We found a house!!

We have gone out several times looking at houses and we finally made a decision!

We are moving to a subdivision just a few minutes from the base next week. The house is almost brand new and it's lovely. It has a GREAT kitchen with an island, a wine rack, a bar, and the works. It also has a jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom, which I am thrilled about, and a two car garage. We will definitely need visitors - so come and see us!

I didn't get a picture of our house yet -those are yet to come. Here's one from the net of another house that's just the same, with a more mature yard.

One thing we have found out in this whole house-hunting process is that the USPS only operates here in a limited fashion. The majority of homes do not receive mail delivery. So, once we have turned our lease in to the mail office on base and they have confirmed with the postal service that they won't deliver to us at home, they'll give us a box there.

I myself am learning that there is a whole lot of paperwork and wait time involved in everything when one deals with the military.

I also got a job, which is why I'm so slow to update things with everyone right now. I'm bartending on the strip in Tumon, where our hotel is. I'm not sure how well that will go when we get in our house, but right now it's going into the fund for school in the fall, and it's keeping me from going stir crazy.

Delonix Regia, or the Flame Tree

I had posted a picture of a beautiful Flame Tree last week, but didn't yet know the name of the tree. It is called Delonix Regia, or Flame Tree. In Saipan, another of the Marianas islands, they have a Flame Tree Festival every Spring. This year's was the 28th annual. I wish I were a better photographer, because I am told that the trees are particularly beautiful this year.

Here's a Flickr photo of some in Saipan.

More Photos!

Finally, I am able to upload pictures, but I have little time to tell you anything about them. Here they are ...

The above photos were taken across the street from the University of Guam, in the village of Mangilao.


This is right near our hotel. It's one of the prettiest Flame Trees I've seen (the one with the red flowers).


This is the only underpass on the island, I am told.


They have paintball, too!









All of the above pictures are from Agana Beach, a bit south of where we're staying. So beautiful! It's surrounded by jungle, which I need to explore soon.


There was a bit of concern over whether or not I would be able to find vegan food over here. It is so easy! The grocery store (which is 24 hours!), called Pay Less has more vegan treats than any conventional grocery I've been to the in the states (including my favorite guilty pleasure - Cookie Dough ice cream made with coconut milk). Above is a photo of my favorite restaurant meal thus far. It's a grilled vegetable plate from the Jamaican Grill. The red rice is a traditional Chamorro dish, found about everywhere. It's delicious!


There are a whole lot of lizards everywhere, which I love! I was particularly excited when we came out to our car in a parking garage and there was a gecko hanging out on my door.

There are also some beautiful spiders!

Monday

Guam is often referred to as "Where America's Day Begins," since we're 15 hours ahead of Central time. America's day, and in fact America's week has already begun and it is hard to believe that our first weekend here has come and gone. I'll have to add photos to this entry later, as I don't seem to be able to find an internet signal powerful enough to let me upload photos.

We went out with a real estate agent on Saturday and looked at houses. We haven't settled on anything yet, but it was really fun to get out and see some places. All of the houses we saw were tiled throughout, which I guess is a good thing since typhoons can cause water to leak in all kinds of inopportune places. Every place we saw also had typhoon shutters on all of the windows. I had never seen anything like them, but they are pretty neat. They are accordion style shutters, made of heavy-duty plastic or aluminum, and are permanently affixed to the house. When closed, they look like this:


Since I have none of my own photos to share, I will instead give you the rundown on typhoons. A typhoon is defined as a tropical cyclone. It is the same thing as a hurricane - the only difference is that it forms over the Northwestern Pacific, instead of the Northeast Pacific Basin, or the Atlantic. Typhoons do tend to be a bit larger and more intense than hurricanes, simply due to their location, but the difference is merely the terminology used.

Less severe than a typhoon is a Tropical Depression (low pressure system), which is defined as a system of clouds and thunderstorms with winds less than 39 mph.

Between a Tropical Depression and a Typhoon is a Tropical Storm, in which the system of clouds and thunderstorms begins to take the characteristic cyclonic shape and the winds increase to somewhere between 39 and 73 mph.

By the time a storm becomes a Typhoon, it has developed an eye and has sustained winds of at least 74 miles per hour. The maximum sustained winds in a typhoon are estimated to be about 195 mph. However, when super typhoon Paka (pictured below) hit Guam in 1997, Andersen AFB reportedly recorded one of the world's strongest gusts - about 236 mph - but its equipment was destroyed. The diameter of a typhoon can measure over 100 miles.


The most important thing for my fellow worry-warts back in the contiguous United States to remember is that Guam is more than prepared for typhoons. Super Typhoon Paka, which may have brought with it the strongest non-tornadic winds ever recorded on earth's surface, did not cause a single fatality. Everyone knew it was coming, and they either went to a typhoon shelter or went inside their house, closed their shutters, put towels under their doors, and cuddled up until the storm passed.

They say that an average of one typhoon per year is felt here on Guam, but that does not necessarily mean that there is one every year, of course. Only 19 have actually passed directly over Guam in the past 57 years. The last really major one was in 2002, so many say that we are due for a serious storm very soon.

I will post some warmer, prettier photos when I get someplace with a better signal!

USO

The USO here is beautiful and awesome, but we came for internet and it is painfully slow. I am trying to upload pictures of the beautiful beaches we saw today - the first day of our first weekend here - but it is just not working. Hopefully I can get back to the coffee shop, where the connection is a bit better soon!

It is still lovely. We're busy looking for a house!

Guam!

I started this blog as a space to talk about my musings on language and culture, but I never really did anything with it. I focused mainly on my Montessori blog this past year, but since I'm on a bit of a break from that, and I have a whole new language and culture to discover - it's all about Guam!

My sweetie and I arrived here last night, and it is at least as gorgeous as I expected. I don't have a whole lot of material to share yet, but I will post a few pictures for our curious family and friends.


Our flight was via Honolulu, where we stopped off just long enough for them to clean the plane. The airport itself it was open air, which I thought was pretty neat. Above, you can see us posing in front of a pretty garden that could be seen from one side. My crazy hair is a good indication of how humid it was - and how exhausted we already were by this point in the long, long, long day of travel.

For now, we're staying at a hotel that is right on a fancy strip of resorts (a nice change from the Super 8 we were at in Dallas). Here's a poorly stitched panoramic of our room.

...and here's the breathtaking view from our balcony.





Today was mostly spent on base with little of consequence to speak of. Hopefully we'll do some more exploring later in the week.