Bring me two pina coladas

Welcome to St. Kitts!

I am here at my new home, looking at the Caribbean Sea from my bedroom window (no big deal, right?).  I am here to study veterinary medicine at Ross University and for once in my life, I can't wait to start school.  I'm super excited to start learning and studying things that I actually care about... instead of physics.

I have already fallen in love with the island and I am SO glad that I decided to come here for vet school.  It was a TOUGH road to get here though.  I've been preparing since I was accepted back in January and I had to jump through so many hoops to get all my documents and official stuff together.  I had to mash everything I will need to live for the next two years into 2 suitcases, a carryon, and a backpack...ridiculous.  I think I repacked my bags about 5 times before I got it all in and still stayed under the weight limit.  Regardless, I'm here now and I'm ready to start my new life.

When I got here on Thursday, we were picked up at the airport by Ross orientation staff and given our island cell phones, which consists of 15 buttons. That's it.  No flip out keyboard, no touch screen, no fancy schmancy ringtones.  It's kind of hilarious.  But it works.

We were driven to campus by Sackville, our driver.  He gave us a short summary of island life and history while we were able to admire our new surroundings.  The first thing I noticed is that all of the buildings are super colorful.  Each building is a different color, and not a color that you would normally see on a house in your neighborhood.  Purple, red, pink, blue, green and sometimes multi-colored.  That's when I knew I would like it here.  Awesome.

At campus, I went to my dorm (that's right, back in the dorms) in Woods Hall.  I have two roommates and we share a kitchen and a bathroom, but we each have our own rooms.

Here's the view from my bedroom window: 

 Tough, I know.

We went grocery shopping at Best Buy (which does NOT sell electronics) and I was hit with my first taste of the EC (Eastern Caribbean Dollar).  $1 USD = EC$2.70.  Also, everything is more expensive here anyway, so my first grocery trip cost me EC$209.14.  Did I mention that I only used one of the hand baskets and not a full sized cart?  It was about $77 USD.  This is going to take some getting used to.  Also, I saw a guy walking through the grocery store barefoot and drinking a beer.  That should be me.

For dinner we went to a seaside restaurant (which almost all of them are) called SHIGGIDY SHACK.  Fuckin' right it's called Shiggidy Shack.  I will be there most of the year, solely because of the name.  They had reggae-ish music (some of it was real reggae, other songs were reggae-remixed, like "Apologize" by One Republic), a limbo contest, and a fire eater.  This is where I got my first real taste of "Island time".  We got there at 8:00 pm and placed our orders at about 8:15.  9:30 rolls around the waitress comes out and tells us that they don't have burgers or shrimp...why we couldn't have been told at 8:20, I'm not sure.  They also didn't serve appetizers, so I finally ordered 2 hot dogs, aka Shiggidy Diggidy Dogs.  Check the menu.  It's there.  Luckily, while we were waiting for our food, we had some fire dancing entertainment and a limbo contest.  Pretty awesome first night.

Yesterday (Friday), we went to a beach (go figure!) called Shipwreck beach.  I had my first Caribbean Margarita (which tastes the same as one made in the US except that it melts a lot faster) and I tasted a Ting with a Sting.  I don't think there was any 'ting' in it...pure sting.  I took the tiniest sip and USED MY MARGARITA AS A CHASER.  Holy shit.  We saw a tiny monkey riding a horse in the Caribbean Sea led by a guy riding a donkey, and no, I can't explain that any further.  One of my orientation group members stepped on a sea urchin and I met my new best friends, the mongooses (and mongooses is the correct plural form).

                                         

I am getting a tour of campus in about 15 minutes and after that we are going to another beach!  We will be at Reggae beach so new pictures to come soon!