Island Adventures

I allotted today my "taking care of business" day. Ms. Nimmi picked me up and took me to Cayman International for a tour of my new school. I immediately fell in love. The campus is gorgeous and my classroom is even better. I'm going to be teaching 3rd grade and my room is on the 2nd floor. I have full sized windows lining the walls, which will make a good view as I'm teaching. The other 3rd grade teacher, Jill, will be right next door and we have an office connecting our rooms. I have an old-school black board, a white board, two bulletin boards, and a SmartBoard in my room. The average class size is about 15, which was a relief to hear. The school also has some amazing sports facilities. There is an olympic sized swimming pool on campus, soccer fields, a gymnastics/dance room, full science lab, music room, and a breath-taking cafeteria. There are 3 local restaurants that cater the school lunches so my stomach of steel will probably no longer be needed. I'm very excited for pre-planning to start and can't wait to set up my new classroom.

I also got a cell phone today. I'm starting with a pre-paid plan (since I'm not really making many calls right now) and will eventually change to a monthly plan once school starts and I'm using my phone more frequently. My new number is 345-328-5758. I will be using the school's mailing address, so my new address is P.O. Box 31364, Grand Cayman KY1-1206.

The last order of business that I took care of today was getting my driver's license. I had to wait in this obnoxiously long line that appeared to get longer and longer the more I was waiting. It was a pretty easy process...I had to show my passport with the work permit stamp and then show that I had a full license back in the states. You might notice that my birthday on my license is different. It's because here in the Caymans they write dates by putting days first, so when I put 9-2-84 as my birthday, they typed it up and printed it as my birthday being February 9th, 1984. I guess this just gives me an excuse to celebrate twice!

Now that I have a license my next order of business is buying a car. I've been looking at a few used ones (that seems to be what everyone drives here), but can't really move forward with that process until I have a bank account opened. It's typical that my bank made a mistake on my reference letter, which is prolonging the process. I'm actually enjoying the exercise that I'm getting from walking around the SMB area and might wait until the beginning of September before I make any major moves and buy a car. I guess it can be a birthday present to myself!