the adventure continues

First things first: i have a telephone and it doesn't count against my minutes when i receive international calls. So, if you have a decent international calling plan, or just think i might be worth splurging some time, CALL ME!!: 011.262.692.09.03.68.

All right...now, my promised impressions of the island:

1) It's beautiful. Like, beautiful. You stand on a street corner here in St. Denis and in two directions you see green mountains rising above you and in two directions you see the road sloping down to a sparkling ocean. There are flowers everywhere...bouganvilla and hibiscus and oleander and dozens that i can't name. So yeah, it's kinda amazing...pictures to come once i've found a way to connect to the internet with my own computer.

2) Globalization happens. The central shopping area in St. Denis is kinda like if the central shopping areas in Bangalore and Paris had a tropical love child. Apparently, 6 years ago the Western stores weren't here, but they've moved in with a vengeance. St. Denis has Lacoste, L'Occitane, Mango (an upscale Spanish clothing chain...kinda like Europe's edgier answer to the Banana Republic), and even a branch of Fauchon (Parisien gourmet supermarket). And, to my great chagrin, there are 6, count them, SIX McDonalds on the island. Sigh.

3) People are ridiculously nice. When i met with some of the other assistants, almost everyone had a story like mine about un reunionais who had helped them in a similar way. Maybe it's the fact that there isn't a huge amount of tourism, so dumb tourists are a novelty rather than a regular annoyance, but i've never heard of a place where the populace in general was so willing to be kind and helpful to lost american idiots.

So yeah, those have been the most striking things so far. What have i done?

Well, friday i met some of the other assistants here in St. Denis...everyone seems quite nice and i'm looking forward to getting to know them better.

Saturday i took the bus down to the south of the island (two hours each way) for a picnic with a bunch of English teachers and assistants in the South, and that's where I met my potential new roommate...her name's Vanessa Lea, she's from Tasmania, she's a vegetarian, and she seems very nice. Now if we could just find a place to live...

Sunday i took a walk in the morning, and bought a fruit salad (chopped pineapple and something i thought was avocado that wasn't, with salt and chilis) from a vendor and an orange brioche from a boulangerie and ate breakfast by the seaside, and then i had planned to go home and spend the day reading...and a little while after i got home was surprised with a new French roommate, Marjorie, from Lille, who doesn't speak any English and so provides a very good opportunity to practice my french (or make a complete fool of myself, but let's look on the bright side).

Today i discovered that there's nowhere on the island where one can exchange american travelers checks, then discovered that pretty much every two bedroom apartment in the city where we want to live was rented in between Thursday, when the classified ads came out, and today, when i called them. But there are two four bedrooms that sound nice, and there are two other girls, bridget and kyra, who might rent with us, so let's hope it all works out...

love/miss y'all