A Critical Decision on a Very Rainy Day

So the other day it was POURING rain here, so much so that our patio was flooding and because none of the doors here actually seal at the bottom (thank you Vieques construction) water was running into the house. 9 towels later and that problem was solved.

On to the real topic. As I said it was pouring, however it didnt start pouring until about 8:30am which is right about the time I dropped Steve off at work. I followed my normal morning ritual, park at the W to drop Steve off, go in to the coffee bar and get my morning coffee, take a stroll around the property and go home. So while I'm in the coffee bar it starts coming down in sheets, fortunately I had brought my lightweight rain jacket knowing that it was supposed to rain. Grab my coffee and make a run for it to the car and manage to get there without getting too wet. For those of you following this blog you remember what my jeep looks like, no back window. Well this isn't too big of a problem for the rain because I don't care if the back of the jeep gets wet, however its a HUGE problem for the mosquitoes which all apparently decided to take shelter in my Jeep when it started to rain. I get into the car and they are literally swarming! The only way to get rid of them when that happens is to put the windows down and drive so the wind blows them out which is obviously problematic when its pouring rain. At this point I had to make a critical decision.....drive with the swarm in the car feasting on me all the way home or put the window down and get soaked but not bitten.....Definitely drive with the window down, I can dry off but I cant make bites go away.

I know this may not sound too terrible, a little rain never hurt anyone, but again for those of you that have seen the Jeep it has pretty large off-road tires on it that stick out the side just enough that when you drive through a puddle, water gets kicked up right to the side of the jeep since the fenders are not wide enough to catch it. So imagine driving with the window down, water coming in from the rain and water and mud and I dont even want to think about what else, coming in at a rather high velocity, aimed right at my face, from the tires. As if getting soaked and mudded (yes I made that word up) wasn't bad enough, I had numerous people pointing and laughing as I drove through town wondering what the hell that Gringo girl was doing.  Im not going to lie, if I was in their shoes I would be laughing too, but its never fun being the one that gets laughed at.

So by the time I got home not only was I drenched, I was covered in a considerable amount of mud, but I didnt get a single mosquito bite, SUCCESS! I hopped in the shower, threw my clothes in the wash and went about my day as if it had never happened. No need for Benadryl cream today.

Have a Happy New Year!

The Jeep is Finally Here....Almost all of it!

So Im sure many of you saw my new red Jeep on Facebook the day I purchased it, it looked something like 

this......

Nice new shiny Jeep with a brand new tan soft top, perfect for the Caribbean! What some of you may not know is that the day I bought the Jeep I gave the dealer a wad of cash to buy the Jeep and then left it there to get shipped off to Puerto Rico thinking that the sooner I ship it the sooner I will get it. Seems logical right? Well at the time I was blindly unaware of how things work down here in Vieques. So yes, I bought the Jeep on October 14, it shipped on October 17th and it arrived on Vieques on December 20th, after apparently spending two weeks in San Juan just waiting to come over. Of course thats not the whole story, it would be Vieques if it was. After finding out that my car had been sitting in San Juan for two weeks I called the shipping company to ask when it would be delivered to Vieques to which they respond "As soon as we have a space on the ferry." The way the cargo ferry works is you have to go down to the ferry office to make an appointment for your vehicle which can take several days up to two weeks. Seeing as how my car had been sitting there for two weeks I figured that the appointment for my car must be soon.....HAHAHA! The following is how the conversation proceeded:

me: "well what day do you have an appointment for?" 

them: "well we have to send someone down to the ferry office to get an appointment" (HAHAHA......what!)

me: "You mean to tell me you have had my car sitting there for over two weeks and you haven't even gone to schedule an appointment, when exactly were you planning on doing that?"

them: "Well it would be much easier for us if you would just come over and get the car" (again...WHAT!!)

me: "To be completely honest with you Im really not too concerned about what's easiest for you since you are getting paid to deliver my car to me. I'll tell you what's most convenient for me would be not having to take an entire day to fly over to San Juan, spend $50 on a plane ticket, drive my car to the ferry and spend two hours on the ferry to get back. So how about this, since you obviously cant seem to get down to the ferry office how about I make an appointment for the ferry and you just make sure my car is on it when it leaves, is that easy enough for you?"

them: "That would be better but the ferry would have to be in the morning so our driver can get back in the afternoon"

Pretty particular for people who are making me do their job for them!

