Road Town, Tortola

People watching!

 

Today was a delight. First of all, let’s register this complaint, please say this with as much whining as possible and say it to someone starving:

 

When I’m in the Caribbean, sometimes I get tired of going to the beach.

 

First world problem! This is mainly because I am so white, I spend most of my time reapplying spf 50 and hiding under an umbrella. One time, in Barbados, we hid under a boardwalk because that was the only place with shade. Thankfully, there is another redhead albino in my cast with the same problems, so we both got kicked with sand while the guys selling jetskis and people going to the water walked by.

Today we eschewed the beach (first world privledge) and walked around Road Town. I forgot how much fun it is to tool around, so I had no camera. We got really, really local and authentic, so we found a weird building where a bunch of guys were standing around doing nothing. One guy was eating lunch out of a white, fast food Styrofoam clamshell container with a sesame seed bun and a whole fish, head and all. Across the street from them was a parody of a homeless man in tatters. We then got into the residential part of town, along with the graveyard, which looked like it had been totaled by a hurricaine. We saw a local man who was wearing his hat in the fashion of New Jersey, which is now worldwide, so I guess I am missing something obvious in hiphop culture. It is, of course, a sports team baseball hat with the tags still on it and the hologram stickers which indicate authenticity. The care that must go into those hats! Keeping them pristine! Is it more than caring for that egg baby in high school?

There are a ton of little churches in Road Town, most of them with schools attached. Each school has its own uniform. My favorite was the one with green pants/skirts and green checked shirts, little tiny checks like a guy from Yale playing a ukulele. We walked by right when school got out and kids ran down alleys and fake-barked at each other, then said “hahaha HIIII!” We got off the main drag very unintentionally because I decided I had to go to this spice store. We were following Main Street, which flows like a backwards L that got lazy and squiggly at the top and bottom. In other words, it makes no sense. So we were two lost-ish people, one was a gleaming whitie redhead (me) and the other a nervous bald white gentleman (castmate). I will define him as bald, because I saw a wig store and was thrilled and said “oooh! A wig store!” and he said, basically “what’s that supposed to mean…oh, you mean you could get one for you…oh…okay.” We walked around on Main Street, which has a sign about every 10^th block. It gets incredibly narrow and residential, and not very pedestrian. People drive vans on the wrong side of the road at what feels like 90 mph when you are walking on that road and it is only about as wide as…the van.  We walked by a decrepit old house with a donkey in the back yard, just hanging out.

There are a great deal of roosters and chickens running around all over the place. Also, quite a few chickens in various stages of life. After finally locating the crap, touristy spice store that wanted $14 for about two tablespoons of tea because it cures a hangover, we went to the bar that is famous for its rum. I finally had the real, official grog, just like they drank on ships in the navy during the triangle trade and all of history and oh oh I am so connected. Trying grog is like trying Johnny cakes. Historical food is always terrible. I enjoyed the nerd out, but rum, water and lemon is not delicious. And apparently, adding lemon means it is tastier. Fascinating. Chickens ran around on the veranda where we had grog, including two chicks and a teenager. Along with a mom and a yappy rooster.

We also attended the Botanical Garden of Tortola. It was hilarious. There were approximately 2 flowers and most of the exhibits were different type of palm trees. They all looked exactly the same, except number 12, which was marked with a placard describing it as a Japanese palm, with it’s latin name. The tree was not there. Instead, it was a foot-high stump that had rotted over on the top. Pretty delightful. There were also 4 love birds in a cage and an iguana with a bunch of green peppers he found uninteresting. Overall, the garden was tended in a very relaxed, island way. I.e. “we’ll water it whenever, we’ll weed it whenever.” O comedy.