Stay Left!

Hey everybody! Do I ever have an update for you....
Several posts ago I did a bit of foreshadowing by mentioning some upcoming 'adventures'. Well, by that I meant "I just bought a ticket to Anguilla but it's a secret!!!"
That's right, about 2 weeks ago my grandpa 'Keck' emailed and asked if I'd like to redeem my graduation present of one trip to Anguilla and surprise my mom on her vacation there. There are two things in this life that I will never turn down: ice cream and Anguilla. So on April 9 I packed up my sarongs and bikini and hopped a plane to the Carribean.
When I got there, Nana and Keck picked me up off the ferry from St. Maarten and rushed me to the villa. I promptly hid while Keck told my mom that he had me lined up on a video conference call on the computer. She came hurrying up stairs to 'chat' with me. Keck told her she needed to say my name really loudly to 'voice activate' the program. (Really Mom, who is that gullible?) So she started shouting my name at the screen when lo and behold, I jumped up behind her! Her reaction was priceless and very Cindy Lou like. There was a moment of totally disbelief followed by "What the HELL are you doing HERE??" Followed by much laughter on everyone's part. We spent the next few days lounging on the beach and brushing up on our mini golf skills with my Auntie Sherrie, cousins Anna (the waterbug) and Will (Mr. Hole-In-One) and of course Nana and Keck.
You may be wondering what StayLeft! is all about. Well in Anguilla, they drive on the 'wrong', that is to say left, side of the road. Sounds easy enough until you are on a tiny little gravel road with a huge truck coming at you. That is when every instinct in your body tells you to sharply swerve right, which would be bad. So came the tradition of the entire car yelling "Stay Left!" at every intersection and roundabout and stoplight and you get the idea. Anguilla's motto is in fact not "Stay Left!" but rather "Tranquility Wrapped In Blue" which I thought was particularly fitting on my last morning as I sat on the deck in my blue sarong and drank my (real) coffee while looking out at the ocean and St. Maarten. All in all, a fabulous vacation.

Now I'm back in Vina trying once again to settle in. I had my first little twinge of my version of homesickness today. Several factors all sort of ganged up at once and took me out at the knees. One being that I am no longer in Anguilla. The others were a compilation of sleep deprivation, the first Sawbill crewmember arriving at home (though I don't envy him the Mason Ordering he'll be doing), and the fact that I had my first huge test today. Carl had told me before I left home that he used to brush his teeth in Norway to ward off the bad days so I tried it out. My teeth felt great, but that test was still at 3:45 and it was still worth 33% of my grade and I still didn't speak/write fluent Spanish.
But I geared up anyway and headed out on my walk to school. Halfway there none other than Bob Marley popped up on my I-pod shuffle. 'Three Little Birds' was the song and I suddenly realized that this one test was not the end all be all of my academic career. Of course every little thing was gonna be alright! Sometimes I'm such a hippy I can hardly stand it. But, regardless, I have discovered what turns my mood around, exercise and a little Bob Marley!

Thankfully, I think the test went okay and the profe is pretty nice. He even cracked a joke at the beginning of the test saying that there was a new rule...you had to write your answers in Spanish. Everybody else laughed and I whipped out my 50 pound dictionary.

That's all the news for now, this weekend is shaping up to be a good one with birthday parties and BBQ's galore so more posts to come!

Paz y Amor desde Chile~
Clare

oh ps- pictures of Anguilla are posted on Photobucket. Just go to http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg297/ClareHansen/?special_track=nav_tab_album
The album is called Wrapped In Blue and the link is on the left-hand side of the page...you know the drill!