Whew! Midterms are over! It has been a long, hard term. but at least we're over half way over now! I've studying like crazy and it seems I can never get a second to breathe. But I already have more quizzes and exams next week, so no rest for the wicked. It has been raining here a lot lately. It usually only rains for about 5-10 minutes a day, but this week in particular it has been raining nearly all day on some days. It makes Maverick's feet all muddy when we take him out and then he makes a mess of our tile floor. Oh well. One of the parts of having a dog.
We finally got our car back today! The "Silver Bullet" as Nick calls it kept overheating and we were putting more water than gas in it almost every time we drove. So we took it in to our car guy and he determined the water pump went out and it blew the head gasket. I don't really know cars, but sounds pretty bad to me. Luckily since we rent the car, all the repairs were "free" and we got another car to drive around in the mean time. Our first replacement car was a blue, 4-door SUV. I don't even know what brand it was. It was pretty ugly, but it got the job done. It was a V6 so it was pretty good about passing cars, but the automatic transmission wasn't quite right so it struggled shifting into second gear. You'd hit the gas and it would rev all the way up and unless you took your foot off the gas and then put it back on, it wasn't going to shift. It also didn't start very well all the time. I called the place and told them and they guy told me to "Push the lever forward." I finally determined the "lever" he was talking about was the shifter. I told him that we're trying to start it in park, so it really can't go any farther forward; it's already there. He told me to just push it forward next time it happened. Well wouldn't you know, we tried it and it worked! They really know their crappy cars down here. The plus side about this car was that it had air conditioning that worked! It was weird, though, because the driver's seat was on the left (like a "normal" car), but we still had to drive on the left. It was weird getting used to at first.
About a week after we started driving that loaner car, they came to our house and switched us for a 2-door, white Escudo (SUV). It was the bumpiest car I've ever been in! Seriously, it was like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. You couldn't hit a pot hole or you'd break your back! The driver's side window made the WORST screeching noise when it was rolled up or down. But, it did start every time and the transmission seemed to be fine. It also had a working radio, so we could play the one station we found with all the Grenadian music. But today we got our beloved/hated Silver Bullet back. It's crappy, but it's ours.
Yesterday was Grenadian Thanksgiving. It's actually not a relatively celebrated holiday; it's celebrating the American invasion in the 80s. Not everyone down here appreciated that. But nevertheless, it was a day off from school. I always do the grocery shopping on Thursday mornings because they stock the shelves that day, I never have class during that time, and it's relatively not crowded. Unfortunately I didn't think about it this week and I went at my normal time. Oh my gosh! It was so packed! Since the store was going to be closed on Friday, everyone came out to stock up on groceries on Thursday. They had a honey sampling in the back of the store and a cracker sampling in the front of the store. But worst of all, they had a DJ in the front of the store. Yes. A DJ! And he was playing 10 seconds of music and then coming on the mic going, "Good morning shoppers of IGAAAAAAA!!!! We have a honey sampling in de back of de supahmarket! Also in de front of de store dere are crackerrrrrrsssss!!!!!" He then proceeded to mix "You're the One That I Want" from Grease with steel drum music. Really? My ear drums don't particularly need to be accosted while grocery shopping. It was an experience to say the least. When I finally got to the check stand after waiting in a line about 8 people deep, the couple in front of me was an old German couple. For some reason, the checker couldn't get their card to work on her machine. Between her accent and quiet voice and the fact that they spoke almost no English, I thought I'd never get out of there!
But now it's time to study Pharmacology and Virology. Nobody cares about Virology, but unfortunately we have cram it into our heads for the test. Until next time...
