The iPhone that was and the tire that wasn’t

I got an iphone. A branspakin new iphone. I am delighted. It’s awesome! For work I needed one. Work pays for my entire plan – all I had to buy was the actual phone. I am completely in love. And it really has helped my productivity at work.


For example – this morning I needed to wake up and order bagels for an all day meeting we have today. Normally – this would consist of me opening my computer, waiting for it to turn on, looking up the specifics for the meetings, looking up the nearest Einstein bagels number to the meeting, putting the number in my phone and calling. Today – I woke up, grabbed my phone – looked up the meeting and number, and it automatically called it from the website. Now I realize this is old news to most people. And I know the capabilities of phones that actually work – but this is exciting for me! I can check my work email so quickly now, wherever I am. Work during meetings at an offsite location, where I have no internet… Also this weekend, we all played Words With Friends on our iphones. It was a blast. LOVE my iphone! And love that I don’t have to pay anything to have it!!


So I’m driving down the freeway on the way to work on Friday morning. Listening to Pandora on my iphone because I CAN! Normally I carpool and would not be driving, but I was leaving straight after work to go to some friends’ house for the weekend. I’m in the left lane, and suddenly I lose control of my car. It starts going back and forth and swaying and I know I’ve completely lost a tire. A tire going flat/ shredding is one of my greatest fears, as I’ve heard horror stories about them. Fortunately, I had heard the stories, so I knew what had happened – knew the signs and could stop quickly. Unfortunately, I was in the far left lane and there was no way I could get over to the right side. There was space to pull over, but I still was out in the road a little bit. I hadn’t ever been in that position before, so I had no idea what to do. Do I pull over to the left? Is that legal? There is a lane so it must be… can I make it to the right? I know you are not supposed to drive on a flat tire and my car was completely gone at that point… so I pulled over as much as I could. Cars are going around me, and my car is shaking from the speed. I am a little freaked out.


Who do I call? I’m pretty sure I let my AAA expire. I think I have roadside assistance with Toyota. I’m partly in the road – how are they going to tow me? Do I call the police? I’m still partly in the road… do I call my Dad? I decided against calling Dad - I thought he’d really question my sanity in calling him clear across the world to ask him these questions. Daren had just gotten to town Thursday night and knows everything and is one of my best friends, and is actually close enough to help if I need it, so I called him. About 4 times. He didn’t answer – and who does answer their phone at 7:30am when they don’t have to work? (He actually called me back a couple minutes later, all groggy and concerned. What a good friend!).


Next step – I called Toyota. As I thought, I do have road side assistance. They transferred me over to someone who could help, and almost as soon as he got on the phone with me, there was someone by my window. A cop! He told me they were stopping traffic so I could get across the road. Great! I look behind me, and there is an incident management vehicle in the middle of the road, completely halting all traffic. I limped across the road to the right side and pulled off. The cop told me he and the incident management guy could change the tire, no problem. So I hung off with Toyota who was going to send a tow truck (I was so flustered, it didn’t even occur to me it was my TIRE. I have a spare and think I know how to change the tire. I could change it myself. I could ask someone who lives close to help me. Absolutely no need for a tow truck. But clearly I was not thinking clearly. The cop and the incident management guy were great. They changed the tire and had me on my way in no time.


But, it still remains, that I completely stopped all Northbound traffic for about 5 minutes on Friday morning. I was that awful person who makes everyone late. I am more than a little embarrassed.


The funny thing, is while I was sitting there nearly being obliterated by traffic, I saw the incident management guy go by going south, with his sirens on. And I thought, “Well Brittney – it could be worse. You could need that guy.” And he was coming for me. Hahahaa…


I took Tim into Toyota later that day. They said there was a hole in my tire almost the size of my fist. He had no idea what would cause a hole like that. Said it was punctured from the inside out. Whatever caused the hole must have worked its way out at freeway speeds. So I had to pay $200 for a new spare tire. In the whole 5ish years I had my Olds, I never needed my spare. I guess I was really lucky.


