Back in Grenada

Well, if you don't know already, I've returned to St. George's University in Grenada for the second term of my MPH to MD program. This term I'll have 5 classes again: Health Policy and Management, Social and Behavioral Aspects of Public Health, Chronic Disease Epidemiology, International Public Health Practice, and Methods of Community Health Promotion.

So far I haven't been a very good student. I've missed either the entire first class of every class that's started so far or at least the beginning part where they go over the syllabus. This afternoon, I overslept and missed the bus to campus, so I ended up missing the first 30 min of Health Policy and Management. Not that it turned out to be anything important or meaningful apparently. Same with International Health, I missed the first two classes because I was still in the states. I had initially thought I was only going to miss one class, but they had a make up class on Friday that I wasn't aware of so I ended up missing two. But from what I've heard from my classmates from that class, I really didn't miss much if anything. This evening, I was sure I had a class, but when I talked to some of the other students, they assured me we didn't have class... well, after just coming home around almost 2am, I check my schedule and sure enough, I did have a class, just a different one from the one they were referring to... So I missed that class too. I have really not started off on the right foot this term.

Anywho, my trip down from the States to Grenada was crazy. Initially I was supposed to fly down Sat morning. My flight departed from Atlanta at 6:05am and the ATL airport (typically about a 2-3 hour drive from my home) opened at 4:30, so I need to get there by then. Well, Bruce was going to give me a ride to the airport, but of course I had put off packing until the last few days before I had to leave, so I was still making a mad rush to finish when he arrived. Then my luggage was overweight so we wasted time trying to fix that. We finally left home, but once on the highway we encountered torrential rainfall. It was so bad that at times, Bruce could only see the white line 2 feet in front of him on the road... but the lightning was spectacular. It seemed super close and lit up the sky like noon day only with ultra "white" light rather than the "yellow" of the sun. We had to slow down to about 45mph for a while and that prob set us back 20-30 min. When we finally arrived and got into the airport around 5am, there was a long line waiting to check in. We were in line with all my luggage, my roommate's dog (did I mention, my roommate shipped me her dog so I could bring her down with me?!), and Vasco, but for some reason I didn't think my flight was international (I mean, I was only going to Miami first...) and maybe we could check in faster if we used the self-check in computers. What a bad move. We lost our place and by the time we got back in line and up to the desk... the lady told me I had missed baggage check-in by 10 min. 10 minutes! Oi vey. And since they only flew to St. Kitts (where I was going to make a connecting flight on Liat, one of the local Caribbean puddle jumpers) once a day, I would have to wait til Sunday if I wanted to check in baggage.

I couldn't make an informed decision as to whether or not to take the Sunday flight because I had to make sure that I would be able to catch a flight from Liat to Grenada that day as well, otherwise I'd be stranded in St. Kitts with nothing to do and nowhere to go. So Bruce and I waited for about 1 1/2 hours for Liat's reservation desk to open so I could call and ask them. Bruce was so good about it even though he was tired and hungry. He lent me his phone so that I could use the web browser to check the websites and allowed me to call Liat, long distance, for almost 15-20 minutes which will prob cost him about $30. He's so good to me *smiles*.

Anywho, when I finally got through to Liat, they said I could change my flight; however, it would be an additional $160. Oi vey! That's more than the original cost of my ticket and I had already paid about $80 to get it changed once. This was definitely an expensive trip. And my credit cards were already maxed out from buying misc items for the house and lawn when I was home so I didn't have the available credit to buy the ticket. Once again, Bruce came to the rescue and told me he'd pay for the ticket. I'm not free loading, mind you. I'll pay him back... when my refund check finally arrives, but he's been quite a "trip" saver.

Bruce drove me back home after that. We stopped by the Mall of Georgia and took about a 2 hour nap in the car and had lunch in the Food Court. When I got home I gave Cassie (my new roomie's American Eskimo) a pretty good brushing and ended up with a small mountain of white hair... Her coat had been in quite a bad state with a lot of mats throughout. I also trimmed the hair on her paws so they looked semi neat. Before they were all gross and straggly. I knew that if she soiled herself during the crate, trimming the hairs would at least be a minor help in keeping her paws clean. Then I took about a 6 hour, much needed nap. Upon waking I was able to clean my room (since it had been left in a state of complete disarray) for my mom's use.

