sitting under the tree. I don’t really understand what they do all day, but who am I to judge when I watch an average of 3 hours of Netflix per day? Today, I was driving my scooter (more about this later) back from my friend Kayla’s house and praising God that the rabid dog that protects the street didn’t chase me again. When all of a sudden, the “tree men”, (this has a double meaning because they were under the tree and also, Grenadians don’t pronounce their h’s when in conjunction with a t, so three sounds like tree, through sounds like true…the pun isn’t as good when you have to explain it) get REALLY excited to see me and start yelling “HIPPIE! HIPPIE! GOOD EVENING!” and throwing their heads back laughing and waving. I know I’m not supposed to support catcalling and it’s sexist but I just couldn’t help but smile. Their enthusiasm was contagious. And why can’t Billy greet me that way every day? 

Here’s proof of the missing H’s.

Yes, you read me correctly earlier, we bought a scooter! It’s not nearly as cool as the red rocket we drove this summer or my personal favorite—the black mamba who owned the summer of 2010. But, it is the white panther of Grenada. AKA: A used, rattly, overpriced scooter. Scootering is no joke around these parts—it’s more like mastering the slaloms in order to avoid the potholes. But it really has been such a lifesaver. We have been hitching rides and taking buses and burdening all our friends who have cars. It’s so nice to be an adult and be able to go where you want when you want to go. Yes mom, I wear a helmet. And it has blue flames—nothing but the most stylish accessories for this trophy wife.

In other news…PINTEREST! I know I’m the last female on earth to start a Pinterest account. I have this aversion to popular things. I boycott them forever and then I realize how awesome they are so I jump on board about 3 years too late. Kind of like when Harry Potter came out in 2^nd grade, but it was too trendy and those kids were nerds, so I didn’t read it until 4^th grade and obviously now I’m obsessed for life.  My fantasy football team is Team Gryffindor. And I did the same exact thing with Twilight. But, back to Pinterest. I have become a cook out here because a girl and her aspiring doctor have gotta eat. After every meal, Billy says, “Who are you and what have you done to my wife?” Even his insults make me weak in the knees.

I’ve made scrumptious meals and not-so-scrumptious meals all thanks to the “recipes with little ingredients” search. As it turns out, nothing is healthy when there aren’t many ingredients. And the budget dinner pages are crap because they act like feta cheese and chicken are so cheap, but they’re obviously shopping at Walmart. Show offs. On a more positive note, I never need to buy salt here! All I have to do is shake my head/pits over the meal I’m cooking because cooking is an Olympic sport around here and makes you sweat in places you didn’t know had sweat glands. There’s not any AC in my kitchen or living room—only in the bedrooms. Combine that with a gas oven, and you’ve got a free sauna for a house. Living in swimsuits ‘round the clock over here, peeps.

And here I go again, ranting about my hectic life when Billy is busier than a mosquito at a nudist colony. It’s just that I like things to always be about me and frankly, Billy’s days are not as lively as mine. I should really stop asking him “How was your day?” if I’m not willing to listen to his responses of all the science and junk he’s learning. It’s not that I’m not interested, but as soon as he starts talking about his classes, my brain shuts itself off. I’m all about the soft sciences and Star Wars, but real science and I don’t mesh well. But I do try my hardest to tone down my love of the island, because he can’t really want to hear about how awesome the snorkeling at Magazine beach was the other day, right?

Regardless of my poor wifely duties, I’ve been so proud of how hard he has been working. He wakes up at 6:30 every morning and I drive him down to the school. I come back to bed for a few hours while he is slaving away. Sometimes I meet him for lunch around noon and then he has classes from 1-5 every day. After that, he comes home to devour a home-cooked meal from his fabulous wife and starts studying again from 6:30 PM until midnight. Then he sleeps and starts the whole thing all over again. I really don’t know how he does it. He did well on his first exams, and now he has a much better idea of what he needs to focus on for midterms (which are in 3 weeks, yikes! When did it get to be the middle of September?). Those who knew us while we were dating would be shocked to see the people we have become. I swear we went boating every single day, because he didn’t have a job and I called in sick to work like twice a week. We sure love to have fun, but fun needs to be funded. I guess.

Here is my life according to my phone and GoPro...as if this post wasn’t random enough.

Facing my fear of sea urchins. It pays to make friends with the locals.

