Xmas Eve:

Today was the day our blood results were ready at the medical immigration department. We arrived at 8:00am. After nurse G. read our blood results, she advised us that we needed to wait a few more minutes to get our x-rays read. There was only one doctor on duty, so she told us we might wait a few minutes longer. We waited for 2 hours! Dr. was really busy – he was busy flirting with the nurses and receptionist!

After we got our medical stamped with the seal of approval, we headed over to get our official work permit. This permit card is a big deal – after all it’s what officially allows us to work in the BVI. Ben went first, provided some general information, where he works, position, when he was born, etc. They took a picture and printed an official permit for Ben. We took appreciation to our new permit cards as we were leaving the department of labour, after all, Ben was now able to legally work as a “Senoir” Accountant. Haha….

As noon was approaching, we thought it would be convenient to meet with my boss and let him know of our immigration progress. He was up to his usual walk to lunch to Le Cabanon – which seems to be like a regular occurrence. We somehow creeped into his private lunch, and after meeting a few friends, eating some lavish lunch and two bottles of wine – he accidently confessed that every Friday he goes to lunch and never comes back while everyone else works in the office! Needless to say, we came out of the restaurant with another free lunch.

Last but not least - we found a home! We rented a brand new place on Anderson hill which is on the North West side of the island, 5 minutes away from Brewers Bay. It’s a huge house with a walkout basement which we will live in. We are supposed to move in on the 4th, however, the place is still missing a sink, electricity, and furniture! We can’t wait to have family and friends come stay with us in this house!!

The view from our new place on Anderson Hill.

The new place - We occupy the whole bottom level

The kitchen - still unfinished

For the rest of the night we celebrated Christmas Eve on Lambert’s Beach by ourselves with a bottle of Henkel Rose Champagne and Pringles.

For the first time since we got here, there was a bad storm outside. We went to bed – but we couldn’t sleep. As soon as we turned off the lights, the right hand side of our room echoed with a high pitch whistle of crickets. We tried everything all night to scare off the noises – turning the lights off and on, making noises, and banging the windows. After some frustration - it was quiet! We turned the lights off and went back to bed.

Within 10 seconds we heard the same pitch whistle, this time on the left side of the room. Ben had enough! – Determined, he got up turned to turn the lights on. Ben sighed and gave me a grunt of confusion. I asked him what was wrong and looked over to where he was focused near our bed. Apparently there was a little cockroach porno going on in our bedroom! Ben quickly put an end to that! – at least they died happy :o)


Xmas Day

On Christmas Day, we were invited to a champagne party at 11 am with my boss and a bunch of Canadians, Aussies and English friends. Unfortunately, the party was cancelled due to variable weather and storms from the night before.

We didn’t want to be stuck home, and we figured the weather would change for the better. We set off for any available beach on the island. The island was completely shut down! Not a soul on the streets – I think I even saw hay rolling down the streets in Road Town like the kind in western movies

We cruised around to 5 different beaches… just touring around island…and we finally settled for Smugglers cove….Amazing +32 weather and calm seas!!! Tasted a few famous local drinks – pain killers and pina coladas right at the shack on the beach. It was amazing.

We were also provided with some on beach entertainment. A wasted Englishman was the highlight of many visitors that day. Too many rums in the hot sun made him stumble in the sand, fall over chairs and roll into the ocean. He didn’t drown, but came close on a few occasions!

That night we went home to mend our suntans :o)