So now, if that ever happens again, I know what to do. Having my tire go out on the freeway is now no longer a big fear – I’ve experienced it. It was absolutely no fun – and turned into a whole drama since I was on the left hand side, but it all worked out.


Lessons I learned – never drive fast on the freeway, never drive in the left side lane, and check your tires every day. Yup – that’ll all happen.

Barbados - Day Seven

My last day in Barbados!!! Extremely sad. My last day sleeping with the windows open, the breeze, the ocean outside my window…


We woke up and lounged and sat on the balcony and ate and discussed what to do.

I had gotten some videos of Andrew yesterday, but he wanted some more surfing videos of him.



We decided to try Brandons’ first, as the waves have been great there all week. We loaded our boards and everything into the back of the car, instead of on top – since we only needed to fit the two surfboards instead of three.



On the way down the road, there was a cute man standing on the side of the road with his thumb out. I haven’t seen this in Barbados before. Everyone walks or rides the bus, so there are always people walking or standing on the road waiting for a bus or a ride, but he was in fact hitchhiking. So we picked him up. We had no time constraints.



His name was Tyrell, but everyone calls him Ty (as in T-Y). He works in construction, he is very educated in politics, he goes to church at least 2 days a week and quote the bible, his wife is demanding – even her family says so – and is taking him to court. They’ve been married like 20-something years. He has 2 sons and a daughter. He is probably in his 50’s , with salty black hair - tall and lanky. Ty was on his way to the airport to see a friend off – it was a surprise. Brandons’ is about 10 or so miles down the road from the airport. Ty got in, smooshed in with the surf boards but “it’s all good man!”



As we were dropping him off, he asked if we had been to clubs and dancing? And we said no (I had been wanting to, but it hadn’t happened yet – so I was telling Andrew we had to do it today since it was my last day) but we were planning to tonight. And he said he was planning on going out dancing tonight, too! His aunt was in town and he wanted to take her. So we planned to meet at Dina’s Diner (next door to where we live) at 7:00 that night so he could show us the hopping spots (we didn’t know where to go dancing. We thought it was unusual that a 50 something man would want to go out dancing, but this is Barbados and they love drinking and dancing, so we didn’t question too much, plus it would be nice to have a tour guide).



Ty left to surprise his friend, and we continued on. We stopped at the Cheffette for lunch – wanting to see what other food they offer – to experience the true Bajan cuisine!! They had roti. Which made me sooooo happy. Beef potato routi nonetheless!! I was so excited. I was also shocked – as roti is a Desi dish. It came wrapped up like a burrito. But it was good!!



We then went on to Brandon’s. Sadly – the waves were not good for surfing. We talked to a couple locals and enjoyed the sun and sand and water.



We took our time driving home, all along the coast and some of our favorite roads.



We stopped at the Soup Bowl to observe. There was a children’s birthday party going on, and a cute young Bajan couple with an adorable little boy running on the beach. Also – this older heavy lady randomly came and sat down about 5 feet from us. I looked over a little later, and she had pulled her shirt up and tied it under her chest and was doing something else sketchy I can’t remember now. More than I ever wanted to see. It was slightly amusing.





We walked over to Dina’s Diner and ate dinner on the patio, overlooking the ocean. I had a mango fruit drink and the flying fish – the main food in Barbados. Andrew had the dolphin. Yes – dolphin. I had a bite, even though I felt really wrong doing it, and it was actually really good. It didn’t really look like fish either. The whole time I was chewing I kept hearing, “Fa loves Pa!!!” (if you don’t know this reference, see here.)



The waitress was a girl about my age – so nice and sweet. She is basically the God daughter of Dina and helps out when she can. She works at a pre-school. She was seriously so sweet. One of my favorite parts of our trip was meeting all of the random locals we came across.



After dinner, we changed and then met Ty at the diner. And – he was on time!!! I never thought he would be – Barbados standard time is even worse than Mormon standard time. We drove, with Ty giving the directions. He had us pull into a hotel and park. I assumed we would be walking to the clubs.

