Guadeloupe

I love travel. I haven't travelled nearly as much as I would like to, but I also know there is still plenty of time. Perhaps that is why when my husband came home one day after we had only been married about 9 months and said "I'm thinking of joining the Air Force" I said "Hmm... okay." Though we did not get to satisfy much of my wanderlust while serving the US military I have been able to travel enough to know that my fond dream of travelling is actually something that I actually enjoy in real life!

I also remember when we first arrived on the island someone making the comment "The first semester goes slow, and then by the second semester you know who is going to visit you and you look forward to that, and then they usually visit around your third semester, and then by your fourth semester it's too late and you don't want to leave but you've all ready run out of your time on the island!" I remember thinking "Yeah, but nobody is going to visit us..." And I was wonderfully mistaken!

In January my sister came to visit us. She flew in to Guadeloupe, the French island just to the North of us. The trip to Guadeloupe to pick her up was fraught with un-necessary tension, stress, and disasters that accompany such journeys, but I still don't regret the brief visit. I do reccommend that if you visit Guadeloupe you speak French or travel with someone who speaks French. We did just fine with our extremely basic understanding of French, but the trip would have gone much better with a little more knowledge.

Now I knew to a small degree what to expect as we travelled to Guadeloupe, but neither my husband or I put enough time into the actual planning of our trip. We mostly winged it - please don't try your vacation this way! We were able to pull together the details all right, though there were worms in the bathtub of the hotel and we were blocked in by a car that was double parked on the morning that we were due to catch the ferry home. This ruined my plans of returning with coveted French pastries, and since we stuffed 5 people into the hotel room they had removed the refrigerator which made it impossible for me to buy the meats and cheeses that my friends have all boasted about returning with when they had made a quick trip to a neighboring island. Still, the people, food, and culture of Guadeloupe were delightful and I know that we will have fond and distinct memories of the adventure!