wanderlust

since my rescue class ended on thursday, i've had a lull in activity as my divemaster class doesn't start until monday. other than getting some fun dives in on friday and saturday, i've been focusing on getting two things done before the hectic DM program starts. first is moving out of the dorm at the mango inn and into either an apartment or house. second is procuring a bike for tooling around the island. let's see what my progress on those two fronts has been.

tuesday afternoon - saw awesome apartment near dive center with mark, my buddy from rescue class - he's starting DM at the same time as me - it seems to be good timing and we're pretty much set to take it.

wednesday morning - find out from mark that his girlfriend has decided to get 2 jobs on utila and spend the next 2 months hanging out with him instead of continuing traveling. as a result, i no longer have a roommate.

wednesday afternoon - mark and i walk around looking for other apartments/houses near the dive center, but don't find anything. decide to flip a coin for the apartment - i lose, so now i also no longer have an apartment. :(

wednesday evening - meet darlene, who is about to finish her DM, but will stay on for an instructor course. she shows me her house and says her roommate is moving out on sunday - looks great and since it's my only viable option at the moment, i say i'm in.

thursday evening - at dive center bbq, meet darlene's roommate - she says she's not leaving until mid-feb - does that mean the room in the house won't be available after all?

friday morning - i post note on dive center message board - "Anyone have a cheap/old bike to sell? -Shannon (short, Asian girl)"

friday afternoon - darlene's roommate is on the same boat as me for my fun dives - i find out she's finishing her DM in another week or so, but is moving out of the house early to avoid paying another month of rent - whew!

saturday morning - after finishing up fun dives, get introduced to ulises, who says he has several bikes for sale - asks me to meet him at the dive center at 3p so he can show them to me.

saturday afternoon - i show up at 3p and see that ulises is about to go underwater for a scuba refresher - know it will be at least an hour before he's back out. end up not talking to him until 4.30p at which point he says he's ready whenever, but then proceeds to spend another hour doing various other things around the shop. finally, at 5.30p, we head out - turns out the bikes are actually his friend's and not his.

saturday evening - we head out down the main street (there's really only one big street in utila) and every ten feet or so, ulises stops to talk to someone. there's also a scare that his bike has been stolen, but turns out one of the instructors had just borrowed it to meet the ferry. get to his friend's place just before 6p, only to find out he can't show me the bikes until monday.

sunday morning - pack up all my things and check out of the mango inn - go to my new house to try and drop my stuff off - nobody's home, so i leave my things in the mango inn lobby. decide to head down to the dive shop and try to find christine, who left a note on my note, saying she had a bmx bike to sell. look at dive board and see she is on one of the morning dive boats - wait until boat returns and see her bike - it's really small (even for me!) and the brakes don't work - she wants 500 lempiras (~$26) for it. doesn't seem like a good deal to me..

sunday afternoon - run into ulises and ask him about seeing his friend on monday. he offers to go with me, but after trying to pin him to a time, decide i'm probably better off just going on my own and muddling my way through the spanish, rather than risk waiting 3 hours for him again. start walking back up towards mango inn and run into darlene who gives me keys to my new house - hooray! finally move my stuff in and get to unpack. :) :) also get to go grocery shopping and eat at home - eating out on utila actually isn't super cheap, so i'm very happy to have a kitchen.

it is now sunday evening and the final result is i successfully moved into my new house, but i'm still working on getting a bike. will let you know how that goes. getting things done here definitely requires patience - you wander down to the dive center and hope to run into the right person. it may entail waiting around for a few hours. wandering up and down the streets also seems to be effective since you'll eventually bump into anyone you need to talk to. it's a good thing i really don't have much to get done right now - if i was back at home, i'm sure taking five hours to see a bike and get keys to a house would seem ridiculous, but here, it's no big deal.