Tacky Cruisers

I know that we have only been here for a month now, but already I share the local's and resident's viewpoints on a very key issue here in the Cayman Islands: tacky tourists. Now I realize there are tacky tourists all over the world, but Georgetown is the haven for a special sort of tacky tourist, the tacky cruiser. No other tourist can dress up and act like a tacky cruiser. Every morning between 3000-12,000 tacky cruisers arrive off of their massive cruise ships, armed and ready to tack-ify the islands. Free blue reusable Princess Cruise Line bags in hand, swimwear covered by a loud sarong or ugly Bikini-body screen print T-shirt and sneakers with no socks (or sometimes socks pulled up to mid calf) they race from the port in search of the ever so cultural Senor Frogs or Hard Rock Cafe.
I can sympathize with the predicament facing cruisers. It is hard to bring everything on land, when you are not sure what your daily activities will include, but really, is hauling around a snorkel & fins, Costco size sunscreen, two 2 Litre bottles of water, sandals, sneakers, guidebook, audio mapquest and beach towels going to make your day any easier? And the other thing noone can figure out is the cruiser's love of all things shiny. Main street is lined with "duty-free" jewellery store after jewellery store. All of them carrying items shipped from the US or UK. Many cruisers spend their day wandering up and down the main street shopping for items they can find back home, complaining about the heat and hiding out in the air conditioned stores waiting to re-board.
Well, at the very least the tacky cruiser provides entertainment for the residents. The best time to watch them is at 3pm when they line the seawall waiting to embark. You can see them in their wet bathing suits, carrying Tortuga Liquor bags and fanning themselves with the brochures from the activities that they had intended to do before they got caught up in taking pictures beside the numerous life-size wooden pirates along main street. Chatting with their fellow cruisers they are excited to boast about all of the knowledge they now have about Cayman, and offer opinions about everything from the locals to the stingrays. On their charters back to their ships, the residents wave good-bye, smiling the whole time. The cruisers are certain they are being bid a warm farewell, but really, we are just glad to be able to finally walk down the streets without being asked if we can take their pictures and tell them where the pirate Big Black DIck is located.

PS- No offence to the classy cruisers out there! I do spot a few of you from time to time- keep up the standards!

Desperate Housewives

One of the things we miss the most about home is our friends. We left behind so many of you wonderful people, and that makes us a little sad! Sometimes I'll be out dancing and think about how it would be so much fun with Cheryl here, or I see people out sea kayaking and think of Melinda and Mat. The other day we were thinking about Darcy and how he definitely would have a blast here. All of our friends and family are never far from our minds.
That said, we have managed to meet some great new people. Blake works with people from all over the world. His office alone could put the UN headquarters to shame with its diversity. Want to go diving, ask a South African. Watch rugby? Talk to the British. Have copious amounts of beer on the Jolly Roger-that would be the Irish. Or how about where to find good surf? The Aussies know. So we are never far from a knowledgeable source, no matter what the query.
I am very thankful to have met some housewives of fellow KPMG employees, and together we have started spending the mornings together doing anything from beach walks and snorkelling to tennis and pool side tanning (logically, we tell the husbands we are cooking and cleaning). The boys have nicknamed us the "Desperate Housewives" but we know they are just jealous! Two of the girls, Correne and Kate, are from Australia, and we are all newly-weds in search of jobs. We have discovered that we have a lot in common, and our husbands get on so well together that we have quickly formed a little group of our own ( in fact, the other night all of the boys took off after the bar to go skinny dipping in the ocean at 2 a.m.- I thought it was supposed to be a co-ed sort of activity, but apparently I am wrong). We have also met a British girl, Nikki, whose boyfriend works at the firm. Together we make quite the fun foursome, and manage to whittle away the hours of the day quite quickly. Our little group has attracted quite the attention from many of the KPMG new starts, as I think our daily activities and lifestyle are quite sought after, but little do they know all the pain we go through each day agonizing over what job we will apply to next, how to cope on earnings of $0/day, which company offers the better health care plan, and of course, the merits of using pineapple juice over mango juice in a rum punch.. Ahhh, the trials of being a housewife.