So needless to say I was able to get a ferry spot on the Monday morning ferry (our conversation was on Friday) so it clearly wasn't that tough. 

Monday morning rolls around and I cant wait for 11:30 as thats when the ferry is arriving. 11:32 the phone rings and the driver is at the dock ready to turn over the car....whooo hooo finally! We drive down to the dock to meet the driver and this is what I see.....

I made the picture extra large for you so you can see in detail how shredded the back window of the jeep  is, NICE! So now I need to get a whole new top since the seam and fabric is even ripped at the top edge. The good news, I look more like a local than I could have ever hoped for. The bad news, since there is no way to seal up the car every time I go to get in it the mosquitoes have taken up residence and are swarming all over. First day in the car I ended up with about 17 bites and that's after I doused myself in repellent. 

Welcome to Vieques little red Jeep!

Catch Up!

Ok so I know I have not been very diligent about updating this blog so I am going to try a little harder. They may not be long or super entertaining blogs but I am going to try to post something at least 2 or 3 times a week. For now I'm going to catch you up on the events of the last couple of weeks at warp speed.

November 24-30

Steve and I went to Cozumel for his Ironman race. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip and really I felt like I was still in Puerto Rico since it took planes, ferries and automobiles for us to get there. We had the misfortune of staying at the Wyndham in Cozumel which was terrible in every way except the friendly staff. The food was awful in taste and nutrition, all of the restaurants had very specific times that they were open and the times were a little strange and worst of all they had NO ROOM SERVICE for breakfast! Seriously, what other meal do people get room service for? In addition to the dreadful food was the "water saving" shower head. Ok I get the idea of being environmentally friendly and saving water, but to have so little water come out of the shower head that Steve has to fill a bucket in the sink and dump it on me while Im in the shower so that I can actually wash my hair is a little excessive. I was about a day away from showering at the public showers at the beach that you use to rinse off which by the way had great water pressure and shower heads. Oh well, I guess we didnt go to Cozumel for a luxury vacation, we were there for the Ironman and that was the most important part of the trip.

For those of you that dont know what the Ironman is, it is a triathlon comprised of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile run all consecutively, with no breaks, as fast as you can. I know, I cant imagine why any human being would want to do this either but apparently its pretty popular and Steve really wanted to do it, so there I was in Cozumel at 4:15am awake and getting ready to head down the starting area so Steve can get all of his gear ready. Let me preface this by saying that the 6 months before we left Vegas Steve was training 3-5 hours a day pretty much everyday getting ready for this race. Once we moved down here, 2 months before the race, he trained maybe 1 hour total. I tried my best to talk him out of it but he's a guy, enough said.



So despite the lack of training he insisted on attempting the race. First up, the swim. I have to say it is a little crazy seeing 2,000 men and women swimming together as if they were a school of fish in the ocean. Anyhow, Steve did really well in the swim and finished 2.4 miles in just under 2 hours.

Next came the bike, 112 miles of it to be exact. He started off at a good pace and I saw him once on his first loop and he was looking pretty good. As I was tracking him on my i-phone through Ironman Live I noticed as the hours went by his pace started to slow and I knew he must be getting tired. After about 5 hours of bike time I was at the transition area waiting for him to come out for the run, and I was waiting and waiting and waiting, starting to get a tad bit worried. Finally he made it out about 15 mins before the time deadline for the bike and I could tell he was TIRED! I tried to cheer him on as he slowly started the run "Come on, only 26 miles left to run!!" not that that was any sort of incentive. As the sun started to

set and time ticked by he was still running/walking. At about mile 9 he came back around the loop where I could see him and he looked awful. I started to walk along side him and let him know that in order to finish the race in the allotted time he would have to pick up his pace to a minimum of a 10 minute mile for the remaining 17 miles and that would get him done right around midnight (yes, the race started at 7:00am) He looked at me in agony and said "I dont think I'm going to make it, Im cramping so bad I can barely walk" After me walking with him for another mile and a half trying to encourage him, he knew that despite how bad he wanted it the lack of training the last 2 months had taken its toll. After a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and 10.5 mile run/walk we called it a night and went back to the hotel to ice almost every joint in his body. Once we move to a training friendly environment he'll give it another shot. Still very proud of him, I know I couldnt swim 2.4 miles let alone ride ride 112 right after.