He took us down some stairs, to the pool area. There were people sitting around the pool, with the ocean behind, and there was a Bajan playing the steel drums. It was a cool set up – but hardly what we had in mind as far as “night life” goes. There were some people sitting at a table that Ty knew. He brought us over and introduced us. There was a lady in her 60’s, from California. She does 6 months in CA, 6 months in Barbados. Then there was a guy in his 40’s probably, and he was from the UK. They both owned a hotel room in the Yellow Bird, and rent it out when they are not in Barbados.

Not long after another guy showed up – and I can’t remember his name. He was a white Bajan, and must have been in his 70’s. From his conversation with the lady, I was immediately aware he was, what could be called, a gross old horny man.

He kept staring at me, and scooting closer to me, and asking me questions… and trying to dance with me. I was dying. The whole thing was hysterical. Andrew and I kept looking at each other, trying to figure out what to do. This was absolutely now what I had in mind for my clubbing experience in Barbados. Sitting around with old summer birds/Bajans.

Andrew and I left and walked along the beach – which was incredible. The stars were bright and the moon was full, the water was warm. We went and had some fruit drinks (again being mocked and confusing the bartender when we asked for no alcohol). We wanted to leave, but also had to consider Ty. We had to take him home, and had no forms of communication if we were not with him.

We decided to go to The Gap, where the clubs were. We were to meet Ty at 10:00. The clubs, they said, didn’t start until 12-1 usually. People started coming to the Gap around 11, but the parties didn’t really get going till later. Once we got to The Gap, we realized we’d been there before. That is where we ate dinner at the Brazilian place a couple nights prior. We walked around and went into some clubs and just enjoyed the area. The beach was on one side, shops and clubs on the other. I really wanted to go dancing, but was also completely exhausted. The clubs looked really fun. We met up with Ty, and he suggested we go to Oistins while we waited. We’d been there before as well – the beaches were amazing. It is the fish district – where the markets are. We went back behind, and there was an older building with tons of people inside, dancing. And people outside dancing. They were playing 50’s music, and dancing in that style. And they were good!! Everyone was local. It was an area the locals came to, and just danced. It was so fun to watch. Twirling and spinning and magical.

We stayed a while and watched, and then continued to where the party was. There was a stage set up, with outdoor BBQ’s going on and seating. They have all kinds of entertainment come – but tonight was karaoke. We got some fish to share, and sat there listening to the karaoke and eating. Again – it was mostly locals. We were the only white people there.

Karaoke finished at late, and we got up to leave. I really wanted to go back to the Gap and dance, but I was also exhausted. I could tell Andrew didn’t really want to go – and his ankle had been really bothering him. Also, there was Ty. I felt incredibly bad dragging the guy around and making him go to these clubs with us, when I know it was not his scene. So we went back. Didn’t get back until about 2:00am. I was completely exhausted, as was Andrew. But he was a gem and stayed up late with me transferring his pictures to my computer so I could have them.

As we were uploading the pictures, I went into the kitchen and saw a huge cockroach above the stove. Ah!! GROSS! I told Andrew (expecting him to, you know, kill the wretched thing) and he said, “Nice. Now I’ll have a friend when you leave.” Uh…. Not the response I had expected or wanted. He wouldn’t kill the stupid thing!! I was jumpy the rest of the night. That was about the only thing that made me ready to leave Barbados…

The next morning we got up early again, and met Ty to go to the airport (He wanted to go with us to take me to the airport. We’re still not sure why, haha. Nice guy). We ate breakfast at the Cheffette again. Then I said goodbye to Ty and Andrew. It was sad. I’ll see Andrew in a couple months though, InshAllah.

I then ran into the shop again, and got a beautiful pink conk shell bracelet and matching necklace and earrings, and a painting. It is AWESOME!! I love it. It is so Bajan.

And then I flew back to the states. The flights back were sorta brutal. I pretty much thought I was going to die the whole flight to the Dallas. Then flew from Dallas to LA, and landed at 8:00pm. My flight from LA to Utah didn’t leave until 6:30 the next morning. So I got a hotel room in LA, not far from the airport. I love staying in hotels!!! That was fun. Then off to Utah, where I landed and went into work.

And that concludes the events and happenings of Barbados.

