And those birding people take that pretty literally. I can't remember the last time I woke up after 8. But after a very uneventful week I decided I would do anything there was to do on Saturday. So I was up at 4:30 to go birdwatching. The last time I was up at 4:30 was before I had slept, not after. Anyways, you may laugh about my birding...but apparently I was in the presence of greatness without even knowing it. My guide for the day was Roger Neckles, one of the leading wildlife photographers in the world. Apparently he's a National [View Full Entry]

---

---

This newest wedding was quite an experience. It was an Ethiopian Orthodox wedding, which I was pretty excited for, because if nothing else it sounds really different. The religion is sort of a combination of Christianity and Judaisim and since I have failed to do research on it yet...that's about all I know. Just to enter the church all women had to have their heads covered and everyone had to take off their shoes and leave them outside. One of the cameramen, like us, didn't see this one coming and was horribly embarrassed that he had worn socks with holes in [View Full Entry]

---

---

If only all those things went together. So within two days I was at a convent and a monestary and made new monk and nun friends. Except I decided that I didn't really want my monk friends, because they were old, boring, smelled funny, had no sense of humor and lots of nose hair. So I'll start somewhat back at the beginning... a guy at the university who works at the library and helped me with some research, Sham, was really intent on taking me to the monestary. Normally, I wouldn't really be that keen on the idea, but Mount St. [View Full Entry]

---

---

So really no two days have been the same yet, and all of them have been pretty random. So a bit of a catch up of the past couple of days... I really like where I'm living. Clerene, the woman I'm staying with, is retired and I have pretty much become her job. So the reverse of the first house, I am the constant focus of all her attention. Which is good and bad, but more good I suppose since she spends her time looking for weddings, calling people for me to meet with, making me homemade lemonade and taking me [View Full Entry]

---

---

Saturday I discovered a new way to crash weddings- just stand by the photographers the entire time and pretend like I'm one of them. Since the Catholic church has lots of rules about where and when you can take pictures, someone suggested I just follow the lead of the photographers. They then offered to take me to the reception, which I was pretty excited about, since before I was just planning on going to the ceremony. The 2:00 wedding got rolling somewhere after 2:30, very typical of Trini time. In an effort to overcome Trini time, the churches have started charging [View Full Entry]

---

---

It's hot. Really hot. That's really all that has consumed my past day or so. I had some pretty pictures. Mainly of just my mango tree and house, but I only have ungodly slow dial up internet, so no more pictures for now at least :( Kerry left early Tuesday morning after a glorious last day of laying on the beach. We had to walk a ways to find a good one, because apparantly if we went to the beach near our guesthouse we would not only get robbed but couldn't swim because so many people pee in the water during [View Full Entry]

---

---

The group of international students I had met before were going to a Hindu wedding on Sunday, which inconveniently fell in the middle of our time in Tobago. I couldn't turn down this chance...especially since I suppose I am here to study, but we wanted to stay Sunday night in Buccoo. After much plotting Kerry and I decided we would both go back to Trinidad just for the day to go to the wedding and get a flight back in the evening. Basically, to accomplish everything we needed to in one day would require some serious luck. We broke our day [View Full Entry]

---

---

So Kerry and I were a little lonely now that we were alone and a lot exhausted, so being unable to leave we headed back to our hotel that we had already checked out of. We spent the morning napping on the beach, figuring we'd spend just a little more time with the pretty beach and pool since we didn't know what our next locale would hold. When we gathered the energy, and realized we werepretty much the only people at the hotel since checkout for everyone is apparently friday, we decided to head on. We made it to Buccoo, about [View Full Entry]

---

---

So this morning I was jolted back to the reality that I don't actually get to spend all 7 weeks here on the beach. But, the one I did was incredible. I would say that I would just give you all the highlights, but really, I don't have much else to do right now, so you may end up getting it all whether you like it or not. So I met Kerry at the airport Monday and we got on another plane to Tobago. Tobago is the little sister island to Trinidad to the east, and is about a 20 minute [View Full Entry]

---

---

That's the first thing someone told me yesterday when I said I would be going to a Muslim wedding. And did I ever. We hopped back in the car this morning, where I feel like I'm spending all my time, to head down to the town where Sharon's sister who would be taking me to the wedding lives. The country has a pretty good public transport system...but nobody has given me a chance to figure out how to use it, so instead I'm just toted around everywhere. Oh well. They had called the bride the night before to okay me tagging [View Full Entry]

---

---