We stayed in Cozumel for one more day then headed back to Cancun for a little R&R before returning to Vieques.

December 4, 2010

We attended the Vieques Christmas Parade and tree lighting ceremony. This topic deserve a blog all its own which is coming soon (I need the photos to accompany it and am waiting on them from a friend). All I have to say is that one of the locals compared it to the Macys Day parade complete with fireworks extravaganza!

December 6, 2010

First trip to COSTCO!!! Steve took the day off and we flew over to San Juan at around 8:45am (plane was supposed to leave at 7:30 but even aviation is on island time). First stop was the mall. Even though I didnt really buy anything it was nice to have the option to. Next stop the pet supply store. There is only one pet store in all of Puerto Rico that sells the particular brand of dog food that we use so we had to go on an adventure to find it (streets are almost as bad on the main island as they are on Vieques). After we picked up the essential supplies for the children we headed into old San Juan for lunch. We found this cute little Italian restaurant that had WONDERFUL food, especially since you cant really get Italian on the island. Delicious! Finally it was time to go to Costco....never thought I would be so excited to see the magificent fully stocked warehouse that is Costco! It was as if the Angels were singing and the heavens were shining down as we

walked through the large roll-up doors, almost euphoric, I swear. Anyhow, back to reality. The only unfortunate part of our Costco trip was that if what we bought didnt fit into one of the 2 empty suitcases and one large ice chest we had we couldnt buy it. So now I had to be strategic about my Costco shopping, which is extremely hard when you havent seen decent meat, cheese, produce, wine or really much of anything in over 2 months! As you can tell from the picture I went for the absolute necessities, wine, meat and cheese. After all, I can always go longer between hair washings to save shampoo until the next time I can make it Costco. The whole day flew by way too fast, cant wait until the next Costco trip.

December 10, 2010

Our things finally got delivered today!! I have no idea how they manuevered the huge truck through the local streets to our house but they did! As soon as they   

started to unload the truck and we realized just how much stuff we had shipped that needed to fit in our little house Steve looked at me and said "Sh*t, we should have sold everything and rented a fully furnished house." This coming from the guy that was home on delivery day to unpack a few boxes and hasnt really been home since. Yeah tell me about it, unpacking everything and trying to figure out where the heck it is all going to go is no easy task (see December 13th).

December 13, 2010

Still Unpacking.....

 

  

And we're all Tired!

December 14, 2010

Did our first dive today from Mosquito pier. Cant belive it took us this long to get out there but we finally made it. The visibility wasnt too great as we have been having some pretty windy weather and storms to the North of us. Highlight of the dive was the huge sea turtle that was just as interested in checking us out as we were it. Forgot my camera again so as soon as I get the photo from our friends that we went diving with I will post it. We hope to start diving at least once a week so I'm sure I will have some better dive stories for you soon.

Have a great day everyone, more blogs on their way!

DRIVING mi loco!

For those of you actually following this blog, sorry for the delay between postings; I traded the hot humid weather here for a wonderful girls weekend in chilly Chicago. Nothing like a Bears game in windy 45 degree weather to cure island fever. For you football fans, what a great game, the Bears beat the Vikings! Text about that Brett. (Sorry Favre fans) 

Anyhow, back to the real topic at hand, driving in Vieques. Driving in Vieques is really unlike any other vehicular experience I've ever had. I've been to Mexico, Japan, Thailand, the Cayman Islands, etc. and I have never had a remotely close experience. So to give you the best visual possible I have compiled a "Top 5" list, accompanied by several photos of course, as to why driving in Vieques is so....interesting.

#5- Chit Chat

So I'm sure many of you are asking, what does she mean by chit chat. Unlike us in the States I do not mean that they can't drive worth a dang because they are too busy talking on their cell phones, I mean that they actually don’t drive (stop completely) to chit chat with a friend walking by or the person that may be driving the opposite direction. What exactly is so pressing that they feel the need to stop traffic, sometimes in both directions, I have yet to discover, but I imagine it must be extremely important..."Hey amigo, where are you going for cervezas tonight?"

