Happy Easter!

I hope you all have had a great Easter! I hear that those of you in TN have had a cold Easter, not the typical pretty spring day you think of with Easter. We had pretty weather here today but it was very windy and it clouded up this afternoon but nothing too bad & a lot warmer than the temperatures in TN!! I was really hard not being at home today to celebrate Easter, we really miss being at home, but especially on special days like today. But, we have had a good day...we got to see TN men's basketball win to send them into the sweet sixteen, which made Derek very happy...we hope they continue and go all the way!! We had BBQ chicken for dinner, I am sure it was not as good as the Easter ham at home!! We are getting ready for another week of class but we do have off Monday for Holy Monday!

Since, we had a 4 day weekend we went to the market on Saturday. Saturday is the day that all the locals bring their goods to town to sell. The market is located in the capital city of St. George's. We had to take a city bus (locals call them the reggae buses) to get there, it cost $2.5EC/person each way...which equals about $1US! Our first stop was at the fish market. We bought about 3 lbs. of fresh tuna it costs about $21EC ($8.40US), pretty cheap for fresh fish especially tuna! Here are a few pictures of the fish market.

Again, Saturdays are market day so lots of people were set-up on the sidewalks or in the streets selling fruits, vegetables, spices...whatever they have to make a little money. We even saw some people selling live crabs that were on a string, I thought about buying some but (1) they were alive so I don't know how we would get them home and (2) I don't know how to cook them. Maybe, we will try it sometime! This is a picture of a women who has her items set-up on the side of the road.

This is a picture of the street leading to the vegetable/spice market. You can see the congestion further up the street, that is where the market is. Also, if you can see on the side of the building on the left side of the street there is a sign that looks like a crown. This is a fast food restaurant called royal something...I don't remember the exact name...anyway I think it is suppose to be like a Burger King.


Now, we are at the vegetable/spice market. Here is a picture of some of the fruit/vegetable stands. We bought bananas, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, carrots, and tomatoes(which you can't get in the store)...all of this was about $28EC ($11.20US). If you go to Martha Stewart's blog... http://blogs1.marthastewart.com/martha/2008/01/a-picture-from.html ...this is the same market she was at in December/January.


This is a picture of the nice lady that we bought a few spices from...

And here is a up close picture of all the spices she had for sell...

Mimi, I took this picture for you! It is a Singer store, we did not go in, so I am not sure whether this is the same Singer as the sewing machines. But, I thought it was interesting!

We are in the height of tourist season now, so there have been lots of cruise coming and going. On Saturday while we were here there were two cruise ships docked, one left, while a third cruise ship was waiting to come in to dock! Here are a few pictures of the cruise ships...

While we were here close to the cruise ships we had LOTS of locals trying to convince us to go on a tour of the island with them, they thought we were tourist from the cruise! They had, "A lovely air-conditioned taxi waiting to take us to see the beautiful waterfalls, the beautiful beaches, and the residential areas!" It was such a lovely little speech they all wanted to give us until we told them we were students...then they knew we were not tourist and we did not want to go on their tours. I told Derek, I think they had mistaken us for tourist because we are white...hahaha!

So, after our day at the market we had the tuna for dinner. Here is a picture of the fish straight out of the bag from the market. I had to take the skin off, take out the bones, and take out the dark area in the middle (which is the swim bladder). (This was an interesting experience...the only time I had ever done anything like this was in Mr. Grime's biology class in high school!!)


So, after doing all of that we had chucks of tuna and not tuna steak that you would normally get in a restaurant.


We had the tuna along with rice, steamed carrots and cucumbers. We got the cucumbers and carrots at the market. By the way, try the new Ziploc steam bags to steam fresh veggies! They work great!! We love them, we have used them for these carrots (which tasted so good) and broccoli. The steam bags are a really wonderful product and super easy to use!!



AND...an added bonus...at the end of the day, we have a beautiful pink and orange sunset!!




HOPE YOU ENJOYED OUR DAY AT THE MARKET, WE SURE DID!!
Love and miss you all!!