Picking Food Up Off The Floor

Having a Lovely Time

After 10 years of marriage and 2 boys, Mike and I decided we needed a vacation, meaning nothing else to do but sit and relax. No conferences, no travelling, just relaxing. We left the boys with their grandparents, so no crying, no fighting, no getting up in the middle of the night either. Our destination of choice…Barbados. We’re staying in an apartment (bedroom, kitchen, dining area) at the Bellairs Research Centre, owned by McGill University (I’ve included a picture I took of the entrance to the facility, from our apartment). It’s a super neat place with lots of local culture. It’s been wonderful so far. Yesterday we went snorkelling. At first I thought it was just okay, interesting coral (which totally freaked me out at the thought of getting too close and touching it), and some fish. And then a giant school of thousands (no joking) of Bermuda Chubs swam right past us. We actually had to stop and wait for them all to pass! It was so amazing! We also saw what we think is a Sand Diver (a kind of lizardfish), hiding in the reef, a bizarre animal I must say. Then for dinner we walked across the street to Groots. Mike had Chicken Curry and I had Minced Meat Pie. It was really yummy. Sorry Con, I didn’t get any pictures of it! But I did get a picture of our lunch which was pizza with corn on it! It was yummy too.

We planned to sleep in this morning, but I was so tired last night that I went to bed at 10pm. I woke up at 8am. BUT no one woke me up, which is extremely important. The birds were chirping and a few kids were playing at the park next door. I took some pictures, we had a little breakfast from the Bellairs kitchen, then went back out for some more snorkelling. Thanks Dan, for the equipment, it’s so nice to just walk out to the reef whenever we want. Here’s what we saw today that we were able to identify:

• A school of Blue Tang (see picture; This was not taken by us, but looks exactly like what we saw)
• French Grunt
• Stoplight Parrotfish, both male and female (they are different colors)
• Bluehead Wrasse
• Bermuda Chub (this one follows us all over the reef, he’s now my friend)

This afternoon we took a walk, stopped at a bar on the beach for drinks and samosas and walked back along the beach. We took pictures of the oldest church in Barbados and are hoping to go there for church Sunday morning before we leave. For dinner we ate at the Bellairs. They have a cook who cooks Bajan food for the guests during the week (note: there are several students doing research here long-term, and almost every week there is a group of scientist here having workshops, we’re the only ones totally vacationing). We had macaroni pie (liked baked macaroni & cheese), potatoes, rice, salad, vegetables, and some kind of fish. The fish was so good! It tasted a little bit like and had the texture of pork. Yummy! More adventures await us tomorrow!

Posted under: Vacation