Reject a woman and she will never let it go. One of the many defects of their kind. Also, weak arms.

The highs and lows of last week were poignant to the extreme, but we have persevered and are now able to write about it. We will break up the week into multiple blog entries so make sure to read them in order.
Rewind to last Friday the 17th… We had our friend Brandi stay the night with us so that we could leave for Kingston at 4 AM. We stayed up all night because we were supposed to have 4 hours or so upon a luxury bus to rest and we stayed out until midnight as well. Well 4 o’clock comes and our taxi man is nowhere to be found. I suppose one shouldn’t expect punctuality from taxi man that has been on Jamaica Time for his whole, especially one named ‘Tex.’ After waking up our entire household trying to get Tex’s phone number and giving him a multiple calls, this dude rolls up at 4:35. Keep in mind that we needed to be at the bus park at 4:45. Well Tex was pretty determined that we would make our bus and set a new Jamaican land speed record over the currently under-construction roads in what proved to be the most harrowing car ride of my life. But to his credit, Tex did manage to get us to our destination only five minutes late and we did make our bus.
Erin is really excited to take visiting family and friends on public transportation. This little bit of sadism worries my a little but just telling you public transport stories doesn’t really do the trick and you really do need the experience. Anyway after going from the most terrifying rides to the bus park, we were rewarded with the most pleasant of bus rides to Kingston. We rode on a greyhound type bus that we had our own seat (no ‘smalling up’), could safely put our luggage in the storage space under the bus, and received a complimentary bottle of water. Our seats even reclined so that we all napped all the way to Kingston. The usual trip to Kingston takes about 4 hours, give or take a half hour. Our trip took about 2.5 hours and so we started our weeklong Hurricane, Embassy imprisonment, hotel fire, good eatin’, test-taking road from Peace Corps Trainees to Peace Corps Volunteers on less than 2.5 hours of sleep. And 2 points for those of you that can guess who was very cranky at this lack of sleep. Here’s a hint… Her name starts with an ‘E’ and ends with ‘rin Courtney Smith.’

Stay tuned for more adventures of Pato and Cranky-Pants
******SORRY FOR NO PICS. WE WILL TO POST THEM WHEN WE GET THEM FROM RYAN THIS WEEKEND******