Just chillin' at BBC beach with some nuns. We had to ask them to put their tops back on for the picture.Photo stolen from Erin Anderson :)

Some of us trophy wives went river-tubing on the Balthazar river. Such gorgeous scenery and even better company.

Our guides were great. Definitely a "must-do" in Grenada.

Billy shows off his shark tooth necklace to anyone nice enough to pretend to care. Even interrupting a quality FaceTime sesh with my girlfriend.

Studying himself ragged means he falls asleep while cuddling every night.
I kinda love it though. It's like when a busy toddler will only cuddle when they're sick and moms eat it up.

Budgeting is a lot simpler when all of your money is spent at IGA.

Taking his exams last Monday meant that we had a full day off to spend with each other and some bad ass friends. We even got to eat lunch together. The good life y'all.

We bribe them to be our friends by sharing our private beach. :)

We FaceTime each other from different bedrooms. Not THAT pathetic, right?

I've Recently Had Some Free Time Open Up...

We’ve been on the island for almost three weeks! Our second and third weeks weren’t as romantic and dreamy as our first week. For one thing, Billy had to get registered and attend orientation and then start classes this past Monday (bleh). So, that really cut into our beach time. Let us take a moment of silence for those long-gone worry-free days.

 

The University's pool is right on the ocean. Just picture me here every day.

We finally received our loans (hallelujah) and then realized how much money we actually have to live on (Lord have mercy). We went from having a comfortable lifestyle to debating over whether we really need the bigger jug of vegetable oil—a difference of 3 whole dollars!  We were so spoiled, we never even budgeted our money. It always just seemed to work out for us. We’d go on a trip and spend a little too much, and so we’d cut back a little the next month and all would be well. Now, I get physically ill over spending $20 on something. Because once the money runs out—that’s it. Life is getting more real for us, and I’m kind of embarrassed that it’s taken us this long.

Oh and I got robbed for the first time! So, there's that. I bought an ice cream cone to break a $100 bill and also because I love ice cream, and the man proceeded to give me $11.50 in change. I reminded him that I gave him an $100 but he said no, you gave me a $20. He didn't even bother to double check. And he wasn't making eye contact. So, it got a little heated, and I tried to guilt him into telling the truth while I started crying because I was so sick that I wasn't in America where they don't take advantage of me unless I'm at the mechanic. Or at least when they do take advantage, they do it in a way where you won't notice. This was my first time venturing out on my own as Billy had started classes. And I felt like such a numb nuts that I had lost $100 (which is how much we're budgeted for each week of survival). And then I felt a little better after I ate my $92.50 ice cream cone. And then I remembered that it's not $93 US dollars, it's $93 EC (or eastern caribbean dollars) which totals up to about $35 in USD. Which still made me a little sick (remember how we're broke?) but also made me feel bad for the kid that he would go to all that trouble just to steal $35. Because, me being my father's daughter, I got security guards involved. Kind of dramatic. Now, everyone can get me in the Never, Have I Ever game by saying "Never have I ever paid $37 for an ice cream cone." 

We have also been looking for a car to buy. The problem is that it’s so expensive to ship cars over—you might as well just buy one over here. And the problem with buying one on the island is that all the cars just keep getting recycled through students over and over and over again. So, they are all shot to hell. I didn’t think I was high maintenance about cars, but boy was I wrong.  Who would have thought my biggest concerns in a car would go from worrying about the right color or if it had an auxiliary cord to whether the windows roll up and down or if the odometer works? And then we did some more budgeting and realized that we probably can’t afford a car, so…scooter it is.

Waiting for the bus to take us to church

Alright, enough whining about money. I still don’t really believe that we’re allowed to be handed money just for going to school. Is it some kind of trick? You’re telling me that even though I’m retired, I can still pay for things? And Billy gets to go every day to learn about stuff that he LOVES. Last night, he was showing me where he would do an epidural on me. On day 4 of med school! I wasn't sure whether to be happy that he was applying his knowledge or concerned that he was picturing doing it to me. Regardless, we live in such a fortunate time where loans and grants are easily obtained so that we can do what we have always wanted to. I know I won’t be feeling so grateful once we’re done and have to start paying them back…but for now, the idea is working for me, even if we did underestimate how much we needed.

