Making up for lost time....

I have been able to spend a bit of time with Rebecca this week. She is quite delightful to hang out with. I think I have taken about 350 photos of her so far. To be successful, she will need to learn the ways of the world. I will be her teacher. She is a quick learner.

B.

What is up with this?

It is April 29th.....and this is what I woke up to...I am definitely not in Trinidad anymore!

I am in Calgary for meetings and it snowed overnight......BUT I also woke up to spend some time with this person.....Rebecca, my granddaughter who I met for the first time this week!

Pretty cool.

B.

Car wash

It has been a very dry - dry season here. Ninety days without rain.
Last week, I got a taste of what the rainy season will be like......we also found out that our parking lot is the low spot in the area. In the future, I need to take the parking spot closest to the office door or I will need to get some rubber boots....or my golf umbrella could get a lot of exercise in the coming wet season...which isnt supposed to start for a couple of months.

This was just a spring shower.
B.

Eye in the sky

There is an election scheduled here in Trinidad for May 24th. The ruling party has been doling out some treats lately. I don't think I have seen so many road paving crews in my life as there are at the moment. They do a pretty good job.
There is also a push to step up the fight against crime. We have seen the Security dirigible cruising around a lot lately. Rumor has it the the cameras on board don't work but it looks good puttering around even if it doesn't have a Snoopy painted on the side.

B.

Meet the Bar Manager

Please meet our Bar Manager......or let me re-introduce him.
He held vigil over the bar at our apartment in Buenos Aires and he has now re-surfaced here in Port of Spain....ok, he got new batteries!

We had friends over for a BBQ and to watch the Senators/Penguins hockey game and he was lit up all night....kinda like the goal light behind the Senators' goalie!

Fun night and it was great to see a hockey game again.

B.

Memories of home....I think

I am learning more about Canada while we are down here.....like the fact that Canadians use Gotu Kola in salads. I have never even heard of Gotu Kola!

B.

Happy Easter!

Easter Sunday started out with a beautiful sunrise Easter service just across the river from the apartment. For the past week, there have been people selling kites at intersections all over the island. It turns out that here, Easter Sunday is a big kite flying day.

We went out to the Queen's Park Savannah this afternoon to see the kites. It was great. When we got there, there were already a couple of hundred kites in the air. Little kites and some very big ones.

It was a real family affair with both young....and old flying kites.

We did find evidence of penguins here on this Caribbean island. They were safely tethered to the ground.

B.

In hot water!

We have been watching some renos going on at a house across the street from the apartment. They are adding a bunch of square footage and a new swimming pool. The pool has just become the talk of the island.
We woke up Good Friday morning with the neighbor's house plastered all over the front page of the paper.
The country is in a severe drought. It has been a very dry dry season. WASA, the national agency responsible for all drinking water supplies is scrambling to keep up with producing drinking water while the country's reservoirs are slowly running out of water....and it hasnt rained in 75 days.

So when a WASA water truck showed up in the middle of the night to fill up the swimming pool with drinking water, it caught the eye of one of our neighbors who passed the information along to a Guardian reporter and voila - front page news.

The most interesting part of the story is that the renovations are being completed on the house so the new president of WASA can move into it.

He hasn't started his new job yet but when the renos are done, he might have the whole country coming over for a swim!

B.

It may be a small island....

...but you can find beers from all over the world.

Even Quilmes from Argentina. B.

St. Patrick's Day

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day at J. Malone's Pub here in Port of Spain, Trinidad. There was some green beer, shepherds pie......some really big leprechauns.....who dont like their picture taken!

There was some great Irish tunes played by a band down here from New York....

Even Mimi enjoyed the beer......two at a time.

Actually, it was how we collected our souvenir beer glasses.

The leprechauns did get carried away. Even proudly flying their Irish flags. This would be Morris, from Belfast who proudly cuts loose at this event every year.

This would be our friend Ernie, making sure that his Ferrari was ok in the parking lot. Notice he has his collector beer glasses in his left hand. The real owner of the Ferrari was keeping an eye on us....making sure we didnt spill green beer on his red car.

B.