We did not have fun getting back.

Hey there gang. I have two people to shout out to. First, queendna, not sure who you are - from the look of your blog you're looking to head down here, or are already down here. Either way, welcome!

Second, a very belated shout out to Christine Young! Apparently in the rush for people to follow our site, she was left behind, and no one was the wiser. She thankfully informed me of this over coffee, though she seemed upset:

Scowl scowl scowl.

So welcome both of you!

Our trip back was understandably shitty, and it has been stressful here until the last day or two. We got about two hours of sleep the night before we flew (the trip was eight or nine hours), so we were pretty much comatose by the time we arrived at our Barbados hotel. We slept fourteen hours, to the refreshing sound of the beating waves. This was the last time we would relax for awhile. That all went to shit when our taxi driver yelled at us for leaving our hotel room late, then told me to calm down when I argued back. Damned smug Barbados taxi drivers...

We landed well and got our taxi, but one of our pieces of luggage was put on standby, so we had to wait another day for it, with assurances from the airport that it would be shuttled to Ross free of charge (we should have known better, without prejudice I can say that they're almost all lazy hacks there). The next few days produced a volley of stressful conversations with airport authority, and to make a long story short: due to a series of lying and/or lazy and/or incompetent employees at the airport, Denise and I had to wait two days to send a taxi driver I to the airport, only to have him wait two hours for an employee to get off their coffee break, and return our bag to us with a charge of 80$ US. I was more than happy to pay the money to the driver - I consider him a friend and he's honest. But the idiots at the airport are an embarrassment to this country. The Prime Minister once even yelled at the staff there.

Meanwhile, we've been trying to get back into the rhythm of things, with quite a few obstacles. Denise had some trouble with the tech guys on campus, but that was thankfully resolved. Unfortunately, I had to quit my homeschooling position, because my employer and I could not reach an agreement on payment.

Other than that, life has started to return to normal. I'm enjoying more free time in my schedule because of losing that job, though I'm sad that I won't be teaching Rayhan anymore. Island Thrift has calmed down and I'm all caught up on the work that needed to be done. Denise is getting back into her study habits and is catching up from everything she missed in the first few days of anxiety.

Tomorrow we'll be heading to Roseau, and it'll be the first time Denise will have been there. Supermarkets and decent stores await, after an excruciating 1 hour drive on a narrow winding seaside road.

The next post will hopefully not be so bitter. It is strangely good to be back here, despite all the crap we went through the first few days.