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Where do I see myself one year from now?

I see myself enjoying the finnish summer.

If you would have asked me yesterday the answer would have been different. The answer might be different tomorrow. But to my surprise this is the answer today.

Grand Anse Beach

This is what the beach looks like :)

This is what the Beach looks like in LaSagesse

I wouldn't recommend having the sounds on as it was very windy day :)

Grenadian Night at True Blue Bay

We went to True Blue Bay resort at eight (pm). There were already the Steel pan band playing music. I was a bit dissapointed that they only played cover songs and not any original local music. It was supposed to be a grenadian night ;)

For starter we took Callaloo soup. Which spite the ugly colour is pretty tasteful. So I do recommend it. (Sonja recommended it to me, so I knew that it would be eatable.) For main course we both had Coconut curry with vegetables. It was a bit hot/spicy, but we were able to eat it all.

For the dessert Susan took Choclate mousse and coffee, I took apple pie with nutmeg icecream and tea. We got the eatable dessert pretty fast... But the coffee and the tea took their sweet time to arrive. My apple pie tasted very good, but Susan's choclate mousse tasted a bit plastic. Probably because it was in plastic-thingy.

All in all the food was excellent, music nice and company very nice. The evening could have been a bit longer as the band only played for 1,5 hours. There were no music after they stopped. Also I would have expected something more. No it was just a dinner with steel pan music.

Where have I been and where I want to go...

Crab racing at Flamboyant

It sounds like a good event... So we decided to go and see what it was really like. We wanted to eat first so we went there few hours earlier. As it happens we were a bit too early there. The waiter asked us to join their happy hour with the hotel guests :)

Almost all of the hotel guests were americans and they were exited to meet couple of finns. We actually took some pictures together :)) Long story short we talked a lot and almost forgot to eat :) When we went to our table, we saw that one of the americans (who was here on business trip, hence alone) sitting alone. We asked him to join our table. It is not nice to sit alone in a restaurant.

The Crab race started at nine. In the race the crabs were put inside a circle and then we could bet which one would be first out and which one last out. In one race we could name the crabs and one of the americans named his crabs after us :)) We didn't win (the carb named after us or our crabs).

After the race Susan wanted to continue our night to Bananas with Chris (the lonely american) and Tom (the local driver). I wasn't so exited about it, but there is no way I would let her go by herself at the night time. So we all ended up going to the Bananas. I wasn't surprised to see no one at the bar. It was very slow night, but Chris and Susan enjoyed the night.

Susan promised to go with Cris and Tom to a day trip the next day and to Fish market on friday (with other tourists and Tom). Let me just say that when the morning came, she stayed here ;) It was a bit ruff night...

Friday: Coming home!

Friday morning our ride back to the airport came. The ride took again about an hour :) At the airport we didn't receive much help. We were just told to wait for awhile. Then Susan tried to change bolivars to USD at money exchange. They said that they wouldn't change and that it would be possible only in the bank.

None of the stores were open and we had to wait a long time in the airport. Luckily there weren't that many people waiting so we had space to walk around. Finally in the airplaine we had a good crew who knew what to do and when.

Most trouble I got was in Grenada, when I went through immigration. I have to say that I missed Finland at that time very much. Luckily I got in without extra trouble. Peter was waiting for us, so no waiting needed in this end :)

Now you know what was our trip like to Isla de Margarita. I would rate the trip as 8/10. The lost points came from the moldy room mainly and because of language problems. The Hover Tours was excellent as well as both our trips.

Thursday: Shopping again!

We hadn't made any plans for the thursday. So we decided to go shopping again. First we went to 4 de mayo street, which was supposed to be a big shopping street. It indeed was a shopping street, but due to the burned back I didn't enjoy being outdoors.

Susan didn't like it either so we decided to continue our way back to Sambil. Sambil is a huge shopping center with a/c. We walked around and shopped some more. We ate lunch at some ranch place number 2. The waiter was amazed by Susan's eyes and was making excuses to come to our table.

