Ok, I promised a story, and I'm going to tell it! Last Monday, yes, like 10 days ago... Mark had his unified quiz, meaning he had the afternoon off! We spent that afternoon finding a computer for him to buy, buying it, booking our term 2 flights, catching up on e-mail, etc. Then we decided we had the time to finally go out for my birthday dinner (yes, 12 days after the fact--Island time!). I didn't care where we went as long as I got to go with Mark! We decided we'd try a sit down restaurant. We took the Grand View Inn bus and contemplated going all the way to the Grand View Inn (I've never been there; it's a new bus route and I was curious, but we were also hungry). We instead got off at the Round Houses and decided to look into what they have there. The fancy Italian place is closed on Mondays and the other place is more of a cafe than a sit down restaurant. And they weren't serving dinner until 6:30--it wasn't even 5:30 yet. So we walked toward the hotel side of the street, passing the tempting smell of a KFC along the way. We went to a restaurant that I had heard about as recently opening their pool up to people who purchased a meal. Though we weren't dressed for a swim, we thought it'd be good to scope out anyway. Well, they also don't serve dinner until 6:30, so we made our way to the hotel bar. Mark got a happy hour special of 3 for $10 Carib beers, and I got an $17 pina colada... We took our time, enjoying the little bit of relaxing that we get together, looking at a pool that over looks the beach. We played some billiards (which we both love) while the boom box played a wide variety of American songs. It is just nice to hear songs that remind you of home sometimes. Especially because reggae music is generally annoying and definitely exhausting. It started raining at some point in there, but we were still enjoying our time together under a covered patio.
Eventually it was close enough to 6:30 for them to seat us (since we were sitting in the dinner area anyway). We looked at the menu and ordered pita bread and hummus for an appetizer and I couldn't even tell you what Turkish dish Mark got for dinner, but I got the fish of the day. Our food was so tasty and filling, and we still had half to take home for left overs! And the rain had picked up about half way through dinner, so we grabbed our utensils and headed for a table further under cover (the whole restaurant (all 15 tables or so) are under a covered patio; the only thing indoors is the kitchen! It continued to rain, and though we were stuffed, we stayed to try and wait it out. It usually rains for at most 30 minutes. It had gone from drizzle to rain to downpour and been going for 1.5hours at least. We finally decided we weren't going to wait anymore; it was 8:00 and we were ready to get home. I took off my flip-flops (my favorite rain gear because I have an excuse to run barefoot through the rain!), we pulled out our umbrella and made a run back towards the hotel. We had to walk through an ankle deep puddle to get into the lobby to exit the property, but the lobby is open to the outside anyway. We figured we could wait there, or we were already pretty wet so we might as well keep going--and we did. We got all the way out to the street and saw that cars were in water up to the wheel-wells, and we were going to have to run past the KFC to get back on the bus route. The IGA would be a covered place to wait. Well, while we were waiting for a car to pass, the owner/acting delivery man (TIG) pulled up next to us and offered us a ride. We were headed back to campus and he had to make a delivery out that way. We hopped in the back seat (the front seat was filled by some very smart students' food). He drove a little cautious, but not as cautious as most people on the roads. When we got to the main stretch to get back to campus (just off the "highway"), we had to slow down because there were two cars stuck in the middle of the road, trapped due to the flood of water. We saw cars from the other direction pulled off to the side of the road and an SGU bus (I was beginning to wonder if they were still running) turn onto a side street--either taking an alternate route to get out to the highway or to turn around and head back to campus. Our driver, a Grenadian resident for 16 years, just drove half the car up on the curb, which we could not see, and powered through the puddle...full speed, nothing to it. He offered to drive us all the way up to our building, but we were just grateful to have made it this far! We got out at the bus stop/huddled-student cover and walked up to our dorm; up a steep hill with water rushing down it (tad bit scary), made it home with our dry left overs and soaked everything else! Wouldn't have wanted my adventure any other way!
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| The outdoor lobby! |
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| Our umbrellas just weren't cutting it! |
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| That's a waterfall in the background! Run off from our building above! |
