Camille, this picture is for you. I am sitting next to George Washington in his house in Barbados. George came to Barbados when he was 17 with his brother Lawrence who had TB and thought the tropical climate could cure him...it did not. Anyway, George came out and lived here for a couple of years and Barbados is the only place outside the U.S. that our First President ever traveled to. When you sit down next to him, he starts to read to you from his journal. It was very startling at first, kinda freaky actually, but entertaining at the same time. From DC to Barbados, you have to love George!
HIV/AIDS campaigns are everywhere and Brady thought this picture was particularly amusing. Just in case you can't read the sign it says, "We protect, we serve, we defend, we use condoms" -Barbados Defense Force. I'm not totally sure the correlation, but I won't argue if it's effective. Again, public health at its finest.
This is Brady and me aboard "Cool Runnings" a catamaran sailing boat. This was probably the highlight of the week where we spent 5 hours sailing in the Caribbean, snorkeling with sea turtles and colorful fish, swimming in the sea, and enjoying a wonderful buffet lunch. A word of caution--no matter how tan you think you are, spf 8 is not enough! Even though I'm living in the Caribbean, I still need to remind myself that I am a white girl with very fair skin!
We also took a tour of the island, walked through a tropical gulley, saw huge milipedes and slugs, hung out at the beach, and ate tons of fish (and yes, I did think about mercury as I enjoyed king fish, swordfish, dolphin (not flipper), marlin, and flying fish, but I think I'll be ok with one week of a fish diet. I'd put more pictures up of the other parts of the island, but Brady has all those pics, so I will have to get them later. In one day I stood in 2 different seas: the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Barbados is definitely beautiful, but in all its glory, I'm actually anxious to come home--shocker.
Thanks for the picture of you and George. I'm glad he got to experience Barbados. I just hope he didn't get as sunburned as you! I hope you heal up soon and that you don't have any residual effects from all the mercury!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you and Brady had fun together too. I'm jealous of all of your tropical adventures.
I'm excited for the cohort to be back together again, but I have to say I'm not anxious to leave Maryland quite yet. But I'm sure the time to leave will come all too soon! Miss you!
funny: you're begging to stay and i'm counting the days til i leave. funny how that works out.
ReplyDeleteHa! I was thinking about that that Mercury class just last week when I had to go work on the coast...I asked the locals what their traditional meals were, and fish was included in every meal, including breakfast and snacks. Hmm. Then I wondered if fresh-water fish had more problems from the garbage study that we read, then I remembered that tuna are ocean fish... I went quite the rounds in my head thinking about the diet of thousands of people on the coast and how to collect a proper hair sample for a good study. It was kind of weird.
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