Today we were back to the routine. I slept well last night except for some really good rain storms that woke us up. Damn metal roof! The neighbors have a couple of dogs I'd like to shoot. I'm not normally a 'cruel to animals' person, but serioulsy. These dogs barked all freakin night! I was up by 8:30 and did a few loads of laundry while Liem worked. Then we needed to tackle breakfast. We don't have the same variety we do at home so everyone is getting tired of pancakes, cereal, french toast, etc. Today I made Cohen a Denver Omlet and made myself a scrambled egg sandwich. Not sure what the other two had, but they ate. ;) They were up before me anyway.
Our breakfast was late enough today that we decided to skip lunch. Liem and I wanted to go out and explore the last quadrant of the island, above St. John's. The kids wanted to stay home. We decided to go ahead and leave them here. The island is a safe place overall. We live in a fenced and gated commumity with just our house and the neighbor house, which is currently vacant (someone comes this Saturday). To top it off, we have antiguan sim cards in our phones so we have local cell phones. We left one with Hayley.
Liem and I went off on our own for a few hours and explored the Dickenson's Bay area. Once up there, we realized that we had acutally gone to one of the beaches there once before. We also saw Runaway Beach. The beaches were nice but the water was a deep turquoise color...amazing. Almost as if someone dumped dye in the water. Crazy blue. We opted not to swim as the weather was off and on today.
Our next stop was back to the Epicuran (thank god I don't shop this much at home!) to pick up a few more items. Eggs, bread, milk, and of course stuff we didn't need either. We needed a little more variety here too for food so we picked up some more ingredients to expand our horizons a little. When we left the store, it was dumping rain. Storms here are so interesting! By the time we were home, it was sunny again. We also stopped at Bailey's to get some coke made with sugar (as opposed to corn syrup). We did a few price comparisons since we had just been in the Epicurean and low and behold, Baileys was more!! They are the local's grocer too! It must be because we're in English Harbour. All the yachties drive the prices up on this side of the island.
I was so hungry when I got home, I started dinner right away. Tonight was pork loin. It was really good, in fact, I plan to make it again at home. It was a pork loin roast baked with bacon strips on top of it. Then there was this sauce. It was supposed to be tomato sauce, vinegar, onions, sweet relish, parsley and sugar. I had to use what I had, so it was spaghetti sauce instead of tomato sauce and no parsley. We all really enjoyed it. We had mashed potatoes and fresh green beans too. There was a salad as well, but again, it was a bitter lettuce. We have had no luck with lettuce here. For dessert we baked some brownies.
Tomorrow I expect we will head to Ffreyes again. One of the kids favorite beaches. We've seen all the beaches with road access at this point. Most of them up by Dickensons are resort beaches...Sandals, etc. Not our thing. Our favorites are along the Southwest side of the Island with the exceptions being Half Moon Bay and Royal Palms Beach.
Still haven't gotten to know many locals. Liem and I need to go out at night and just visit with them. The Arastafarian family that runs the fruit stand at the bottom of our hill all know us now. They said we are their "best customers". LOL! Their prices are really fair and they are so darn convenient!
We're going to book a flight to Barbuda for Saturday. It's Antigua's sister island. The waters are supposed to be amazingly clear and the snorkeling outstanding. Darn website errored out on both my tries tonight. Maybe its a good thing...I should probably check the weather. =)
I'm also trying to talk Liem into joining a Troupe for Jouvert. Jourvet is an adult event that happens the Monday after the big Carnival parade. You go to St. John's at 4am and you join a troupe (either officially with the tshirt, water bottle, etc) or unofficially and follow them around the streets "jumpin' and jammin". Troupe's choose their favorite band or radio station and follow that vehicle through the streets. The vehicle has speakers stacked and tied on probably 10 feet high, blaring the music of that band or station. Blue paint can also be thrown onto the crowd. We went a few years ago...no paint was thrown on us, but we just kind of wandered. We hadn't understood the concept before going.
Well, that's it for now. Watching some lame reality tv shows, heheheh.