Our apartment

Many of you have been asking about Blake's work, and what he has been doing. Well I have no idea, so you will have to wait until he makes an entry. Don't hold your breath.
In this entry though, I will tell you about the lovely little place that we have rented. We have been here for a little over the week, and already Louis has become a household name. He is our repair man, you see, and over the past week we have become quite close. First we bonded over the broken dishwasher that smelled like a combo of barbeque sauce and smoked salmon because the last tenants had left their dirty dishes to "season" for the past three weeks until we moved in. Once that was fixed we got to know each other better while he hauled out cigarette butts and quarters from the garbage disposal. The following day he returned so that we could both complain about my landlord's lack of cleanliness while he scraped hair and dust off our our air conditioning unit. However, it has been the last two visits that we have really clicked because his utter disbelief at the state of our appliances has led us to a whole new level of friendship. The first of the two visits he attempted to make our freezer actually freeze. He was unsuccessful, but his attempts did lead to the constant flooding of the floor from water leaking out of the underside of our smelly fridge. The second visit was actually a surprise, but that is fine, good friends can drop by whenever, and this time Louis ripped the ice maker from the freezer (leaving us iceless- a sin in the Caribbean) which successfully stopped the flooding, AND allowed the freezer to freeze its contents. When all was said and done with, I will miss Louis, but I do have him on speed dial. In fact, I think he kind of misses me too, because he called last evening just to make sure that all was good.
Appliance nightmare aside though, our place really is great. It is in a nice complex with three pools and three tennis courts, located on South Sound, just across the road from the ocean. Our little apartments has one bedroom, a bathroom and kitchen/living room area. Our favourite part is the paint job. Every room is its own unique Caribbean shade. A disastrous, yet loveable combination of Caribbean azule blue in the living area, Tequila sunrise yellow in the bathroom and a nice palm frond green in the bedroom. It always feels tropical no matter what level of A/C we have cranked, and that is exactly what we wanted in our first new place together. Maybe it is just the newly-wed factor, but we both do love our first home together and we really couldn't wish to be anywhere nicer (but we could wish for new appliances!)

On unsolid ground- Cayman Earthquake 2010!

On Tuesday morning we experienced our first earthquake. Or let me rephrase that, Blake experienced his first earthquake. I somehow managed to miss it. Blake was at work when he felt a tremor, like from construction, or a large object falling. It lasted only a second and he looked up at his coworker, wondering what had just happened. No sooner could they discuss the tremor when the whole office started shaking. Blake ran for the door jam, while his coworker threw himself under his desk. Others braced themselves by holding their desks. On other levels people were screaming, but thankfully Blake was calm. The quake lasted quite a few seconds, and by the time it stopped, there was no doubt in anyone's mind what had just happened. Seconds after the shaking, people evacuated the building, not wanting to stay around should it not be safe. The entire company, and all surrounding businesses waited outside to see if there would be any aftershocks. Thankfully there were none. It seems the whole island was taken by surprise. The quake registered at 5.8, which is considered a major earthquake and was 40Km off the coast.
As for me, well, I can tell you that the most seismically safe zone to be in during an earthquake is a tennis court. Some girls and I were out playing tennis when the quake hit, and it was not until our cell phones started going off that we realized we had just served and rallied our way through our first (and hopefully last) quake. Apparently we are the only people on the island who didn't know there was an earthquake!
Cayman survived the quake with no structural damage except a three metre sinkhole in a condominium not far from where we live. In the past days it has set about a strange atmosphere amongst the residents, no one wanting to glorify or talk about it much in the wake of Haiti's horrific disaster. Thinking about the differences between here and Haiti is quite sobering, considering we are the same distance away as Edmonton to Vancouver. We have heard that our quake was a delayed aftershock from Haiti's, but we have also heard that all the Caribbean plates are shifting. No matter the explanation, we count ourselves very lucky. In talking to my mom right after the quake, she asked if Blake and I had an earthquake plan. I had to laugh. We haven't even started thinking about a hurricane plan, let alone an earthquake plan!

