Pop Quiz: Do you take the Super Awesome but Expensive Canal View or the Super Cheap Ass Dump View (and by dump I mean quite literally)?

That is quite literally the longest title I've ever used and it's awesome and I won't change it (mom) no matter how offensive the word Ass may be perceived.

This is The Super Cheap Ass Dump View.

I really wanted to send this pic by itself to FR (who's blog is ironically titled This Place is a Dump!) and say 'I found our new apartment check out the view!' but I'm pretty sure she would have strangled me in my sleep.

And that wouldn't really be a healthy start to our roommate relationship, now would it?

Got back from The GC today. What a difference! I have mixed feelings about this place, to be honest. On one hand, its very much as if I won't be leaving home - the environment reminds me very much of St. Petersburg Beach in Florida but perhaps at three times the cost. However, the development is so high that the island has significantly lost its "Caribbean Island" feel that you get from some other places. We didn't get to explore the tail of the island (basically anything beyond Seven Mile Beach and its immediate neighbors), which may give space for adventurous exploration.

We arrived on Monday afternoon, and set about driving around to get our bearings of the various recommended neighborhoods for living and their respective location with reference to the school. It was a very weird feeling to get back on the left side of the road, more so because this time was behind a right-hand drive car.

These things are so damn cute.



I cannot count how many times I turned on the wipers when trying for the blinkers or put my right hand down by the door to try and shift...

Dinner that night was at the hotel restaurant, which boasted The Best Burgers on Island and they were right. I have been dreaming about that burger ever since. The bill, however, was quite surprising; it will take some time to get used to this exchange rate! My burger was about $8.95 CI (Cayman Island dollars) and that converts to a little over $11 USD!! The local beer Caybrew was $4.60 CI a bottle, about $5.75 USD.

Sticker shock continued to follow us as we investigated apartments (typically around $1800 CI/mth for a 2 bedroom), groceries, and cars. Cars were interesting because they were unusually reasonable (for islands, anyhow). We met a particularly...slick...salesman who has obviously worked with students in the past and has come up with an interesting scheme plan that provides students with guaranteed fixing of any issues while they have the car as well as guaranteed buyback at a previously agreed upon depreciation value. Sounds great on the outset, but when you do the math there are some potential kinks in the concept.

Tuesday we ran all over town meeting with various landlords and Realtors and tenants. We narrowed our list down to 5 options with prices all over the board as well as different pros/cons. Dinner that night involved dad and I listing out all of our considerations in an apartment and rating the five according to a very common insanely OCD system that pretty much only he and I understand.

Insane.

We know our rating system was unbiased since the one we were both in love with did not make the #1 slot. So we scrapped our list for a more favorable solution of posting a vote on my blog majority rules. After dinner activities included late-night email and picture swapping with FR to make sure the majority actually included her (it so did).

Ours is upstairs on the left (the one where it looks like my dad may hit his head on the balcony).

Our backyard.



Le Sigh.

Wednesday we had a tour with the school scheduled for 9am. Dad and I faithfully showed at 8:59am, and after about 20 minutes of waiting around decided to start knocking some heads to find out where our tour guide was hiding. Seems he mixed up the times and thought 10am! We had a little chat with the Student Services guy and then caught up with Matt (our guide) for a late but thorough tour of the school. This included a 20 minute drive out to another part of the island called Lower Valley where the Teaching Facility/Surgery Clinic is located.

The Teaching Facility or Surgical Center or whatev. There isn't a sign yet, so really I guess you can call it whatever your heart desires.

Anat lecture and lab. Mmmm....

Surgery and other fun stuff storage.



Horse and Bull area.

Large animal holders. Shut up, that is so the right term.



That little goat you see was playing chicken with...well....a chicken. And that little building you see in the distance is the GC Department of Agriculture/Dog Pound.



Two horses, two goats. Maybe some future sheep. Two clinic dogs. One bull owned by the GC government who was out to stud at the time of filming.

I have mixed thoughts about the school physically, mainly because I've come from such large schools in the past so it's hard to imagine an entire vet school working out of basically 6 office sized rooms and a house-sized Teaching Facility. However with nine students in my class, I doubt very much that we'll be stumbling over each other.

Whoa. Wait. Hold Up. What was that?

NINE?

(As in after 8 and before 10?)

I wish you all could have seen my jaw drop when the Student Services guy laid that one on us. I'm sure the noise was akin to playing egg toss with boulders.

I don't even know where to go with this. That's less people than were in the Von Trap family.

Oh how I wish these uniforms were red. Damn you Lack-of-Photoshop! Damn you!

To steal borrow from my classmate Paul: I'm leaving the room if people in class start randomly bursting out in song.

