A lazy Sunday and the first day of classes

Since Saturday was so busy and today was the first day of classes, Ryan and I decided to have a nice, lazy, relaxing day yesterday. We slept in as long as possible (which isn't easy because the sun rises so early that our bedroom is completely lit up by 6:30) and then got up and had bannana pancakes for breakfast. The fruit here is amazing! After breakfast we played rummy and phase ten for a bit. Having all the games here is wonderful. We tried bananagram the other day and it was a lot of fun. In fact we've played pretty much all the games and we've had people over a few times. I don't know anyone else who brought games, and I am very glad we did.

We had a wonderful lunch that Ryan made for us, of ingredients he just found around. Boiled chicken with sauteed onion in noodles with seasoning, margarine, and tomato. It was GREAT, and very filling. 

After lunch we FINALLY had time to try out the kite Emily, Dan, and Becca gave us for a wedding present. We can't fly it on 'our' beach because it is so narrow and lined with power line and palm trees. Maybe later, when we are better at controlling it... but not now. I did bring it on the island tour with me, but we weren't sure how long it took to take out and put away and since we had a limited time at each spot, we didn't want to hold anyone up.

But yesterday was finally the day. We had to wait for a few showers to pass (as always) and then we headed to a field used for intramural sports. I wish we had a video of us trying to fly this kite... you'd have thought that two smart people would have figured out which direction the wind was coming from much more quickly than we did. But we had a lot of fun laughing and teasing each other, and I'm sure we were a funny sight. We'd cheer loudly whenever the kite took flight... and then groan when it hit the ground again. But we FINALLY figured out where the wind was coming from and got a few minutes of wonderful flight in... before the wind died. Honestly, it's windy every other day and then we try to fly the kite... and the wind goes all gusty. But we did both fly it several times, enough to start to get a feel for it and to try a few tricks. It's hard to do a trick when the wind drops and the kite nosedives in the middle of a loop... but we'll get the hang of it and now we know how to assemble it and use it so we're all set. As I said, we don't have a video, but I do have these photos.

SUCCESS AT LAST!

And down again...

When the wind finally quit completely on us, we went home to change quickly and then hit the beach. We did have a bit of surprise on our walk down- we came upon a man who'd just slaughtered a bull on the path to the beach. Luckily we're both pretty calm people and neither of us freaked out. It was one of the island cows that wanders around the town unrestrained. It was a bit of a shock though, definitely NOT what we were expecting to find on our way to the beach!

We had a lovely 'sea bath' (as the islanders call it) and saw a few Ross students rent out a catamaran and attempt to sail off in it... they did fairly well once they got well out into the bay. Close to shore they had the same issue we did with the kite- lack of wind. Ryan and I will definitely rent a hobie cat one of these days... and I really want to rent kayacks and take them around the point to Secret Beach (which isn't really a secret, but has amazing snorkeling and is only accessible from the sea). 

There was a short (about an hour) power outage last night, but it wasn't too bad. We cooked dinner by candlelight, and then had our neighbor Alicia over for a few hands of cards. All in all, not a bad day at all.