Dinner with Maurice

Since we are illegally stealing internet from our neighbours (don't worry, we're getting our own next month) the signal is often quite weak. Last night I was on the internet trying to find a job-not trying too hard of course, while Blake was making a delicious spaghetti bolognese sauce on the stove. The signal seems stronger outside on our patio than inside, and after much frustration I decided to head out to finish my not so enthusiastic job search. I guess I forgot to tell Blake I was heading outside because a few minutes later he stepped onto the deck in a bit of a panic. He shut the door to keep the air conditioned apartment cooler. And that was the big mistake. Upon trying to reenter we realized we were locked out, in our socks, with no phone, no phone numbers and a boiling pot of sauce on the stove top. Have you ever felt like the stupidest person on the planet? Thats how we felt. Lucky for us, our downstairs neighbours were home and graciously lent us their phone, phone book and air conditioned apartment. They told us it would cost about $200 to get a locksmith out on a Sunday night ( remember, Sundays are the days of no work here). In a massive panic, and with vivid images of burning down our condo complex, we frantically tried to call our landlady and our rental estate agent, both who weren't home, or at least weren't inclined to answer the phone on a Sunday evening. Finally we bit the bullet and called the locksmith. He told us no worries, he was on his way and would be here in 90 minutes. Ha, by that time I knew we would be on all too friendly terms with the fire brigade, so we tried another company, and that is how we met Maurice. If you have ever watched The Lion King and remember the character of Rafiki, well this man is the human version. He giggled uncontrolably in a language one could assume might be english. His most coherent sentence being " I ain't ever seen any tinga lika dis before." After several minutes of trying- and several minutes watching steam come out of the pot in our kitchen, he picked up his hammer and slammed our doorknob right off the door, all the time laughing maniacally. However, the door still wouldn't open, so he had to jimmy what was left of the lock. When all was said and done, he only charged us $60 (never listen to the neighbours!) and came back today to install the knew knob I bought from the store. Gotta love the locals. Oh! And as for the spaghetti sauce, well that turned out perfectly simmered!

our new old jalopy!

We are now the proud new owners of a car! This brings the total to three cars we own, but this one is by far the most unique. Once, a long time ago, it was probably considered a sporty island car. Now it is most definitely considered a beater. It is a green (we think) 94 Honda Accord coupe, and to be fair, some parts of it are still in good shape. However over the past few days we have noticed some "interesting" features. For one, the cd/stereo system is possessed. It basically only works on one setting: ear splitting level. Try to turn it down and the volume goes up. Try to turn it up (reverse logic) and it still goes up. The automatic locks do only one thing: unlock the doors. You have to use the key to manually lock it, but the sneaky automatic lock sometimes unlocks it on you, so basically we can't leave anything of value in the car. The ABS light is permanently lit, the former owner told us it has been like that since he bought it. The clock randomly assigns different times every time you start the car, the front is missing the license plates because the bumper is dented and the tint is starting to peel off. There are some interesting Japanese features on this car as well- but don't ask us what they do-we can't understand them. Two new discoveries I made today include the screen that no longer indicates what type of air/fan setting you are on ( this is kind of fun though, because you just press buttons and see what type of air you get) and the sunroof starts vibrating super loudly at any speed over 40 miles/hour - that's 60Km you Canadians! Of course, the best part is the wheel on the right. I have a feeling I might fall in love with this peeling monstrosity- maybe it will replace Molly for the time being...

Address

Many of you have been asking for our address. Since there are only postal boxes here and there is a long waiting list for them, we will have to have all mail sent to KPMG. Please address it to Blake Schneider c/o KPMG (even if it is for Natalie)

P.O box 493
Century Yard, Cricket Square
Georgetown, Grand Cayman
KY1-1106
CI
If it is a postcard please put it into an envelope, because the HR department sees everything!