Anywho, after the tour we were scheduled to meet with some current first semester students for lunch so I could grill them a la CIA intelligence gathering ask them a few questions. However, the theme of the day seemed to be forgetting pre-arranged plans and in classic Saskia-Completely-Overextending-Herself-Style I not only messed up the time but also the place. Dad and I ended up sitting in a pretty neat restaurant called Eat for about a half hour before I finally ran back up to the room (hotel was right behind restaurant) and saw that the girls were sitting is Yoshi (as sushi joint) two doors down from Eat and had been there for at least an hour. I ran back down to the sushi joint, made my introductions/apologies, and begged the last ten minutes of their break to hang over at Eat so dad could meet them.

Needless to say, not such a great First Impression.

After lunch we made our way over to the licensing office to get my official Cayman driver's license! Course, I explained to dad that it more than likely would be a waste of our time since I had no phone/address/visa yet. I think he really just wanted to experience the joy that is Island Bureaucracy. And boy did they not let him down. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes we were told that I could pay for the license now but that I would need to supply my real address and phone number before they print a card or I'll have to pay an extra $20 CI for a card reprint at a later date. Huh. What do you think the chances will be that I'll have absolutely no trouble getting my card with just a paper receipt of payment? Hahahaha.

Plus side? At least the licenses in GC are actually plastic cards like the states instead of just a piece of paper.

After exhausting ourselves at the licensing office, we hung out in the hotel room making last minute decision changes before finally settling on the Super Awesome but Expensive Canal View apartment. Dad was able to negotiate a bit on the rent (awesome) and FR is unbelievably excited about our new digs. There is still the possibility of selling plasma or harvesting eggs in our future, but with some creative budgeting (read: eat nothing but white rice and peanut butter) hopefully neither of us will feel like the creepy Geico eyeballs are watching us.

Thursday morning we got up early so we could run some things over to the apartment and stop by the electric company to hook up the electricity so it'll all be move in ready in a few weeks! Then off to the airport where I'm happy to announce you can purchase Tortuga Dark Rum (98 proof) for a whopping $9 USD. And it's actually legal to bring into the states. Which we found out from the helpful customs guy is not always the case; seems some rums are illegal to bring into the states! Huh.

Sweet.

Overall a very informative and interesting trip. I'm looking forward to trying this island/school on for size.

And I'm pretty sure dad and I are the Harlem Globetrotters of moving to a foreign country.

We were pretty sweet in our time. Not sure what that other dude's name is, but he sure could balance a ball.

(So ghetto. In so many ways.)

Random other shots that didn't really fit into my Epic Novel but that I'm quite sure you are eager to see:

Awesome map of the island courtesy of...oh what was that car rental place....oh, yeah: Avis.

Areas circled in black show you where the top five apartments were located in reference to the school (circle at top). Official Apartment is the one labeled Snug (as in Snug Harbour, the most awesome place ever).

There's this new office park/condos/craziness that went up a few years ago and is only just now being finished. It's called Cabana Bay, and it was built by the family that owns the Dart Polystyrene company. As in basically every styrofoam or paper cup/plate/to-go container/etc. in the world has their name stamped on it.

As in ohmygodtheyhavetooooomuchmoneygivemesomeplease.

I took this pic of a measly garage because isn't the coolest looking garage you've ever seen?

About damn time people start putting some asthetic thought into even the most dismal parts of construction.

I have no idea what this building is but it just screams Dr. Suess.

Or LSD.

Ditto on the screaming LSD/Suess. But a really neat design for a fountain. Hard to see here, but the water constantly runs down the sides and is reused. And those colorful bits in amidst the stones are gorgeous hand blown glass bowls that dad confirmed are not cemented down.

(Note: FR and I are planning a little scavenger hunt there during the twilight hours to furnish our outrageously expensive digs.)

You know who you are and why I took this.

Random shot down a random street in town.



GC squirrels. These suckers are huge and fast as lightning.
I did not find out that last fact by testing them with a chase. I swear.
Please don't sic PETA on me.

Another random shot on a random corner.

One more random.

Click on the pic to see allllll the people. It was crazy. And that was just one of THREE ships parked out there today.

Quick tutorial on Right-Hand Drive.



Dad and I having our 10:30AM airport beer on our way out.

(I cannot begin to understand why all of my programs rotated this picture normally but when I upload it into Blogger it comes out upside down.)

(I can only infer it is meant to be.)

(Not such a flattering pic anyhow, maybe this way our fat will sort of shift.)

Totally snapped this by luck. Have no idea what orientation of the island it is though.



My new roommate. I hear she comes with a pretty cool human.

(No, neither of them was on this trip. But she's just so damn cute.)

By the way...did anyone happen to notice the distinct lack of any beach pics in this entire entry? Oh, yeah...that's because we didn't go there! Despite it being just a quick cross of the road away. Only one quick look at night in the dark. Boo.

Damn Yankees.

My aunt and uncle joined us at the last Yankees spring training game of the season today. We had fantastic seats, about 10 rows from the field:

At one point a ball landed about 2 rows directly in front of us. My sad little family all just cringed and cowered and covered our heads as best we could. Funny part was, the ball hit the ground and bounced straight up to land just behind us. Some guy caught it, and was ridiculously violent in his efforts. It's a spring training game dude. Seriously.

