...well, downtown anyway. These were taken a couple weeks ago. We went to go see what it was like. We live in a little "township" thing called Lance Aux Epines (Lance-ah-Peens) (lol, that looks funny to me...). St George's is the capital of Grenada and Providence we live in. Downtown is about 4 miles or so from us, but it takes a good 20 minutes at least to get there. We've only gone up there a handful of times, but it's pretty cool there. There's a port of call for cruise ships there and a huge marina. Cruise season isn't until January I'm told, so we won't see any ships until then--probably b/c it's rainy season now and it's not too safe to go up to rain forest to hike and explore around, plus...it's rainy. Anyway, back to the point of this entry.
We went to the open air market and walked around the city a little bit. It's very compact and up lots of hills. The city looks to me like a city built UP from the shore that you'd see on a pirate movie or something. It's cool. Very colorful, old, run down, full of life, extremely busy, loud and a bit smelly! Most of the streets have gutters that just drop down, so you really have to be careful when you drive to not fall off the road!
Below is a really cool, old bell tower. Not sure if it still works or not, I don't remember hearing it go off. We didn't have the stroller with us and all the kids were tired of walking about 5 minutes after we got there. It was hot, but seriously. We have got to work on our stamina here!
This is a picture of the airport here. I think this is most of it in this little picture. It's very very small. There are no ramps to the terminals from the airplanes, I don't think there's even any stairs in the entire airport (well, the parts the passengers are in).
Below is driving away from the airport. See those buildings out there? That's SGU, or a part of it anyway. Everything is so much closer than it seems, it just takes a while to get around! Partly because of drivers, partly because of the terrible condition of the roads, and partly because the roads are like switchbacks that can't decide which direction they're taking. I kind of sound like I'm complaining, I've noticed. I'm not. It's really great here, I'm just trying to get my experience all down! It's quite entertaining, some days, to drive around here...
...because you see a lot of this! That's no deer, it's a goat. Tied up to a tree. And they're EVERYWHERE! I guess they're just natural lawn mowers. The other day I was taking D to school and I saw a guy with a TON (like 20) of what I at first thought were big dogs. On closer examination, I saw they were goats. Some were on leashes and some were not. The big male goat was on a short leash and some other adult size were too, but the babies and smaller goats were just following. It looked SO funny b/c at first I was thinking, wow, they actually have dog walkers here?...like, they actually care enough about the dogs around here to even do that? and then I saw long hair and funny looking bodies and realized he was a Goat Walker! lol, just kidding. He's just transporting the goats to better parts of the area for feeding--aka free lawn mowing. Those poor goats, I hope they have workers comp. if they're hit by a car while working. ;) just kidding. What else are they good for?! We also have a bull (with no horns, but you KNOW he's a bull, kind of thing) that's planted and tethered to the side of the main road on the way into Lance Aux Epines. We see him a lot. It's totally random, and fun for the kids to look at. :)
This is a picture of the main highway. It's technically one lane, but you stay to the left so people can pass you on the right. But watch out for suddenly stopping taxi buses, or parked cars when you are over there. It can get a little tricky if it's busy! :) To me, it looks smaller than it really is in this picture, but you get the idea. And look! There's electric poles, and cars, and bus stops and normal things. It's not so third world country-ish that life is completely different. It's different, but more culturally different. Obviously we're missing conveniences that we had in the States, and it's not cheep to live, but if you're expecting those things, I've found it to be a fairly smooth transition. We like it here. We're glad we don't have to stay here forever, but we can handle the time we will have and be happy. :)
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