Welcome to Barbados!

Today I take the big plunge, from the USA and my studies at the University of Oklahoma to Husbands, St. James, Barbados and the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology! I am funded through the Fulbright Scholar program, which provides opportunities for graduate students to study abroad. The foundation pays for around 800 American students to go abroad each year, and also allows other countries to send their graduate students to the US.

Yesterday, my mother and I stayed up past 1 a.m. packing my 3 suitcases and my bookbag. She got this brilliant idea to "vacuum seal" my clothing in some specially-made plastic bags she had bought to save space in our hall closet. So, slightly worried that somehow they might explode in the unpressurized baggage hold, we zipped up the bags and shrank them down to size. I grabbed some food and a bottle of water, and I was off to RDU International!

After sitting in the airport in Miami watching CNN's coverage of the imminent landfall of Katrina (little did they know the devastation that would follow!), I boarded my American Airlines old-style 757 ("old-style" means they do not have sufficient leg room). I was proud of myself for taking such a step out of my comfort zone, and got excited when we only had around 10 (of 150) white-skinned people on the plane!

I thank you for visiting my blog - and hope to revel you with countless stories, from the humorous to the mundane, as my year unfolds.

Cheers!
-brad