Orietation and Sad Days

Orientation will be over tomorrow. It was supposed to be a free day, but we had to rearrange due to the potential arrival of Fiona, who never saw land here. We are expecting Gaston to make landfall as a category 2 or greater hurricane sometime next week, so we'll see if the first week of class includes a few hurricane days. For an island that rarely sees hurricanes (nearly 10 years since the last one), there suddenly are a lot of them.

My mom left me on Wednesday, which was sad. She was glad to be out of here though and get back to everything at home. Fortunately, Fiona held off and she was able to fly out as scheduled. I'm not quite homesick yet, but that may be because this feels so much like a vacation right now. When Mom left, I called my dad and found out that my grandma was at the emergency room and not doing well. Unfortunately, not long after my mom got home, my grandma passed away. I'm not going to make it home for the funeral, but I know Grandma won't have any more of the pain she's had the past few months. It's just hard being so far away and being without any family to deal with this, but I'm managing.

It has been helpful that we've been busy. Orientation has been going on this week and today we had a tour of the island, including a few hours at the Brimstone Hill fortress, stopping at Thomas Jefferson's ancestors' estate where they now do batik demos, and seeing the lava rocks in the ocean. I have lots of pictures, but still little time to post them.

Tomorrow, I will hopefully be test driving a car and hopefully liking it enough to buy it. It's going to be weird to have my first left side of the road driving experience, but I already have my driver's license for the island. Tomorrow also ends orientation, besides our catamaran boat trip and snorkeling on Saturday. Classes start Monday, so I have some preparing to do for that. Maybe then this will feel less like a vacation.