Barbados - Day Six

Unfortunately, Becki left for the airport on this day. We got up super early and drove to the airport (drove straight there – such a contrast from when Andrew picked me up and it took us 3 hours to do what should have taken 45 minutes and we ended up needing a cop to take us there) we are really getting to know the island well. There are 7 main roundabouts from the airport to our place in Bathsheba. That is how you tell where you are going, by which roundabout you are at. The streets aren’t really named. And they definitely are not on the map.

We stopped and ate the Cheffette at the airport. Cheffette is the equivalent of America’s McDonalds as far as we could tell. They are everywhere. We sat and ate, and then looked at this gift shop right outside of the gate – that has the best souvenirs I saw anywhere in Barbados. They had these paintings that were to die for, and I wanted one. Also – some great seashell jewelry.

We took Becki to the gate and said our goodbyes. It was great being able to hang out with her again. I had so much fun living with her.

On the way back, we stopped at a beautiful church by our place. Have I mentioned Barbados is covered with churches? Each Parish (Barbados is divided into Parishes - maybe 11 of them? I can't remember exactly) has a big Cathedral type church, and then there are lots of smaller ones. Anyways, each main church also has a cemetery. I thought that was cool. So we stopped and looked around the cemetery. There were graves dug in the very early 1600's. Some were like the big casket type, and lots had the intricate stone work with engraving. It was incredible.

In the afternoon, Andrew wanted some good surfing videos of him. Sadly – due to his badly sprained ankle he was having a really hard time surfing. So he asked me if I would video him. I did get some shots, but nothing amazing.

Andrew bought a book on Barbados before he came, to prepare. I read it - and loved it. I learned so much about the history of Barbados. There was a certain beach we saw in the book we wanted to go to. It was off of some intense rocks, and in the 1600’s stairs were carved into the rocks leading into the ocean. It was for women to discretely enter the ocean. Unfortunately, the picture did not really say where in Barbados the stairs were. So we googled it, and best we could find it was at Crane beach. Also listed at Crand beach was Zen, a restaurant I’d found earlier when we were looking up sushi places. We found Crane beach on the map, and headed out. We were in no hurry, so we decided to drive the entire way on the coast. Started out East, in Bathsheba, and Crane beach is in the Southeast. It took us over an hour. It was an incredible drive. On the way, we saw an older lady walking down the road with bags. So we stopped and gave her a ride. She was a riot. Whenever Andrew would say anything, she would interrupt and forcefully say, “LISTEN TO ME! LISTEN TO ME!”


We took her a ways and dropped her by her house and continued on. Crane beach is mostly converted into a deluxe hotel resort. It was incredible!!! We made reservations to eat at Zen at 6:30. We drove around the coast, looking for the stairs but couldn’t find it. We then went back and walked around the resort, enjoyed the pool and beach and incredible views… it was hysterical because everyone thought we were on our honeymoon and would offer to take pictures of us and be would be so confused when we didn’t hang all over each other for the photo.

We ate at Zen. It was awesome!!! The sushi was the freshest I have ever had. After, we hung out by the pool overlooking the ocean. The stars were awesome, the moon full. It was incredible.

Barbados - Day Five

Mostly, the day was spent at Harrison’s Cave. We left in the morning and went right there. The next tour was not for over an hour, so we wondered around and – of course – took pictures.


We found an electronic thing that said:

Becki chimed in – “moh poison, opposed to less poison…” (You have to remember this is Barbados – they talk like that – moh instead of more). She’s funny.

Also - saw the biggest snails I have ever seen. Not that that is really worth documenting, but there you go.

They had a nice visitor’s center type thing with short videos and pictures and the history of the cave. The cave was actually used by runaway slaves back in the day. Then they took us into a room and we watched a 10 minute video on Barbados and the cave. Then they took us out and we got into a tramy/train thing. I’ve been in caves all over the world, and always walked through them. This one had a paved road throughout, and we drove through it. It was very pretty. Some of the coolest water pools I’ve seen in any cave. There was an exploring/off road trip that would be fun to take – but we didn’t know about it soon enough.

