Robot Journal : Let's Go Montserrat

1/3/2011

Hello Holiday
Yesterday was our first day of vacation here on Montserrat. Mornings so far are seem to follow this trend: we awake after a fine sleep (apart from waking up once or twice to some crazy bird or animal or half-goat/half-man creature screeching in the forest next to our house) and have our coffee and sit outside and listen to the freight train sound of the wind coming down the mountain that we are on. The wind in the morning is crazy. I should record it.
The Carribean Sea is all stormy for some reason.
The wind dies down as the day heats up.

The house we are staying out is on a mountain (this end of the island is very hilly) and we are facing northwest towards the tiny uninhabited covered-in-bird-poop island of Redonda.

The view is sweet.

Fly
We flew into Antigua (which there seemed to be some disagreement with the flight crew on how to pronounce) and then hopped into a small plane for the fifteen minute flight to Montserrat.

The plane’s pilot seemed way young. Oh, small planes. I like small planes because they don’t go that high and you have a great view; on the other hand I don’t like small planes because when you take off or land, it’s a small plane and it can bounce and dive and scare the beejesus out of you (me).

We landed in Montserrat and had to wait for our friends (and luggage) to arrive. The airport here is tiny, but does feature cheap beer, free wi-fi, and a 'waving platform' on top of the building where you can wave at incoming flights. Of course, we did that.

Drivers License
They drive on the other side of the road here, but oddly I have noticed that not all their cars are right-hand drive cars. That must be confusing. We got our drivers license (sadly it’s not an actual photo drivers license (that would be a swell souvenir)).
I had driven for a week or so in a right-hand drive car when we were in Scotland & England a few years back, but this was the first time for me sitting in the passenger seat while someone else drove. This meant that the whole time I kept reaching the steering wheel that wasn’t there and pressing the phantom brake pedal.

Local Delicacies
This is on our list of things to try:
Mountain Chicken: aka frog legs. There are a lot of frogs here.
Goat Water: AKA goat stew. Why they call it ‘goat water’ I’m sure is an interesting story.
Bush Rum: Locally made rum that features lots of botanicals in it.

Volcano
This island has had a rough twenty or so years. Hurricane Hugo hit it pretty bad back in 1989. Then in 1995, the volcano erupted and buried the main city. Apparently people just left in droves and the remaining population all had to move north into what I think is the hillier portion of the island.

Hugo knocked out George Martin’s AIR Studios that were here. Mrs. Robot was reading about it last night and telling us about everyone who recorded here. We realized that we had seen Montserrat before: the ‘everything she does is magic’ video from the Police was filmed at AIR Studios and included scenes shot around the island.

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