It was only about 83 degrees out today, but you would think we were sitting in the center of the Saudi desert by the amount of sweat draining out of my body. At one point I had to hitch my skirt up completely to avoid the inevitable swamp-ass. Which I sort of got anyhow, but despite my uncontrollable need to photo document my entire life for you all I did not take a picture of my backside post-game. That would be uncouth.

Haha, this picture has two fairly inappropriate arrows drawn on it. Click the pic to see the text a little better.

Derek Jeter was at the game, in all his....glory? I'm not really a big fan, basically because I've met the man in person a number of times and he wasn't really the Super Awesome guy people claim. Even my BFF Jen who was basically going to marry him wasn't too keen after she met him. I think she may have even broken his heart. True story.

Here's another reason for me to wonder at this guy's mental state:

Click on the pic to see a not-at-all-life-size version of the picture.

That, my dear friends, is his THIRTY THOUSAND SQUARE FOOT house being built on Davis Island (a semi-uppity man-made island in South Tampa that will likely slide into the ocean once the Big One hits). I can't even describe to you how incredibly insane the entire concept of this house is - NUTS. He paid something like 7 million dollars for the land alone, almost 2 million just to the designers, and who the hell knows how much to get it built/furnish it/etc. The place has like 9 million bedrooms and bathrooms, TWO three car garages, and a gigantic front courtyard that will no doubt be a place for his groupies to get arrested when trespassing entourage to park.

I mean, this guy could probably house the entire population of St. Kitts comfortably.

To give you some reference as to how completely out of place this house is, check out his neighbor across the street:

Their house only took one camera shot to document. His took three. From a distance.

Now I realize that someone should probably give this guy a psychiatric evaluation medal of honor for putting so much money into the economy during times like these, but who does this? Not necessarily overall, but who does this here? I mean, Tampa's pretty cool, but c'mon!!

Oh! And remember how mom exchanges wine for liquor over lent?

Scene: Mom returns to table with mysterious brownish liquid in a glass. We both look at her incredulously, since this looks suspiciously like a glass of whiskey wine on the rocks.

Dad: Ellen!

Mom: [taking in our looks of disbelief] No, no. That's just vermouth.

Dad: Ellen, that's basically wine.

Mom: Yeah, I know. I'm maybe sort of cheating a little.

Me: [cringing, looking around for the lightning strikes.] Nice one, mom.

This family is nuts.

PS - Thanks to my seven friends and/or random drunken strangers for voting about my new site. Well, thanks to the five of you who Love It. Everyone else can just go piss off re-vote.

Ode To My Rock.

I don't think I could make it through this semester without my best friend Jennifer. It's not really enough for me to say best friend, she's more than that to me. It's like a sister I never had. She and I can talk about pretty much anything, finish each other's thoughts, make each other laugh even when we're really pissed off (Jen loves it when I make her laugh!). We have an amazing understanding of each other, and have the ability to share even the most difficult emotions. Jen looks out for me like a big brother (it sounds weird, but I'm pretty sure she'd tear someone's eyes out for me if asked) and I try to take care of her like a big sister. Both of us mother each other, as well as those around us. And where we aren't exactly the same, we're complete opposites: she's hypotension to my hypertension, cold to my hot, dry to my sweaty hands (I know, ew...but she'd hold my sweaty hands in a heartbeat and not complain one bit). Jen is my rock, and I thank God she is here with me now. I only hope I can be the just as awesome of a friend for her as she is for me. I look forward to experiencing this adventure with her, as well as to the next 50+ years of adventures for the both of us. People will come and go in our lives, boyfriends and lovers and friends, but I am confident she will be with me until the end - when we will both go together, so neither of us has to leave the other behind.

To my most wonderful friend: I love you kid.

Back to the Grind.

After a seemingly endless travel day (yay for 9 hour layovers in San Juan!), a few days of move-in madness, and a nice relaxing day at the Marriott that ended in a dead-battery car....we are all ready to tackle 2nd semester.

It's funny how I see people again and it feels like we've been apart for soooo long as opposed to only 2 weeks. This place is definitely some sort of Time Warp.

Even funnier is watching the Newbies wander around with wide fearful eyes! It seems like so long ago that we were those kids. I promise we've kept the hazing to a minimum. For now.

Speaking of Newbies, my best friend Jen from Florida is now a vet prepper here and I'm SO happy to have her here! She's really enjoying herself despite some very entertaining stories of her own adventures during orientation. My particular favorite is her ceiling deciding to pee all over her bed one day after a particularly nasty rainstorm. 2/3 of her bed was soaked through to the bed frame. But all is well, she contacted admin and much to our surprise they had a brand new mattress at her room in 45 minutes. And they paid for her to launder all of her bed linens (which led to some additional amusing anecdotes I won't go into)! All is well for now, however I'm not sure they've done much to patch the hole...

That's all for now, have to get moving and run lots of pre-school errands. IF we can get the car started. Yay for the Kitts!