today was a "free day" with very little scheduled activities. i thought i would sleep in late but i woke up around 9:30a and did the usual... ate breakfast (a simple banana), took a shower, and listened to music. then, treena and i called up our social coordinator lavergne to get directions to the mall. jessica, shannon and i had one thing on our minds... the new harry potter film. i got the directions and began to get ready. we were a little concerned about our navigation skills though. this is still only our 2nd day in trinidad. luckily one of our professors, dr. turley called us up and said that she wanted to come to. so, we got dressed and dr. turley met us outside of our dorm.
now, even though we had directions, we still got a little bit lost. we caught a taxi-bus but it was going the wrong direction and we didn't find this out until a few minutes into the ride. even though we wasted a little money (just 3 TT$ a piece), i'm glad we caught that taxi-bus because the owner had the interior totally pimped out. i'm telling you, these taxi-buses are 1000% better than the ones in south africa. and on our way up the street, we saw a butt-naked man... who i think/hope was washing his butt... although, i didn't see any water. i did unfortunately see all his business.
the taxi-bus took us to an intersection where taxi-cars pick people up. the taxi-car thing is interesting to me because you really cannot tell the difference between a taxi-car and a regular car. taxi-bues are all white with red stripes on them. taxi-cars are plain cars.. some are nice. dr.turley told us that the way you can tell if a car is a taxi or not is by the driver. if the driver honks at you and then points in a direction (the direction he's going) than it's a taxi. it's still a little sketchy to me. but, our driver was cool. he didn't try to over charge us and took us directly there. people drive a little bit crazy here though. the traffic gets bumper to bumper and people drive so fast ... and weave back and forth in and out of the lanes. we got to the mall safely though and headed upstairs to the movie theater which was just like any movie theater you would see in the states in any mall. they were only playing american films. any american film that you could go see at the movie theater at home was there. and the line was super long. we were worried because we were working with a limited amount of time. we thought for sure that harry potter would be sold out and that we would be late for our planned dinner activity. but, as we got closer, i saw a sign that said that transformers was sold out for like.. the entire day. and i figured that everyone was there to see transformers, not harry p. i was right. by the time we got to the window, it was like 1:55... harry potter started at 1:30pm, but there were still tickets available. we bought them and tried to get in to see the film, but jessica and dr. turley got caught with their cameras in their purses and had to sign them in and leave them with the workers. it was such a hassle but when we finally got into the theater, the film hadn't even started yet. we sat through the "captain america" preview and then the movie began. PERFECT TIMING. and the film was great! amazing! it was really good. usually i feel embarrassed about liking harry potter, but i can't be ashamed for liking that film. it was really good. the whole franchise is the perfect story. i was blown away.
afterwards, we spent 30 minutes in the mall because jessica and shannon had a few quick errands to run (side note: i forgot to get some milk!). while we were there, we caught a group of children playing steel drums. they were great. apparently they were trying to raise money for their trip to washington d.c.
when we got back, i was starving and tired. i made a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich and took a quick nap. some of the students were under the impression that we were going to be met by our coordinators at 5pm... lavergne told me 6pm though... and then kenyen told dr.turley 6:15pm. they didn't get here until between 6:30pm and 6:45pm. smh.
after they finally arrived, we got on our taxi-bus and took a tour of st. augustine and neighboring towns. after our tour, we went to st.james. i'm still not sure if that's just the name of the street or of the town we were in, but it was liming time! liming means chilling or hanging out. you can drink alcohol on the streets here so there's all these bars that play music... and they're open, with no divider between the outside and indoors... so basically there's a big party outside on the sidewalks and streets. the sidewalks are filled with people trying to sell whatever they can make too. while most of our group opted for rotti for dinner, which is some kind of tortilla filled with curry stewed meat and veggies, shannon and i went a little further down the street and got a "double." it was so freakin' delicious! a double is some kind of tortilla filled with chick peas and some kind of sauce all wrapped in wax paper and put in a little paper bag. it's really messy but very savory and very spicy. and and and... it was only 4 TT$. lol. it was very spicy even though i had gotten the mild option (when they ask you how much peppers you want on it, if you don't want diarrhea, as dr. turly warned me, you say "slight"). coupled with a beer, it was very filling, but the social coordinator told me that usually people eat two or more of them. i still can't get over how good it was.
another vendor was selling homemade ice-cream. i couldn't resist since ice-cream is like my #3 favorite food (#2, potatoes.. #1 cereal!). although he had many flavors i'm used to, i had to try the guinness beer ice-cream. it was actually quite good. it had the flavor of butter pecan but with the after taste of beer. we limed for an hour or two and then headed back to the dorms. tomorrow we have to get up bright and early for a trip to the beach... so "good night."
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