Popped... according to Holly!

I forgot to show you guys my new tattoo that me and my best friend Brittney got before I left on Monday. It's Kokopelli! Koko is the Hopi god of fertility, transformation, and creation. It is not the type of fertility I know your thinking about cause those who know me know I am not about having kiddies! I'll leave that to little Aaron. It is more about fertility for a fruitful life and embarking upon a newly transformative path!

So I was woken up at 7am this Saturday morning by my lovely landlord Desmond with our third bed for Jazz. So much for sleeping in! He said he would come back to move the beds around on Sunday so I was able to get back into bed without it being transported to the other room. I would have made him move it while I was in it I was so tired.

In case you did not know, I despise grocery shopping; oh and dusting but that's another day. I hate grocery shopping even more if I don't understand prices and what I am buying. Anita and I went to Sovereign Center which is similar to a mall but it is more outdoors and open. Since I have only been in Jamaica 5 days I am still getting used to the money down here, therefore grocery shopping is exponentially more difficult for me! Coming from the states JA provides you with some serious sticker shock. It is roughly 85 JA$ to 1USD. The trick is cut of two zero's or move the decimal two points to convert it to USD. This way you are clearly over estimating and it works well in the mind cause you know your over budgeting therefore saving some money! So a loaf of bread costs about 175 JA which is roughly equal to $1.75. But imagine walking up to a register with a full cart and they tell you its 11,000 $JA! It's really about $110 but still
THOUSAND makes you panic a bit.

Before I get to caught up in our weekend I would like to introduce you to Anita's new friend! Yep, a lizard! She doesn't fancy them much but I happen to love creepy crawly's! Needless to say I tried to hold him but he was much to quick for me. Mr. Lizard also had a bigger lizard friend which really made Anita happy, he had one of those inflatable sacs on his throat that expanded with his breath, he was photo shy! I love that I live amongst lizards, call me the lizard queen (I hope everyone got that Jim Morrison reference).

After a long hour and a half grocery shop that encompassed more math than desired we took a nap, a well deserved beautiful restful nap. These first five days have been nothing but non-stop.

After napping from noon till 3 (perhaps that is more like sleeping) Anita and I decided to attempt to straighten our hair. Now this may not sound like a big deal but in this humidity this task is almost futile! Oddly enough our bathroom are missing sockets, perhaps that is a sign that no one actually does there hair here, especially with heat radiating devices like straighteners and blow dryers. But despite the odds we prevailed! Running back and forth from mirror to a high powered fan I finally have straight hair!

We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon basking in the glory of straight locks and waited for our friend Rochelle to come over and see the new place. She works in the International Students Office at UWI and she is from Miami but her family is originally from Trinidad. She is been in JA for about 8 months so she has been a great resource and friend!

Anita got us a great connection through her secretary at work. His name is Jodie and his girlfriend is Holly. They took us out for our first Saturday night in Kingston! They picked us up at our apartment which they also informed us was central to almost everything! We went down to South street to eat at a little restaurant called Suzie's. After spending about 2 hours with them talking about everything we have to do while here we figured we might as well get started! Jodie brought us back to our place and left Holly with us to freshen up for our night out. In JA people dress really nice pretty often. And despite the heat most people go out at night in jeans! Mostly everything inside is air conditioned so your bound to cool down once you hit your destination.

Since Kingston is the nightlife city of JA Holly and Jodie brought us to a nightclub called Fiction. Nothing here gets started early so around 1:30 am the dance parties get going. Looks like I am going to have to readjust my sleeping time on the weekends. So needless to say we danced and laughed for about 3 hours and at that point resigned for the night and were desperate for some ZzZ's. Holly & Jodie were amazing and we are so thrilled to have met them. According to Holly she is going to pop the bubble we live in here and show us what Jamaica is really all about!

Sunday = Sleep! Lots of Sleep. Monday afternoon is my first half day of work in the "M" so tune in later for an update on that adventure!