This was also Becki’s last day in Barbados.

Barbados - Day Four

Today was the day I was most excited for – the turtle and shipwreck snorkeling day! It did not disappoint.

Luckily, we knew right where to go to meet our boat, as we accidentally went there yesterday on our way to Brandon’s. The company we went through is Cool Runnings, and our boat was the Cool Runnings III.

We sailed out (on a literal sailboat – I’ve never been on one before) at 9:30. We rode for a while with first class service in the form of all you can drink drinks. We kept it fruit juice, of course. We first stopped to swim with the turtles. That was incredible!! They were huge and would swim right up next to you. I had one run into me – kinda freaked me out until I saw what it was. There were probably around 5 big turtles swimming around us. There were also huge sting rays swimming at the bottom of the ocean. Also – lots of fun tropical fish, and some super large ones that I don’t know the name of.

We then stopped to snorkel over a WWII ship wreck. That was really cool as well. There were also tons and tons of tropical fish there as well. We swam for a long time. the only downside were all these things in the water that bit you – Becki said one of the guys who worked on the boat said they were sea lice. Whatever they were, there were tons of them and I got eaten alive and it hurt! So I looked up sea lice, and apparently they are the larvae of jellyfish. Makes sense.

After swimming in the wreck, we sailed a bit further and stopped at a nice beach area to have lunch. The food was great – traditional Bajan cooking, they said. Fish and chicken, rice, macaroni pie, etc.

We stopped there and just ate and swam and hung out before sailing back to shore.

The crew was hysterical. They were so fun and lively and good dancers. There was awesome Kalypso music going the whole time. The Captain was funny and kept calling me out – it was embarrassing.

We knew we wanted to visit Harrison's Cave. We knew somewhat where it was, and decided to stop by after the cruise to see if it was still open. It was an incredible drive - the East side of the island is very jungly. It smells divine and there are birds chirping all over the place. We made it there, and it was closed. while we were going back to the car, it started to drizzle. Mind you - we are still wet from being in the ocean all day. Also - our car has no doors or windows. Luckily we had the top on. It started to POUR. It was later at night - the sun was going down, we were wet, and it was pouring rain, and we're driving pretty fast so it's incredibly windy. It was a very cold drive home, but also a fun adventure. We got our towels out of the trunk and wraped them around ourselves, even though they were wet. It helped.

Barbados - Day Three

Today. Slept in again, never gets old!


Took forever getting ready, ate breakfast, loaded the 3 surfboards in the car we needed to return to Melanie (she is the one we are renting the house from) and get the right boards, and headed out to Brandon’s yet again. It is so nice having the freedom of a car, and starting to know our way around. It takes about 40 minutes to get from our place (the East side of the Island, Bathsheba) to the Southwest side of the island, where Brandon’s is – and Bridgetown is right there as well.


We hung around Brandon’s until Melanie came, and switched out the boards. We then headed to Freights, where the surf was supposed to be incredible and mellower than Brandon’s. The coast is so incredible!! The beaches are so white and pristine, and the water so clear and blue/turquoise. I love it!


We stopped at The Surfer’s Café and got lunch. Our table overlooked the ocean. Perfect.


We then made our way to Freights. Parking was a pain – we had to just park on the street in some neighborhood. The tide was up and there was really no beach – it just went from ocean to rock mostly. Made it interesting.


Andrew sprained his ankle really badly playing soccer right before he came to Barbados, so he was very concerned about surfing with it. He wrapped it really well and used a brace, but it still made it really painful to surf, which is so sad – since that is why he chose Barbados to come to in the first place.


My board seriously weighs a hundred pounds. For beginners, it is easier to have a bigger board. Mine is I think 9 feet? And it is fat and thick and weights a ton. I had to carry it so far to the water and I about died. I may be exaggerating. But still it sucked. Once in the water, I had this delusion that I’d be all pro in 2.5 seconds. More like I’d be exhausted and soaking wet within 2.5 seconds. I had the hardest time balancing. On my stomach. I was thrashing and tipping over and doing all sorts of lame unattractive things. Andrew ended up pulling me most the way to the waves – I felt like I was a child. An incompetent child. But it was fun. Towards the end I was finding my balance better and able to paddle better, but from all the waves and turning and not knowing what I was doing and choppy waves, I got suuuuper seasick. I was not expecting that at all.