I know what you’re thinking, why don't you just honk and get 'em moving. Trust me I know, I thought the same thing but believe it or not honking at the person who has so politely stopped traffic to chit chat is actually poor etiquette. Like any mature and extremely patient adult, you just sit and wait. (Sorry, no photo of this, I wasn’t sure if people would think me rude for taking a photo of the chit chatters)

#4- Narrow Roads

I can’t even think of something witty to say about this, the roads are just NARROW. I’m talking pull your mirrors in when you’re driving so you don’t hit the car parked on the side of the road, can’t tell if it’s really a one way street, all the cars have scratch marks down the side of them narrow. Here are a couple of photos to help illustrate my point.

You can see how this may be problematic when driving a large vehicle or even more so when a large vehicle is coming right at you.

#3- Parking

This tends to go hand in hand with the narrow road thing, although sometimes it is actually the cause of the narrow roads. So apparently the rule here is, so long as the curb is not painted blue or yellow and one car can still pass by then you can park there. You don’t even need to park facing the proper direction, as illustrated below, you can just pull across the road and park in a spot no matter what direction you are going. If you ask me, the rule “as long as one car can pass by” is rather subjective, one car as in a Geo Metro or one car as in a 10-passenger cargo van, see where I am going with this? As most of you know I am currently driving a nice but rather large four-door Jeep Wrangler with mirrors that stick out a good 10-12 inches (pull your mirrors in when you drive). I can’t tell you the number of times that I have had to drive up onto the curb to get down a street because there is not enough room for me to actually pass by, however the "parker" thought that “one car could pass by,” yes, that one car is indeed the Geo Metro.




Look very closely at the park job of all of the cars, which way does traffic go? Any way it pleases.



#2- Potholes

There is plenty of sand on this island, can’t we at least just fill them with sand? Something? Anything? Bueller, anyone?




Yes, this is also a two-way street in case you were wondering (see #4, narrow roads)

 

 *Speaking of potholes, don't forget to watch the video below to see how well maintained the beach roads are here. 

#1- Animals

Ok, so we’ve all had a dog or cat run out in front of our car scaring the crap out of us as we swerve to miss it, but how about a horse, chicken, iguana or crab in addition to the usual dog and cat. Yes, you read correctly. Just today actually, I had to brake rather quickly (the speed limit on the entire island is 35 so that tells you how fast I was driving) because a horse, not a chicken, decided to cross the road. The animals here have become so accustomed to being in the road that dogs, or goats, will actually nap in the middle of the street and lift their heads just long enough to let you know that the sound of your vehicle is disrupting them. No one bothers to cage in their animals, instead the creatures have free reign over the island, but heaven forbid you hit someone’s chicken or horse. Should you have the misfortune of hitting another’s unkempt animal and you’re a gringo, you better believe they are going to come after you for the money to replace their horse, chicken, dog, crab whatever it was, even though they may not have seen it in a month.

Related story: An employee of a “Well knoWn” resort (get it…) was driving home from the bar intoxicated one night (drinking and driving is legal here, but not wearing a seatbelt will earn you a fat ticket) and happened to hit one of the only two cows on the island. Unfortunately this resort has pretty recognizable vehicles and of course someone was witness to this “hit and run.” The next day there was a line out the drive of the resort of people claiming to have owned this cow seeking compensation for their loss.

Moral of the story, if you’re going to drink and drive, remember the cow in the road is not a hallucination!

So what do I have to say for the strange rules, narrow roads, chit chatters, potholes and animals? It’s always an interesting ride (drive) and if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. “Hola amiga, donde esta la fiesta tonight?”  

Here is a fun little video of our drive to the beach. The beach roads, like all of the other roads truly are an adventure.

                               Warning-Do not attempt this at home (or without 4-wheel drive)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels!

Rental Car, Rental Car, Where Art Thou Decent Rental Car?

As most of you know I like nice cars. But when we decided to make the move to Vieques I also decided that it was time to trade in the Infiniti for a shiny new (well not really) Jeep Wrangler.

I'm actually very excited to get my jeep since I think it will make me look a little more like a local (fake it till ya make it right?) but that's still a couple of weeks away as the customs department down here is like everything else...very slow. Until then we are able to expense up to (4) weeks of rental car, if you can find one for that long. Apparently that's another thing that there is not enough of on the island, rental cars. We called several places and the only place that had a car available for up to three weeks was a newer business on the island so we booked it. In order to protect this newer businesses dignity, I mean identity, we shall call them "Joe's." The experience with Joe's started out wonderful. We were late getting to the island so "Joe" told us that he would take the car home from their lot and we could meet him at his house, walking distance from ours, to get the car whenever we got in. Got over to Joe's house around 7pm, signed all of the necessary paperwork and drove back home in a 1999 Jeep Cherokee, cool, I look like a local! 

