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The view of the monestary from the university
You can see the buildings from the airplane...they really stand out. 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. Benedict, the monestary was highly recommended by my handy little guide book, so I decided to take him up on the offer. Sham however, was determined to have me have long meetings with all the monks, while I was there to see the pretty view and eat the yogurt they make on sight. Since I had absolutely nothing to say to the abbot, I took his number and told him I would call him to set up an appointment. Is it bad to stand up a monk? So while the monestary trip went a little differently than if I had
gone alone...I still managed to escape briefly from Sham and walk around. It's easily 10 degrees cooler up there, which that alone makes it gorgeous, not to mention the views of the city and the mountains...it really was a peaceful place. I bought some homemade yogurt so I could at least support the livlihood of the monk I stood up, and then because it was the end of Sham's lunchbreak we had to head make down. So while I don't have enough friends here to really be choosy, that won't stop me and now I can no longer go to the fourth floor of the library...where Sham sits waiting expectantly for our next outing. Unfortunately that is where all the marriage books are. Oh well, I don't really need to do research anyways.
Wednesday there was a parade and mini showcase of the Tobago Heritage festival in downtown San Fernando. Since I had little else to do, I decided to check it out, and it was a pretty neat idea of what it's like since I'll be gone by the time of the actual festival. It's a two week thing in Tobago highlighting all of the old customs and
their history. So this was a preview to get people excited about it I suppose. Every town has their own theme, so the parade was made up of all different groups- old time carnival, the games we used to play, old time wedding and lots of traditional clothes, music and dancing. I didn't bring my camera which makes this a whole lot less fun to tell about...but there was a show with drumming and some funny calypsos about the state of the country now days. I could hardly understand a lot of what they were saying but I did catch the part about how they used to eat good nurtritional meals and now only eat KFC three meals a day.
Yesterday I ventured into town on my own. I think it's pretty cute that everyone says they are going to town when they go to the capital. But I suppose it does still seem like that, because even though it is the biggest city, and very urban, there are still just 51,000 people. I found it to be a surprisingly pretty city and also surprisingly found my way around to everything without any problems or needing to whip out
the pepper spray. I stopped for a bit at the national library, which considering all the contents the library here in San Fernando could fit in my living room at home, I was pretty surprised at how huge and nice this one was. I made the obligatory tourist museum trip- which had some good art and carnival stuff, but otherwise I've been to spoiled with all of our museums back home, because a lot of it looked like an elementary schooler's history report. I suppose not all museums can provide me with exhibits where I can play. I made a couple other stops at places to help my research and then grabbed lunch at a well known place called the Breakfast Shed, even though it was 3:30 by that point. You can walk the whole downtown area of the city without any problem, even though everyone kept insisting I take taxis when they heard how far I walked. But maybe that's why at the end of the day I was the sweaty disgusting person waiting for the bus and everyone else was presentable. So while I didn't do a whole lot, it was exciting to be somewhere new, and reminded
me of the need of say tell everyone I'm married so I can be left alone at least a little bit. While most people aren't bold enough for marriage proposals, I do get constant professions of love.
For now I'm on a mission to find a Soca Warriors T-shirt, or at least something red, since the world cup starts today and I made the huge mistake of not packing a single red thing...or caring about soccer at all. So I'm trying to remedy my ways. Trinidad's first game is tomorrow against Sweeden, and while I think I'm going to miss it because of a wedding, I can't imagine how crazy things will get. It's the first time they've ever made it to the world cup and everyone is really excited. Oh and the address I had put up before was wrong...but I fixed it now. Happy Birthday Zoe. My dog, ahem, sister is 6 today!
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Kerry
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Go Soca Warriors! You should probably start doing research on all the players because even though they can't understand all the filthy things you scream at the ref, it would be really great if you could include a few players' names.