My mom came home from work about 45 min before I had to leave. She had no idea I was even home so she was very surprised, but I think happy to see me. For once, she'll be awake when I'm leaving *grins*

Anyway, Bruce came to pick me up around 2am and my mom decided that she wanted to come along to see me off and because she would feel it more appropriate if she came along rather than it just being Bruce and myself in the car. However, honestly, there wasn't much room. We were driving in a Towncar and its nice and roomy... pretty exansive, however, even if we moved things around so that everything was in the back, whoever sat in the middle would have zero room to even put their feet down. They'd have to put a foot in the drivers and a foot in the passengers feet area. Not that that'd be particularly hard to do, since I've done it before... however for a 2-3 hour drive it could not only be uncomfortable, but dangerous.

So I mean, I didn't really mind if my mom came, but Bruce didn't exactly do anything to attempt to make more room (though really it was packed full with 2 intermediate sized dog crates and a large suitcase, there wasn't any room to move anything), or at least voice willingness to have her come with us, so my mom was... let's just put it mildly, very displeased.. Okay, why play around with words, she hates him. *sighs* so I felt really bad and missed having her come with us.

Our trip down to Atlanta this time once again was impeded by weather... only this time it was fog. Thick, rolling fog. Not quite as "obviously" bad as the torrential rainfall, but more subtle. There would be periods when you could see fairly well through the fog but then all of a sudden, we'd be engulfed in a thick cloud of it.

We also got pulled over by the police. I was a bit nervous and asked Bruce if he had been speeding (I had fallen asleep) and he said he'd been going about 80-85 in a 70 mph zone. So yeah, there was reason to worry, but Bruce said there was no way the cop could have known he was speeding because he was going in the opposite direction and there were no other cars around that he could have compared our speed with. Anyway, we waited with sweaty palms and the officer asked where we were going, where Bruce had gotten the car (okay, so two 20 somethingers do look kind of odd in a champagne colored Towncar normally driven by those of an older distinction) and Bruce said it was his parents but they had just gotten it from his grandfather in NY the week before and that's why the plates/tags were still NY tags. He asked Bruce to get out of the car and go to the back with him. I was thinking he was going to get searched or something, but a few minutes later, Bruce came back and we were on our way. Apparently he just wanted to ask a couple more questions and that was that... Odd. Kind of just random. Maybe one of those random police checks, though I had never been involved in one before. But it was cool. We saw the cop driving actually under the speed limit by us when we pulled out behind a van. We wondered if he was going to pull the van over as well, though the van obviously wasn't going past the speed limit and lo and behold, a few minutes later the cop car pulls in front of us and behind the van and blue lights flash, end of story. It was an interesting ride to the airport to say the least.

Things went smoothing at the airport. Both my luggage were overweight, but I was only charged for one! Nice. The flight to Miami went by quickly, then at the Miami airport I walked about 12 min (according to the signs, though it felt much longer) to my terminal to wait for my flight to St. Kitts. Poor Vasco got jostled quite a lot during that walk and got a bit of motion sickness and threw up a bit. But after that he was just fine. He's a very good traveler. Slept the whole way pretty much to Grenada. In St. Kitts I changed flights to Liat and we flew to Antigua, where I got a connecting flight to St. Vincent then finally Grenada. I had a bit of trouble at St. Kitts with getting Vasco approved for travel in cabin, but there was a lady in line behind me who told the travel attendant at the desk that their website said it was allowed, so he allowed it. However when I tried to board the plane, the stewardess told me it wasn't allowed and Vasco had to be placed in his soft-sided carry-on into cargo. I was a bit worried, but they said that they'd secure him away from the rest of the cargo and since the flight was only 20-30 min, it would be too long. In Antigua, I learned my lesson and closed up all the ventilation flaps prior to boarding and pretty much bulled my way past the stewardess and stowed Vasco safely under the seat in front of me. The stewardess had more to worry about anyway since the flight had been overbooked. We had an unruly child aboard that cried, screamed, or whined the whole hour to St. Vincent, most of the 30 minutes we waited in the plane, then most of the 20 minute flight to Grenada. *sighs* I typically try to sleep on my flights because I know I'll be exhausted anyway and it gives me something to "do" so during the flight as I was dozing the little girl's screaming became one of those really annoying drones that you can't quite figure out why you're uncomfortable until you fully awake and your senses reattune to it. Dunno if I explained that clearly enough, but oh well.

Anywho, my new roomie Deann Ashby and a friend of hers came to pick me up from the airport. We got through customs without too much hassle and ended up not having to pay too much for the dogs, only 40EC each which is less than US $16. So that was cool. And so here I am... I'll update on my accommodations and hopefully put up some pics later.