Seeing as how there is only one gas station on the island that has a tendency to run out of gas, I was told by several people "Never let your tank get down to 1/4 or less," so after a day and a half of driving around and only half a tank to begin with, I figured I better put some gas in my fine Puerto Rican driving machine. I pulled into the gas station, went in, you can't pay at the pump, and told the nice man behind the counter "Veinte on dos por favor" - thank you language learning software- and proceeded back to the pump. I placed the nozzle in the gas tank, squeezed the lever and SPLASH....gas all over my foot! Do gas pumps work differntly here? The sad thing is that I actually double checked to make sure that I had properly placed the nozzle in the tank as if I hadnt been doing this for thirteen years. (In case you were wondering, yes, it was placed in there properly) Not quite sure what to do and certainly looking a little stunned, I stood there for a second until the man at the only other pump at the station came over, got on the ground and tried to tell me in Spanish, not so successfully, that the gas line was cut. Yep, that's right, thieves on the island steal gas out of your car too! I would have thought siphoning it would have been easier, but I guess when you're a stoned teenager cutting the gas line seems like a good idea at the time.

Joe was very understanding as to why I needed to return the car and although he didn't have another rental available until Thursday (this was Tuesday) he offered to loan me his personal car until he could get me into another rental. Once again I met Joe at his house, returned the almost gasless white Cherokee and drove off in his green Cherokee, all was good.

I agreed to return Joe's car to him at 4:30pm on Thursday in exchange for the new rental that I would hopefully be driving for the next two weeks. We met at their lot this time, which is really just a grass lot on the way home from the W. Joe walked me over my new rental and I just about bust out laughing. There was no way Steve was going to fit comfortably in this Geo Tracker or whatever this thing was but I guess it was going to have to do. I exchanged the keys, signed for the new car and got ready to drive away. As I turned on the engine I would have sworn that I just hit the ignition button on a rusty old 747 Jumbo Jet, damn this thing is loud and not in a good way. "Adapt, adapt, adapt" I kept telling myself trying my best to push my ego aside. Then I looked down at the instrument gauge and noticed the check engine, oil and airbag lights were all on, hmmm, "I'm sure they wouldn't rent it to me if any of these things were really wrong, they probably just cant afford to have the lights switched off," I justified and clanked away in my new rental car.

I picked Steve up from work that night around 10:30pm in the "new" rental and the first words out of his mouth once he heard, I mean saw, it were "What the hell is this?" After the short three mile, twelve minute drive home he ordered me to "Call around and find a new rental car tomorrow, I'm not going to have you, a little gringo girl, driving around in this thing. I'm not sure if its going to die or explode first but you're not going to be driving it when that happens" Obviously no complaints from me.

The next morning I called Maritza's car rental who had just had a car returned that I would be able to rent for the next few weeks. They agreed to pick me up at the W at noon to take me to their office to sign papers and retrieve yet another rental car. My sister and I hopped in the clunker around 11:30am, stopped at the post office where the locals literally laughed at my heap of clanking metal (if the locals laugh at your car your know its BAD) and proceeded to the W. We entered the gates to the hotel and about half way down the drive I heard it, the sound of steel marbles in the engine, then complete silence. "Oh sh*t, the engine just blew" I started praying with all my might that the car had enough momentum to make it in to the parking lot. No such luck.

Yes, I had to do the POS car push in the middle of the W drive. Fortunately my sister was with me and when two gardeners at the property noticed, they ran over to help push it the remaining twenty yards into the parking lot. Once the car was in the lot I immediately picked up the phone and dialed Steve. I wont even begin to detail the expletives that I used when telling him how furious I was that I just pushed the POS that we were paying $55 per day for into the parking lot. Breathe......

I handed Steve the keys to the heap and told him to call Joe and tell him to come pick it up just as Maritza's arrived to take me to get my 4th rental car in seven days. Maritza's was nice, they had an actual lot, a nice air conditioned office and extremely friendly staff. So long as the car they gave me didn't sound like a jet engine with marbles in it I had a feeling things were starting to turn around, on the rental car front anyways. I signed the necessary documents and was then asked to go outside to inspect the car. Just then one of the employees pulled up in front of the office with my new rental. Be still my heart....could it really be? A shiny NEW red four-door Jeep Wrangler. I could barely contain my excitement, you would have thought they were pulling up in a brand new Audi S5 for me, but after the past few days this jeep was my knight in red shining armor! I walked around and inspected the car, it was as perfect as one would expect give the terrain on this island, and then returned inside to claim the keys.