We noticed that some people thought that Susan was a movie star or something like that. People stared where ever we went... None the less we had a nice shopping trip and found nice clothes ans shoes.

Wednesday: Katamaran trip to Isla de Coche

Wednesday morning we woke up earlier than planned as our ride arrived earlier. Luckily we got the message about it very late the previous night. It took as an hour to get to the marina, where the katamaran left.

The whole day was very sunny and I bet you can imagine what happend to me. I got burned pretty bad... But now I am getting ahead. Lets go back a bit.

In the katamaran there were spanish speaking, german speaking and english speaking tourists. Susan and I were the only english speaking ones :)) We put a lot of sunlotion on and just laid down to get as much sun as possible.

After few hours sailing we stopped for snorkling. The water was so cold that there was no way that I would go swimming. But few daredevils went to the ocean. Susan and I walked around and Susan also jumped around :) During the trip we got free drinks and snacks.

After affiving to Coche we had about an hour to enjoy the beach before lunch. And depending how fast we ate, almost two hours after lunch. The beach was full of white sand. There weren't very many other tourists there so all the sales persons were trying to sell us something.

The ocean felt cold at first, but after a while it wasn't so cold. So we swam couple of times before leaveing the island. Susan got stung by jellyfish while we were swimming. We did not see any jellyfishes there but the katamarans crew new what it had been. The burning was really bad at first, but there is nothing a cold beer won't cure.

On our way back the ride was a bit ruff and we got all wet... The whole day was really nice, expect the sun burn and jellyfish sting.

Tuesday: Jeep Safari

Tuesday morning we ate breakfast and went out to wait our ride. We didn't have to wait for long. In the jeep was already four other tourist (probably from Argentina or Venezuela). We sat next to the door and tried to understand what people were saying. Our driver didn't speak much english nor did the other tourists.

First we went to a place close by, where all the other cars would come as well. There were souvenier shops there, but we didn't see the point to buy stuff now and carry them around the whole day. So we didn't buy anything from there.

Next stop was at a fortress, which was pretty old. I mean older than what I have seen before (I think). The view was amazing. You could see really far away, but I think that was the point of having the fortress there. There we also heard the plan for the trip in english. Which was nice and turned out to be almost the last english that we heard the whole day.

Then we travelled to a "spiritual capital" where there was a big church and lots of small souvenier stores. The sun was very hot and luckily we continued our trip soon after the stop. Again we listened to a music which was too loud for our taste and which from we understood nothing.

We went to a boat trip. We saw a sea star (or what ever they are called ;)) and raced the other boats. We stopped to eat lunch at a beach restaurant. Sadly we didn't stay there to swim, but coninued to another beach.

We took a lot of pictures and I have already shared some in kuvaboxi ;)

Monday: Shopping at Sambil

Our trip was organized by Hover Tours. On monday morning a guy from there came to tell us what we could do and where we can go if we want to go shopping. His name was Edward and he was a bit surprised to see two white faces as he was expecting two grenadians. :))

He recommended us a jeep safari aroung the island and then either go to snorkling/scuba diving or to katamaran trip where there also was possibility for snorkling. We decided to take the jeep safari next day and the katamaran trip the day after tomorrow.

As we were interested to see the shopping opportunities Edward took us to Sambil shopping center which is located near Porlamar. It took us a bit over half hours to get there. Sambil is very big (but not huge) and you can find almost anything from there. The only thing we weren't able to find was a decent tourist/souvenier shop.

We ate lunch at Hard Rock Cafe (!) which had been there for few years. Apparently they had sold T-shirst with "Margarita Hard Rock" almost ten years before the restaurant even came to the island.

I have to say that the shops there were as expensive as in Finland. And these shops were supposed to be tax free! There were nice clothes there, but most of them were pretty small. Even Susan said that her normal size is not good there.

Before sun set we took taxi ride back to our hotel. The driver didn't know were our hotel were, neither did we... Luckily he just asked directions from few guys next to the road and we were able to get to the hotel.

