Monday, November 20, 1995 - Trinidad

Roy finally got rid of his cold. He gave it to me. I spent most of the day riding buses. Went downtown after breakfast to buy a new swimsuit, as both my old ones are wearing out. I had seen an ad in the paper for a swimwear store at Long Circular Road and Delhi in St. James. The suits in the picture looked good, so I wanted to go there. Walked all over the bus terminal, looking for a bus to St. James but didn't find one. Asked at the information booth and was told to go to the yellow maxi stand a block away. Walked over there and was told to take a route taxi on the street just past Court's furniture store, so I went there. The entire block had a line of waiting taxis. I went to the head of the line and found a taxi that would take me near where I was going. When the driver told me to get out of the cab, I did so but was totally lost. Began walking in the direction the driver had indicated. Fortunately, I looked down a sidestreet and saw Long Circular Mall, so I went over there, but it didn't look the way it had last week and I couldn't find my way to Long Circular Road. Walked around and around. Finally asked a guard. He told me to go up to the next level. I did so, and lo! there everything looked familiar. The mall is built on the side of a hill. It's sort of weird. Anyway, I finally found Long Circular Road, but I didn't know which direction to go to get to Delhi, so I phoned the store and they told me. It was only a block away. They didn't have exactly the suit I wanted, but I bought an attractive one at a good price. Returned to downtown Port-of-Spain, found an optical shop, and dropped off Roy's double-bifocal glasses that need a new nose-piece. Then I went to Scott's and bought the hose attachments for the new vacuum cleaner. Ate a crummy lunch at McDonald's, went to the bus terminal, and caught a Carenage bus. Got off at Ace Hardware and bought a fluorescent-light fixture. Then I walked a couple of blocks to West Mall and bought chicken and cereal at HiLo. Also bought some Pantene shampoo and conditioner. Then I returned to the boat. Last week, there had been an announcement on the net about a Thanksgiving Dinner. Unfortunately, I hadn't written down the details, but I thought it was at Powerboats. A few days later, I heard an announcement for another Thanksgiving dinner. It was at TTYA (Trinidad and Tobago Yachting Association), so I went there to sign up for it but was greatly disappointed by the looks of the place. It was more of a snackbar than a restaurant, and it smelled of fried grease, so I didn't sign up. This morning, there was an announcement for a Thanksgiving dinner at TTYC (Trinidad and Tobago Yacht Club), and I realized it was the one I had heard of first. Today was the deadline for signing up, so Roy and I caught a bus and went over there. Much more like it! This was a nice restaurant on the edge of the water. It had tablecloths and china plates and silverware. It was at least ten times the size of the snackbar at TTYA. The people were very pleasant, too. The menu looked great and included turkey imported from the U.S. The price was 65 TT's, so we signed up and paid. They're even going to provide free transportation back to Peake's after the dinner. Dessert will be pot-luck, so we stopped at Linda's Bakery and ordered an apple pie. While we were there, the rain suddenly came down in a deluge. The sound of the rain beating on the roof was the loudest I'd ever heard. We were sure lucky we were under a roof. Anyone outside would have been drenched in a minute. When the rain quit, we returned to the boat. Roy looked at the vacuum cleaner and its hose. He said it was not going to do the job of picking up the sawdust; he needed a shop vac. Why hadn't he said that in the first place? Grrrr. But later, he tried out the new vacuum cleaner and really liked it. Then he had a ball vacuuming everything in sight. Roy cooked a delicious supper, while I showered and shampooed. This cold is making me very tired, so I went to bed at 8:30.