First Days in Tobago

To whom it may concern (most likely just my parents),

A good friend of mine just went to Europe (hi Ian if you're reading this) and he kept everyone up to date via a blog and I thought this would be a great way to chronicle my caribbean adventure. Originally I was thinking of keeping a journal, but a blog would be a perfect way of keeping a record as well as allowing my parents, etc. to follow all of the hopefully interesting stories.

I must admit this is technically the third day here and this will be my first entry, maybe the relaxed island life has already gotten to me.  After a few lovely days in Toronto seeing mom and catching up with the old UWO boys, my Tobagian sidekicks Lucas Castellani, Stefanie Lovell and myself boarded a plane from Toronto to Port of Spain, Trinidad.  Despite being overly tired from the previous few days and still not having fully recovered from the australian jet lag, I couldn't sleep on the plane.  We arrived in Port of Spain at about 6am and had some difficulties retrieving our luggage in the "amazingly" well demarcated airport.  After a few hiccups, and Stef having to rush to catch her plane to Tobago, Lucas and I found ourselves waiting at the gate for our flights out.  We were waiting for the fourth member of our crew (Dean Vlahki) who was supposed to meet us here after flying in from New York.  He didn't show up and we slightly worringly boarded the plane for the exhausting 22 minute flight to Scarborough, Tobago.  We arrived, retrieved our luggage, found Stef, found Karen (the lady we were renting our house from) and had our first meal.  We spent the rest of the day in and out of the airport trying to find Dean, and eventually at 3ish he arrived to everyone's relief.  We all went to our house for the month, the Villa Martini, which is nice but hardly a villa with 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen and a living room.  After unpacking/settling in and a supper of Roti (yummy dish, don't feel like explaining) we went to bed pretty early.

Friday morning we went to the hospital for a quick introduction and orientation.  The hospital is bigger than we thought and it we all got quite excited about all the opportunities we were hoping to have.  The hospital is quite open concept with no AC in many areas, therefore quite hot, proven by Lucas' completely drenched dress shirt and hair (sorry buddy).   We got to choose our areas we wished to work in and I will be in Obstetrics and Gynecology  for the first two weeks and then Surgery for the last two.  The rest of the day was spent relaxing on a nearby beach, frolicking in the ocean and throwing a frisbee around.  

Saturday, today, we all slept in for the first time in awhile (10am), and decided to take care of a few errands in town.  Afterwards, we went to a different beach where a guy offered to take us out to the reef for a few hours to do some snorkelling.   It was no Great Barrier Reef but beautiful none the less.  We ate another local specialty, crab and dumplings in a curry sauce.

I don't want to drag this first entry on, because then no one will want to read anymore,  so in conclusion, the first days have been amazing.  Amazing people, amazing culture, amazing food.  

Oh yeah, random chickens and stray dogs running around the island are quite amusing and really complement the randomly chained goats everywhere.  

I don't know how often I'll write but I hope to every night, especially as it involves my actual medical experiences.   Until later.