Friday, April 11th, 2003

Today was our first full day here in the Caribbean. The sun was shining early and it was easy to get up and start thinking about the days events. Keri was up and out early with her friend Leslie. They went to exercise across the street at the Bayside fitness club. Bryant headed outside with his basketball while Jamie and I decided we would take a short run. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered our running options were very limited. The roads here are very narrow and windy and full of motorists. It did not take too long to decide our lives were more important than a little exercise. We finally settled on the beach here at Bolongo Bay was as the most feasible option. There was about a quarter mile stretch of straight sand borded on each side by more rocky terrain. We ended up running 10 laps which equates to about two and half miles. We then returned to the room to get Kacie and spend a little time in the pool.


Bryant checking out the basketball courts here at Bolong Bay


Just after lunch I left with Bryant to head down to Charlotte Amalie, the main city here on the island. Both of us needed to get our haircut. We also need to pick Jeff up at the airport. Jared and Joseph, the Todesco brothers, went along with us. We had an amazingly difficult time trying to find a place that could fit us in. Finally, after an hour or so of searching and asking the locals for references we ended up at Winston's Barbers. It was a small place on the second level of small office type building. We walked into to a busy place. They were five chairs all occupied with customers either getting their hair cut or braided. The island is 85% black and we represented the complete minority in this barbershop. We definitely stood out as tourists. Bryant was smart and just asked for the standard crew cut. I asked for just a standard men's hair cut with about a half inch removed. The young stout fellow that was cutting my hair said no problem. But it was obvious he was not comfortable cutting my hair. He never took out a pair of scissors and just using the electric clippers to do the whole thing. It took forever, but he finally finished. It was a unique experience. We also got our first full taste of the local language here. Two of the barbers were talking together back in forth in some dialect I did not understand. When I asked what they were speaking, I was told it was english. They have a fun way of pronouncing words here and they call it creole or calypso. Instead of saying "three things" they would say "tree tings". Instead of saying "man" they also say "mon".


The restroom here at Bolongo Bay - it's "mon" and not "men"


We finally picked Jeff up at the airport just before 3 pm. He had been waiting for us for about 30 minutes. We were delayed by the detail haircuts. Jeff looked very tired from the long flight. It was only a day ago that we had just gone through the same experience. We made a quick pit stop at McDonalds on the way home. We also stopped at KMart to buy some fishing poles. KMart was one the main shopping options here on the island. I was leery about buying the fishing poles, but Bryant proved them useful. He caught several sea bass and sea perch off the local dock. He also had a small Barracuda on his hook before it snapped his line. We returned home to find Jamie and Kacie finishing their day in the sun. They had supposedly coated themselves with sun screen but they were both burned to a crisp. Kacie's legs were especially red. She was actually in quite a bit of pain.


Jamie relaxing by the pool