Tuesday December 18

Holy raining cats and dogs! The day started out just fine, I headed to town early to tour a villa that my sister is considering renting, to buy a fan and to have some breakfast. The villa was a disappointment, it’s a good thing I checked it out before they rented it. The girl who showed it to me offered to go with me to Courts to see if they had a fan. It’s a good thing she went with me because I never otherwise would have walked into that store thinking it was the right place. For those of you in Chicago, you know those furniture stores on Milwaukee Ave? Picture one of those, but primitive island style. I’m not sure if the bad taste is cultural or that it is inevitable because by the time anything makes it to this island it is outdated. Anyhow, we asked for a fan and thankfully they had one in the back room. 99EC (about $40). If it was 100 EC I could have gotten a free ham. I considered buying something else just because I love a bargain but decided against it.

I hear that the Bistro has good breakfast (I heard that about the Gingerbread too, remember?) so I tried it and ordered the French toast and some fresh passion fruit juice. When I ordered, the waitress responded with something that sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher saying something so I just nodded and smiled. Apparently she was telling me that they were out of French toast because when my food came, it was a plate of 2 very large hash browns. I asked her what happened to the French toast and again I got the Charlie Brown teacher thing so I just ate it. But I was charged for the French toast. Is it possible that in Bequia “French Toast” means “Greasy Crusty Hash Brown”? Huh. I’ll order it somewhere else and report back.

Then the rain started. And it never stopped. I did nothing all day and headed to the MacDowell’s for the party in the evening. Thank god I asked Raleigh to drive me because I was somewhat overserved. Don’t let the fact that they serve Heineken in small bottles here trick you into thinking that you can drink more of them. When Raleigh picked me up to drive me home he said “If you smell me, I just want to let you know that I had a drink, I was just at the lighting ceremony. But its OK”. Hey, even so, better him driving than me.

The lighting ceremonies are a big deal here, the villages compete every year for the best Christmas display and last night the judges from St. Vincent were here to see all the displays. We drove through 3 of them and they were all very impressive. The locals take so much pride in it and work so hard for weeks to make it perfect. For those of you who are coming we will definitely have to check them out. One of the best ones is in Mount Pleasant where we are staying. Can’t wait for you guys to get here!