Conversions

When Wal-Mart Super Centre came to St. Albert I was one of those people completely baffled as to how to convert my produce and fruit purchases from $/kg to $/lb. In Bali I drove Blake crazy always asking him to convert the prices for me. Living on this island is giving me a sense of deja-vu. Conversions are not my strength.
We thought that moving to a British colony meant that the measurements would be metric, the degrees measured in celsius, and the primary language English. We were wrong, again. After a day of driving on the highway at 40kms/hour and probably pissing off everyone around us, we realized that the signs posted were in miles. That I can get used to. We had another surprise when we went to buy gas for the rental car. It too is measured in gallons instead of litres (which turned out to be a good thing since paying $3.89/litre was a scary thought). Another conversion is the currency. Most everything on the island is priced in Cayman Island dollars, which has a higher value than both Canadian and US, but downtown in the touristy area, all the prices are in US. I feel like I have to deal with three currencies every time I make a purchase! However, the hardest conversion of all is the temperature. I don't know who invented Fahrenheit (probably someone named Fahrenheit) but he is WRONG. It cannot possibly be freezing when a temperature is still above the 0 level mark. Everywhere we went last week people were remarking about the cold weather and how it was only 63 degrees on Sunday... I had no idea what that meant! So Blake and I finally sat down and pulled up a conversion chart on the internet and we have slowly been learning how to tell the temperature using fahrenheit. Apart from being a completely mind-boggling endeavour, I am most certain this will make me a hit with the over 50 age group back home who still use this backwards system!
The final and most unexpected conversion of all is the language. Most people on the island speak some form of English. By some form, I mean exactly that... a dialect. The South Africans are understandable until they are drunk, the Brits tend to talk to fast and use the word "literally" like it is going out of style. The Aussies probably win for the most coherent, while it will probably take you three minutes of conversation to realize that the Jamaicans were speaking in English the whole time.
I am giving you all fair warning: if we are crazy when we return home, the conversions made us this way... and the roosters.

Weekends

There seems to be a bit of a weekend routine on the island. We've only been here for two weekends and already a pattern has emerged. On Thursday it is after work drinks night. This Thursday we went to Legendz, which is an indoor sports bar on Seven Mile that could be from any city in the world. Quite unremarkable, but Blake thinks that he has hit the jackpot, being able to watch any NFL, NHL or soccer game that is on t.v. Friday is the go-hard night, like Saturdays used to be when we were younger. This Friday we headed out to Guy Harvey's. Guy Harvey is something like a legend on the island. He is the David Suzuki of Cayman with his own art gallery, souvenir shop, restaurant and television series. His restaurant is on the second floor on mainstreet, so you can sip a yummy Caribbean Pirate and look over the harbour. There is a lot of bar-hopping here too, so after happy hour drinks at Guy Harvey's we went over to rackem's ( don't ask me what the name means, I think it is British like most things on this island). Rackem's is a bar/restaurant built on stilts over the harbour. When you walk in you can see the massive tarpon in the water underneath (see photo). Because it gets dark here so early, by ten it feels like well past midnight, so Blake and I snuck out early and headed home. Saturdays are busiest day of the weekend. Firstly, you need to do any shopping for the week during the day. Cayman is an extremely religious island, so besides the 200+ churches, nothing is open on Sunday. All your chores need to be done on Saturday. After we had done the grocery shopping (or more accurately, shopping for anything that can be made in a microwave) we went to Margaritaville with some friends to have some drinks ride the waterslide and just relax. Saturday night is also kind of interesting, because all bars close at midnight, because technically, being open one minute past midnight would be considered working on the sabbath day. This Saturday we went to a going-away party for our friends from Edmonton, Kerri and Chris. We went to the Marriot's Beach Party, a big bash thrown on the sand with dancing and a bar on the beach! So much fun- and good cardio. Sunday is a nice relaxing day. We headed out to South Sound to check out our new place and then came back to the hotel to snorkel. Amazing fish can be seen just steps into the ocean. Now it is back to the work week-at least for Blake!