I hopped in my new ride, put the key in, turned the ignition and that's when I heard it....Gwen Steffani. What!!! It has a radio, that actually WORKS!!!! I went to crank up the volume and at that moment I could swear a tear of joy ran down my face (OK, it was actually sweat from the obscenely hot humid weather but just play along), there was an i-pod plug. Oh My Gosh! I squealed like a thirteen year old at a Justin Bieber concert, cranked up the volume and drove off into the sunset (sunshine, whatever) in my new red four door Jeep Wrangler.

I am happy to report that I have now been driving the AWESOME jeep for thirty-one hours, its running great and I still love it! Good to know that there really are decent rental cars on the island.

Finally Here....and Wondering Why

Well, (6) checked bags, (5) carry-ons between the three of us, (2) dogs and (21) LONG hours later we are finally in Vieques. Steve says we are home but Im not sure Im ready to call it that quite yet. The drive from the airport to the house provided us with the most beautiful sunset and I instantly thought "alright this isnt so bad" HAHAHA!

We arrived at the house to  find it is not nearly as large as we had originally thought which brought on a bit of anxiety when I  realized how much furniture is going to be delivered in 4-5 weeks...oh well, we can deal with that when it arrives. Aside from that and the usual amount of dirt, dust and dead insects you would expect from a house that has not been occupied for over six months it wasnt all that bad. Of course the view from our living and dining room doesnt hurt either....  

After unloading all of our luggage Steve and I went to pick up our rental car and decided to stop and get some cold beverages (of the alcoholic kind) on the way home. We stopped at the "small" market and once inside I decided that if this is the really small market then the big market must be pretty decent. I mean they had recognizable ceral, pasta, canned foods etc so it wasnt terrible. The meat and produce section was pretty much non-existent, but after all this is the small market so Im sure the big one will have a much better selection. Got home from the market, beers, rum and diet coke in hand, had a couple of cocktails with a grilled cheese sandwich of which all ingredients were purchased at the market, relaxed and called it a night. 

Woke up this morning feeling rather optimistic and determined to get the house cleaned up, put together and fridge and cupboards stocked. With the help of my sister we got the majority of the house spic and span, I managed to put away the contents of all (10) pieces of luggage and all that was left to do was hit up the "BIG" market to stock up on the necessities and get stuff for dinner. Hopped in the jeep and drove a whole six minutes on the bumpy, narrow, horse lined streets to the market. From the parking lot the market was significantly larger  than the one we visited last night, "perfect, I'll make some chicken fettucine alfredo a salad and some garlic bread for dinner!"

We walked into "Morales Super Descuento" (which I thought meant Morales Super Market, turns out it means super discount which is definitely false advertising) This market was definitely larger in size, and did have a small produce and meat section, but for the most part it was just larger quantities of the same stuff that was at the small market last night. Well that doesnt help much but at least I can get some salad ingredients and chicken....chicken first. As we approach the meat section I notice an unfamiliar and slightly offensive smell, which Jennifer obviously did too as she covered her nose with her shirt (she's not very discreet about things). First reaction, maybe it's just a different kind of meat that Im not used to, so I move in for further examination. Now I know they eat different kinds of food all over the world, but Im pretty sure that on every continent chicken with a hint of green is bad. Ok, scratch the chicken, fettucine alfredo and a salad....lets go find the produce.

I was far from prepared to face the produce that I encountered. Who would think that any type of retail estabishment would keep bags of brown soggy lettuce, moldy garlic cloves and wilted browning celery on their shelves. No, really, who does that? Let me tell you, "Morales Super Descuento" does! Hmmm, ok chicken... scratch, salad...scratch, moldy garlic bread....scratch. 

So I'm just about to leave the house and head down to the hotel for dinner. Clearly my efforts to stock the fridge and cupboards are going to have to wait until I can get over to Costco on the big island, until then its Mix on the Beach for dinner, Mix for breakfast and Pool cafe for lunch. Thank god for the W.

Tomorrow is halloween and hopefully my day will be filled with treats rather than tricks, but on this island who knows!