We’ve made some friends here on the island. They have been oh-so-generous with giving us rides and inviting us to do fun things. We are probably more social here than we were in the States! Most of them have been here since last year, and so they probably hate us already with all of our mind-numbing questions about med school/loans/Grenada/etc. They have seriously been the best. But we are meeting more of the people in Billy’s term as they continue to show up on the island. A lot of them are in our branch, which we finally dragged our butts to two weeks ago. I was blown away by what an awesome group of people we have in our branch. Not only the students and their families—but also the locals! The church is relatively young here—the first missionaries came in 1985, so everyone is a convert. But, some of our friends said that even since they came last year, there has been so much growth. I am so pumped to learn from their faith and dedication.

We went to a new beach our first Saturday called La Sagesse. It has the best waves in Grenada. Still not surfing size, but we rented some boogie boards and kayaks and had a grand old time. We also were introduced to sand flies. You can’t feel them biting you, but all of a sudden, you notice that you are covered in hundreds of red polka dots. And then for the next week, you are making yourself bleed from scratching and clawing just to get some relief. I don’t even know how to describe how freaking good it feels to scratch those bites. I could try, but it might sound a little perverted—that’s how good it feels. Sand fly bites are 1,000,000,000 worse than mosquito bites. I’d take 100 mosquito bites over 2 sand fly bites any day of the week. Notice the perma-scratch marks in all of these photos.

We have found some yummy places to eat here, thanks to our new friends. But, there’s really not a huge foodie culture over here. I was disappointed that there isn’t more seafood. I could live off of seafood, and you can get it here, but it’s not very cheap. I’m thinking of opening a fish taco stand. It’s been a little hard because I’m the type of person that all of a sudden craves something really badly, and then I go and get it. I’m like those kids in the study with the marshmallows where they had to wait for 2 minutes to eat the marshmallow in front of them and then they’d get 2 marshmallows if they wait the full 2 minutes. I’d pop the whole thing in my mouth as soon as the timer started. For example, we finally got our Netflix figured out (thank you www.unblock-us.com) and we wanted to watch the Chipotle documentary, but I couldn’t even look at the Chipotle logo or else I was jonesing for a chicken burrito with guac. It hurt my heart. And it’s especially bad because I won’t be able to have one for 4 more months. 

We have not one, but two KFC’s on the island. Is that kind of racist? I haven’t decided yet. All I know is, I’m addicted to their mac and cheese. So, judge me. But I would easily trade one of them KFC’s for a McDonald’s. Anyway, I’m sure you’re all fascinated by my fast food addiction(s). But the point of all this was to tell you how Billy and I have already shed a few pounds. We realized that we haven’t been stuffed since we’ve been here. This from the man who EVERY night after dinner says “I’m never eating again”. And his wife isn’t much better on that front. So, since the food’s not that great, we’ve been normal people and only eating until we’re satisfied. It’s trippy. But great for our figures! Until we realized that we hadn’t stuffed our faces in a while and so cooked up a batch of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls at 10 PM and polished it off. We each ate 4. And we weren’t even high. The next night, we did the same thing with chocolate chip cookies. 

We attended Grenadian Carnival last week. They all take the day off for 2 days, which is rather problematic for two people trying to get situated, as everything was closed. We participated by going up to the capital city and strolling the streets, listening to local music, eating local food, and watching all the craziness that ensued. Our bus got searched for weapons before entering the city. What they do is basically have a rave walk from Grand Anse to St. George's harbor (3.5 miles). They all have glow sticks and have extravagant costumes, it was crazy to watch.

Pretty sure everyone in Grenada was there. And their dogs.

The rave walk from afar. Billy wouldn't let me go get my rave on. ;P

Billy with a local friend from the branch--Rimble.

The harbor is amazing at night. And day.

Our bus (more like vans) on the way there fit 19 passengers. And the driver. So bloody hot.

Oh and I wanted to show everyone our decked out new cell phones—don’t they remind you of middle school? Or your cooler middle school friends since I didn’t get a cell phone till I was 16? I have been having the hardest time texting on these bad boys. That predictive smart text is not really all that smart. But on the bright side, the batteries last like 4 days long!

I know you all were just dying to hear all the nitty gritty details of my life. So, you're welcome. And, as always, the offer for visitors to stay in our guest room is wide, wide open.

PS: this is the view from SGU's campus. Sorry, UVU, you put up a good fight.

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