There were lots of turtles where we were, and other big fish. It was awesome. You’d be chilling there on your board waiting to catch a wave (how pro do I sound? I can sound as pro as I want because none of you were there to see what my version of chilling there on my board waiting to catch a wave looked like) and little turtle heads would pop up next to you. Probably my favorite part about the surfing experience. Oh – and I think I saw a big sting ray! Either that or a massive floating clump of seaweed or other such substance.


Anyways, I was feeling way too sick to continue on (I NEVER get seasick… until over Christmas went I went diving in the Red Sea and got sick and burst an eardrum and threw up all over the beautiful Red Sea and then my ears hurt so much I thought I’d die and couldn’t hear and kept throwing up and got car sick every time I got in a car for the next month and then my ear started hearting bad again for months and I finally went to the doctor and he said my ears were fine he thinks my ear bone is infected and to take Aleve 2 times daily… so anyways moral of that story is I think I did some major damage to my ear/equilibrium because I never got sea sick my whole life until over Christmas and then now… and who gets sick while surfing?? I suck) so Andrew set me up to catch a wave to shore, and I caught it and it was the funnest thing EVER. I didn’t try to stand up – I was moving so quickly it didn’t even occur to me to stand up. I had no idea you go that fast when you surf – it looks so much slower than it feels. Those waves have so much power and push you so fast. It was so fun.


After that, I got out and took pictures/videos of Andrew trying to surf. Poor guy – his ankle hurt so much he only caught a couple of waves and would drop down quickly because it hurt so much.


I put on SO much sunscreen so many times, and still felt the sun scorching me. I have never in my life put on so much sunscreen or been so careful. The sun here is intense! But I love it.


After a while longer, we loaded our stuff back up (after carrying my board back to the car, while seriously considering leaving it on the beach and just paying for the stupid thing as a lost fee… haha) and headed to see Harrison’s caves.


We stopped at the Grocery store on the way, to get some Ginger Ale and other ginger snacks for tomorrow (we are going snorkeling with the turtles and over a ship wreck!!! I am so stinking thrilled, but also nervous about the sea sickness thing…). The grocery stores here are seriously under-stocked. It is so different from the states, where everything is chalk full. The only isle completely full is the alcohol isle. It is chalk full. Rum everywhere! The other thing I’m shocked at is the produce. I thought for sure Barbados would have all kinds of awesome tropical fruit. But their fruit is not only expensive, it looks nasty. Their apples – you couldn’t pay me to eat them. They look that bad. You can get coconuts and sugar cane everywhere and for super cheep – but that’s it. That is the one disappointment for Barbados thus far. The fruit.


We continued on the Harrison’s Cave and actually made it with very little confusion. It is so fun to feel like we’re finally starting to get the hang of the island!! Our map is tearing though – that much use. And Andrew is still letting me navigate – which means either he is really retarded or I’m not as bad of a navigator as I thought… or maybe it’s just desperation on his part combined with enthusiastic optimism on mine…


Sadly, the caves close early, so we didn’t make it on time. We did, however, get the privilege of driving back to our place through the most beautiful and scenic jungle hilly area, in the cold rain, with wet swimming suits on, in the near dark, with no top on the car. It was wet and cooooold but so pretty. We also escaped near death in the form of a truck losing a tire and it hitting our tiny little car. It didn’t appear to do any damage, besides a small dent in the front. I hope they don’t notice when we return the car… so we did make it straight back to our house which is so awesome. I am loving this whole not getting lost thing…


We came back, and wanted to order pizza (we memorized the pizza number off an ad at the grocery store) but they didn’t answer their phone. Interesting. So Andrew had a boxed lasagna from Kuwait we cooked. It didn’t need to be refrigerated; it was just in a box. We have no microwave and the oven was being weird so we cooked it in the toaster oven. We had that, olives, almonds and pickles for dinner. Completely delicious. Andrew tried to pop popcorn in the toaster oven… and he gave it a good go, until it started to smell like the paper was catching on fire (who would have seen that coming!?). it’s so fun just hanging out in the house, with the ocean in front of us, the sound of the waves and the breeze coming in through every door and window.