At the hotel we were shown few new rooms, as we didn't want to sleep in the current room anymore. It was too moldy. We found a better room upstairs, but only with one bed. But as we are finns we didn't see it as a big problem. As long as we had a room where we could breath, we were okey.

Sunday: traveling to Margarita

It is supposed to be raining the whole week in Margarita. Sun is shining in Grenada when we leave to the airport. We go through immigration pretty fast. Don't have to wait in lines at all.

We go to fairly small Conviasa plain. The flight was okey, but the flight attendants didn't quite know what they were supposed to be doing. There were too few forms for immigration (to enter the country) and they started giving them just before landing. We got only the H1N1 flu form.

In immigration we got the right paper and after filling it were able to continue out. We were out the airport before our ride to the hotel had arrived. We didn't need to wait for long before the ride came along. :)

It took us about an hour to get to the Tropical Refuge. It only rained few drops during the ride. That was the only rain that we saw during the whole stay. Susan was really worried if it was going to rain and if the trip was waist of time.

The hotel looked pretty nice, even though there weren't any shops around it. I didn't mind that at all. Our room was not as big as we might have imagined and it also had a mouldy smell.

First we went to the pool to enjoy the sun and not so heavy air. As we had all inclusive wrist-thingys we got all our drinks for free. The dinner (breakfast and lunch) were buffet style, so we could choose what we wanted. There was chicken and beef/pork everyday and fish sometimes. I would say that it was fairly good.

We didn't do much on sunday as we didn't know what we could do or where to go.

Grand Etang today, Venezuela tomorrow!

Today we are going to go to see the rain forest, crater lake and Fortress :)) And maybe a waterfall...

Tomorrow we will be leaveing to Isla de Margarita :) Stay there for 5 days in Tropical Refuge hotel (with all inclusive and near by beach). So I won't be near internet for a week ;)

Dance if you can!

My aunt has this game where you need to dance on a mat-thingy. Well me and my friend decided to try it :) As what I have seen is should be fun (and quite easy).

My friend tried it first. She decided that the beginner level is hard enough (and later I agreed). The music is mixed music from dancable music to not so dancable. I have to admit that it is a good work out. Especially when it is as hot as it is here.

Any ways, the main point is that I defenately cannot dance :)) I have two left feet (or two right ones). I try to listen to the music, but that makes it worse. I think I would do best if there were no sound.

At the beach!

I went today to the beach with my friend who came yesterday evening. First we did some shopping and then we walked from the store to the beach. It is nice and warm here (FYI) and not so many tourists...

I think I would have preferred a bit more tourists as now all the salesmen/women came to us before we had settled in. Oh well. At least the beach was white, it didn't rain at all and water was warm.

I didn't swim this time as I was trying not to burn myself... I think you know what that means. I have to say that I didn't burn myself as bad as last time. And yes I did put the sun lotion! More then once.

Well what can I say. I am very white. Well the basic colour of my skin is see through. My own grandmother has told me once that I look like a ghost :))

Friend is coming over!

I have been alone for a week now. A week ago to the date, Sonja and Jouni left to Finland. Today my friend Susan is coming over from Finland for few weeks. She is going to just relax and enjoy the sun. I am going to try to work and enjoy the sun.

I hope we have enough stuff to do so she won't get bored. She likes to go out in the evening but here there really isn't any places to go. Also it is not very safe for us to walk aroung in the evening. Well at least that is what our house keeper and friend/taxi driver has told us. As they are locals we better trust their words.

Now the beach is a bit far away. I think one might walk there, but I am not sure if my friend would like to walk there by herself. So we need a ride to the beach :( I myself like to walk around, but don't feel like it here. I think the reason is mostly because no-one wants to walk with me (meaning Sonja or Jouni) and they are just warning me all the time.

So it is nice to have someone over, who is not overly scared of everything. I hope while she is here, we would walk to the cinema and back. It is not very far away. But we will see what happens. :)