How do people ever leave the Caribbean?!?

So basically Barbados is amazing. The last week or so has consisted of us spending days at different beautiful beaches, meeting tons of local people, eating delicious Bajan food, experiencing island nightlife and island culture. My favorite activity so far has been surfing. Yesterday we woke up early to take two buses($1 each!) to the east coast of the island, which is the less touristy, rougher Atlantic coast. We had heard about a surfing legend who lives over in Bathsheba, the surf capital of Barbados, who gives lessons. So we communicated with him about surf lessons and headed over there. The coast line on the east side is much different than the calm Caribbean sea. The coast was very rocky with lots of waves, not huge waves, but frequent waves, and much windier weather. Snake let us chill at his house for a bit while he prepared the surf boards. Also, Snake is a 60 year old Bajan man who is the last remaining surfer from his generation of local surfing legends. He has a mohawk of gray hair, wore red Ray Ban sunglasses and was missing a bunch of teeth! His other surfer instructor friend, Sammy D., came as well. So basically two of us went out at a time, so I was with Snake for the 45 mins-an hour that I surfed. I had surfed once before but didn't remember it at all. I stood up on my second try and pretty much every try after that. The sea was very rough and the waves were so constant that it made paddling out there really difficult. Despite it being hard and exhausting it was SO MUCH fun. I think I might try to go back next week again...

Other highlights so far have been the food - tons of seafood. We've eaten flying fish (the most popular local food), barracuda (caught one hour before we ate it), mahi mahi, tuna and marlin- sometimes fried, sometimes grilled and most of the times there is DELICIOUS local hot sauce available to eat with all the food here. We've also had phenomenal grilled jerk chicken, sweet potato mash, breadfruit mash and lots of coconuts! The beverage selection here is also awesome. The local Barbados beer is Banks, which is quite light and great when cold (also pretty cheap). You can get imported beer as well and they regularly have a few other Caribbean beers available, like Piton from St. Lucia. However, beer is definitely not the most popular drink here... rum is king. Mount Gay Rum is distilled here on the island and is everywhere. They have different kinds, older/aged/expensive and newer/cheaper. Rum punch is the most popular mixed drink and is served everywhere. I wasn't a huge rum fan in the first place, but rum punch changed all of that!

The beaches here are also phenomenal. All beaches are public so we can go to any beach on the island. Some are more touristy than others, of course, but we have been to some amazing beaches that I thought only existed on post-cards. There are lots of activities to do in the sea as well - swimming with sea turtles, snorkeling, fishing, jet-skiing, tubing, touring the island by boat, etc. Hopefully later this week we are going fishing with some guys who spear-fish here for a living. We won't actually dive with them, but will be able to see how they do it. The sun is hot - every day - so being able to be near the water is crucial. The swimming is so great because it's sandy bottoms and you can basically see everything through the greenish/blue water.

Classes have been interesting too. We are mixed in with Bajan students as well, so it has been really great to discuss sport, recreation, leisure, tourism and culture with the American as well as local perspective. Cricket dominates the sports world here, but we have also seen some soccer games going on as well as a sort of street tennis game in which players crouch down low over a (usually home-made) court that is about the size of two ping pong tables. They have rackets and hit the ball back and forth. Kinda cool... It is basically a mix between tennis and ping pong and bowling.

This upcoming weekend we are going to have local fish fry on Friday and Saturday night at a lime, which is the world here for party. The locals in our class have been great at setting us up with things to do and places to see here, so we are lucky to have that. It's hard to not be labeled and lumped in with all the other tourists on the island because clearly we are, but we are also getting a little different perspective on local culture because of our interactions with the other students and going to events with them. So far, Barbados is amazing - extremely easy to get everywhere, people are so friendly, the food is wonderful and the weather and beaches are beautiful. I think I might be addicted to island life already...