And that concludes my third day in Barbados. I’m sun burnt and beat and happy.

Barbados - Day Two

Walked down to the beach, ate a coconut (my new favorite thing) played with Spice (the monkey) looked at jewelry, took pictures, and – oh yeah, got hit on. I got hit on by not one but 2 Bajan men there, eating my coconut while Bex and Andrew played with Spice (by the way, Andrew practically made out with him, and I have the pictures to prove it). The first guy only has 2 teeth on top – but the second guy wasn’t bad. And the second guy asked me if I was a Bajan. That made me so happy. I don’t look like a tourist! I look legit. I strive for that. He wanted to know if I was alone, or ALONE. Meaning – is this guy you are with your husband? He wanted to know where I lived, but I didn’t fall for that one…

We ran into Snake on a walk (we were supposed to go surfing with him this morning… but decided to explore on our own) and we didn’t want him nor anyone else knowing exactly where we were staying, so we hiked clear back into the jungle to cross over to our place. We found: a million goats, one enormous something with horns, lots of dogs that look like they are about to die, and crumbling homes. And jungle.


That is one thing I’ve noticed about the Bajans – they all live in homes that are crumbling. They all live in such humble homes. But they are painted so fun and bright – I love it.


After our wild hill climbing adventure, we got into our awesome car and proceeded to make our way to Brandon’s. We made it there by ourselves! It was incredible. We played around in the water forever, watched people surf, and then left and wandered the pier area and ate dinner as the sunset went down on the ocean (looked like the ocean ate the sun – it was cool). Andrew ordered a drink - virgin. The lady looked at him and said, "no alcohol?" And he said no. And she just stood there in shock, and asked for clarification again - that he did not want alcohol. We said no again, and emphasized he was driving and couldn't have any alcohol at all. She left, and next thing we know the manager comes out and says, "you ordered a virgin drink?" and I thought he was coming over to mock us or convince us to have alcohol - we are in Barbados, after all! But he just wanted to let us know the drink was majorly alchoholic and would not taste very nice with no alcohol, so Andrew just got a bloody mary instead - still virgin, of course!! One thing we've leared really quickly here - the Bajan's LOVE THEM SOME RUM!!


We then went grocery shopping and made our way back to our place, where chilled and went to bed.


Gooood day!

Barbados - Day One

I woke up this morning to sun streaming in the windows, birds chirping and the sound of waves crashing against the rocks. Ahhhh…. Beautiful way to wake up.

I was so excited to go outside and see Barbados! We walked down to the beach, which is across the street from our house, and this is what I saw:

We took a walk along the beach, climbed around, talked, and ended up sitting on a picnic bench. We had our shoes in our hand, and put them on the top of the picnic bench. Before we knew it, this old Bajan woman was yelling at us, “take your shoes off! Take your shoes off!!!” We did, and we heard her mutter, “you’re not supposed to put shoes on the table”. She was maaaaaaaaaaad. Come to figure out, he job was the care for the picnic area. I did feel bad – and would normally never put my shoes on a table – but I didn’t think anything about putting flip flops on a picnic bench on the beach…

This is the famous Bathsheba Soupbowl rock:

We saw this man, out in the water, doing something with a rod/pole thing. We couldn't figure out what was he was doing. It looked like fishing, but he wasn't casting his rode. As he got closer, we saw something going crazy on the rod. Something with a lot of legs... we walked closer along the beach, absolutely staring, and saw he was fishing for octopus. He had a pair of snorkeling goggles he'd hold in the water and look through to find the octopus. Once he had one, he'd stick it on the rod. The legs would just twist and turn and go crazy. It was cool but really gross.

On our walk, we came across Snake. Snake is probably in his late 50's, has grey hair sculpted in a mohawlk, and never wears a shirt. He is an old surfing Bajan pro that Andrew met the other day. He’s lived in Barbados all his life, grew up surfing, and has surfed with many surfing legends.