Driving on the "wrong" side of the road

Growing up in Canada, you never give much thought to how you drive. I always thought there were only two ways: the right side of the road, or the wrong side of the road. It turns out there is also the left side of the road. Unlike the rest of North America, Cayman decided to establish driving on the left side. Lucky us. Now hold that thought as I describe another unique phenomenon here.
One of the very first things we found out about Cayman is their love of round-abouts (a.k.a. traffic circle). No need for lights when you can put a round about at every intersection! Their round-abouts come in every size. There are three exit round abouts, four exit round abouts, round-abouts with decorative trees and advertisements in the middle and round abouts with seemingly no purpose. Soooo, combine the round-abouts with driving on the left side of the road (with our wheel on the left sided rental vehicle) and the constant swerving to miss the roosters, and you have one hell of a scary ride. Kind of like those black waterslides where you can't see which way you are turning. But today is a momentous one in my life, since I conquered the road this morning after taking Blake to work. I feel like I should be awarded some medal of bravery (I survived 3 rush hour round-abouts and came out unscathed) but there is noone here to celebrate with. I'm pretty certain the housekeeping wouldn't be all that impressed since they manage the same feat every morning but on a death-defying scooter. So I will just give myself a pat on the back and get back to trying to find us a car. I think we'll try for a right wheeled vehicle so I can master yet another new skill.

Home sweet home

Apartment hunting in a foreign country has proven to be much easier than we originally expected. Thanks to the affluence on the island, most places are in great shape, furnished by North American standards and close to town. We were warned that there would be sacrifices to make, either in location, furnishings or landlords, and that is pretty much what we found at each place. We saw some dives that had plaster falling off the walls, iguanas lounging on the walls and holes in the bathtubs, then we saw some places that had flats screen t.v's mounted above closets, bbq's that they landlords paid for and bought propane for, and trendy stone tiles washrooms. Thankfully our search is over, and we have settled on something in between. We hopefully ( because we haven't put the deposit in quite yet) will be moving into our South Sound apartment next week. It is right across the road from the turquoise Caribbean Sea and a minute's drive to a sandy beach. It is fully furnished with the necessary hurricane shutters, dishwasher, bedroom with access to the deck, a view of our apartment's pool and central bbq centre, and right beside the tennis courts. The only sacrifice we had to make was the traffic circle behind the apartment (oops..I should say "round-about") which can be a bit busy and the lack of a pull out couch, which means you will most likely be sleeping on the floor when you visit! All of this for the bargain basement price of $1200 Caymanian Dollars- the equivalent of about $1586 Canadian. So- we can't wait to show you all around when you come-but bring a sleeping bag!!!!

New Year New Beginnings

We are lucky to know a couple from Edmonton here in Cayman. She works for KPMG, but unfortunately will be leaving on Jan.13th. They were quick to invite us out for a New Year's Eve party on what is called "Public Beach." No New Year's party will ever compare to this one! You know the ideology surrounding New Year's Eve: the more planned it is, the less fun it is. Well this was a complete surprise and turned out to be amazingly fun! We headed to the beach for 10pm. Although it is considered a public beach it is very clean, has washrooms and wooden cabanas lining the sand. The beach itself is part of the renowned Seven Mile Stretch, known for its white sand and warm, calm water. The night was perfect with a little bit of a breeze. We hung out on the beach and drank our Coronas and Malibu mixes while fireworks were let off at ten minute intervals throughout the night. The bonus here is that you can see all of the fireworks along seven mile beach too. Public Beach is apparently the place to be, because we met quite a few new KPMG people, and even, randomly enough, the guy who had been sitting beside Blake on our flight down (I had copied from his immigration form...). There was lots of music, and someone started a raging pallet fire that burned so hot we all had to move away from it. After midnight Blake and I decided to head back to our hotel so we ended up walking the entire 3mile stretch, but who cares when it is 30 degrees and beautiful outside!