Goodbye Grenada!

Wow, my apartment is almost completely packed up. I'm taking down the various blankets and sarongs and aluminum foil I had put up over my existing curtains to make sure that all traces of sunlight stayed out of my apartment.

I stayed up late last night (compared to all those other nights) to make sure I had all my shippable stuff together, and went to Amerijet today. They were really nice and helpful; and I'm really hoping my stuff arrives in one piece. I missed my breakfast date with Grace because I stayed up so late, so that was a bummer.

Did my last walk to the sunset point down by the Chinese embassy last night with Lori and Lisa and we drank rum and cokes and watched the sunset and had a blast.

Did my last walk to the sunset point down by the airport tonight with Lori, ran into Jill, and met with them, plus Krash, Amy, and Krash's mom at the wine bar to drink sangria, and eat sushi carted in from next door. Last time. Got ice cream from La Bo, went with the cinnamon flavor, met with Grace, and while Krash, Amy, and Krash-mom headed over to Ritual's, Jill, Lori and I went to the beach to do our last night swim. Grace picked up some more people so we got the jump on her on an unusually rough Grand Anse beach. Fortunately, we're all good swimmers, since the waves were pounding, which made things more fun, though the weirdly bitey/stingy things in the water less so. Both Jill and Grace got hit by particularly hard and sudden-break waves and got face planted into the sand. I already got initiated to that club last term when I decided to "body surf" on a rough day without realizing that Grand Anse has a short break line and got deposited on the beach in a sand-scrubbed heap. We got pictures. If it comes out, someone got one of Grace facing the beach and smiling with a wave about three feet higher than her head directly behind her. It was one of those "I hope she's okay because that was really funny" moments.

A bit of realization started to hit when Jill drove me home, and as I got out, I realized that was the last time I'd see her or Lori for the near future, and felt suddenly choked and awkward. We all hugged and did the "Uhhh... see you... somewhere in the states" thing. As everyone trickles off to their various locations, it doesn't hit until the very end or until people are already gone. I missed Christine's departure. I missed Ashley's departure. I missed a dozen people whom I'd just seen a couple of days before and was like "Hey, see you" because it's not particularly real that I'm not going to, in some cases, for a really long time.

Sej drove by today, and same thing, not real; we wished each other a Merry Christmas in the 80 degree heat by the palm trees near Bananas, and I thanked her again for the FANTASTIC party she threw for us at Aquarium, but I still can't really fathom that I'm not going to come back in a month and see her in front of the path lab or something when I'm predictably late to small groups.

So it's odd. My ride to the airport comes in about 3 and a half hours, give or take.