This is the famous soup bowl:

Andrew and Snake

As we were with talking with him, he got a call from a friend saying on the West side of the island there were some awesome waves. He asked us for a ride, and since we wanted to check out various surfing spot and needed a tour guide and had to pick Becki up from the airport soon, we said yes.

The area we were walking is right up the street from where we were staying. Accross from it is this grassy area where the locals set up booths to sell stuff to the tourists. And there is this guy there every day with a monkey - Spice.  The teeniest tiniest little monkey ever. So cute. And it had an earring!! A little earring with the Jamaican colors. So adorable! It was insanely wild, though - all over the place. I liked looking at it, but didn’t love holding it. I’m not very good with animals…

See the earring?

We loaded Snake’s surfboard in our car, and were off. It took us about 30 minutes to get from Bathsheba, on the East side of the island, to get to Brandon’s where the surfing was going down. The beach is seriously beyond anything I’ve seen before… the water is so clear and turquoise. Palm trees and coconuts, and the sand is so white and pristine. We watched the surfers for a while and waded in the water, and then went to get some food before grabbing Becki.

The turn into Brandon's is accross the street from the horse racing track - which is very cool. I wish there had been races going on while we were there. There was an old viewing shelter thing, and it had random excersize equiptment in it, right there on the grassy area next to the race track and a busy road. People would come work out there. I wish I had taken a picture. Right in Brandon's, as in you drive next to it to get there, and the fence borders the parking lot, is a military base - a poor picture below.  They still use Colonial fortresses. It's just a stone fort with cannons. Still in use. They man in white - is the SNOW CONE MAN! The soldiers wanted a snowcone, so this guy was squeezing the snow cones between the fence rails.

At lunch, there were lots of these black birds everywhere. One kept coming up and sitting and on the top of the chair next to me, when I noticed - it had a peg leg!! We spent the rest of lunch taking pictures of our new friend. I'm sure everyone thought we were completely crazy. But it was probably the highlight of my day. Yes, it was that cool.

Once we had Becki, we went to some more beaches and took pictures and looked around (we were actually at Oistins - we wouldn't learn that till later!)

We headed back to Brandon’s and got Snake once again, and headed back to our place. It was quite the site – Snake’s board on top of our little car, held in place with his ankle straps, and the 4 of us in the car.

I put on sunscreen and tried so hard not to get burnt. But alas, I did. It’s sitting in that car fully exposed, I tell ya. So when we got to Snake’s, he cut some aloe for us. So I put actual aloe on my skin. Awesome.

For dinner, we went down to this tiny bar joint that is next to our place. There isn’t much in the way of restaurants or shopping by where we live. The food was not that great – but the entertainment was awesome. They set up karaoke. Everyone went to town, it was so funny. They played all this Caribbean music. They really do speak with that Caribbean twang and it is awesome. Also – a very high percentage of the men have long hair in dreadlocks. Today I saw this man who had a huge beard in dreadlocks, and his hair was in one big dreadlock – it went down and out and stiff as a board, forming the letter L off his head. Wish I had a picture of that…

So we ate while the bar started to fill up with karaoking Bajans. It was so fun. The patio overlooked the ocean, of course.

After eating, we went for a walk down the street. As we were walking in the dark street, I heard someone come up behind us, and grab Andrew and I and make this noise… I freaked out. Scream so loud and jumped, so Becki screamed and jumped… turns out it was Snake. He felt bad, having only meant to grab Andrew – but we all laughed so hard for so long.

Snake hit Andrew up for some booze cash, promising to pay him back tomorrow morning. He had this whole long story, and I understood about 15% of it. The parts I did understand what he was saying, made no sense.

He is taking us tomorrow to a great surf spot, and letting me use one of his boards. My first surfing experience – how exciting! I cannot wait to get into those beautiful Caribbean waters…

Even now as we lounge around our place, we can hear the Caribbean karaoke beats from the bar next door, combined with the ocean sounds and smells… hmmmmm, I love Barbados!