Catching Up

It's been a week since my last post, and what a week it has been!

Lots has happened over the past week, so I'll try to highlight the good things and get us all caught up with what's been happening to us in Guam.

The biggest news, and the reason why it has taken so long for me to blog is because we have moved into our house! The hotel was lovely, but we are so happy to be in our house (even if we are living on borrowed furniture- more on that later) and getting back into a routine and on a schedule!

I guess the last time I posted anything, we were heading into the long, Labor Day Weekend. Honestly, it being a weekend didn't mean much to us because Don wasn't working and well, living in a hotel kind of makes every day feel like a long weekend day. All of our days were kind of blending into one another at that point.

Don knew I was going stir crazy (even with frequent trips to base and down to the pool for fresh air, I needed a change of scenery and pace). He could tell, and he was right, that I felt like my world had shrunk and consisted of car walls driving back and forth to the base and hotel walls. So Friday, after taking a load of stuff to the house, we went to the base's Labor Day Festival. It was HOT!! It was the first day that it was uncomfortable to be outside, but I think that was because there was no shade and there weren't a lot of clouds to give us any relief from the sun. We saw some folks from his flight and chatted with them for a few minutes, but decided to head down to the "Strip" and have a nice dinner. We went to a local Italian restaurant, Vitales. It was really good. It was so nice to be eating at a non-chain, non-hotel restaurant. After dinner we walked around a bit....

Guam is a crazy juxtaposition of things. On The Strip you will find Chanel, Ferragamo, Cartier, Tiffany, etc. It's like Micronesia's version of Rodeo Drive. But then, on Marine Corps Dr. (the main drag that gets you from one end of the island to the other) people sell their wares under tarps along the road. You can buy fish, fruit, brooms and get your tires fixed. You will also see chickens roaming freely (everywhere) and Boonie dogs (feral dogs that roam the island in packs), you might even see the occasional Carabao (water buffalo). These two streets are just one example of two worlds colliding. I think that's one of the things I like about living here and yet prevents me from feeling truly comfortable here. Things that I think would feel comfortable because I am used to them from home are not really what I am used to, so I feel unsettled. Don't get me wrong, this place is truly growing on me and I really know that I am falling in love with it- it's just like a flower blossoming and revealing itself to me little by little.

Anyway... back to our weekend. Saturday we decided to walk over to the beach next to the hotel. I wanted to finally dip my toes in the ocean that I had been looking at for a week. It was nice, I can't wait until we go swimming/snorkeling. We also decided to drive to southern part of the island to check out the Navy base. (Andersen, where we are, and Naval Base Guam are at opposite ends of the island, about 20 miles apart- about a 45 minute drive from point to point). The drive to the base was gorgeous, we could see the Philippine Sea out my window pretty much the entire time. We saw lots of places that we want to go back and explore. The Navy Exchange is way better than our Exchange (which isn't bad),but I think we'll probably head to Big Navy once a month or so to do shopping.

Sunday, we had a nice relaxing day. We hung out at the pool and watched the surf. It seemed like a storm was coming in,but no rain ever materialized- just clouds and huge waves. Sunday evening we went to dinner at one of Don's NCO's homes. It was so great to eat a home cooked meal. We also had great wine and it was good company. I love Don and Price, but it was nice to talk to someone else for a change. We learned more about the base, the flight, the island. It was just a good night.

Monday, we decided to head to the house and clean it up before we received our unaccompanied baggage and temp furniture. It was a good thing that we did because we found many dead critters- a frog, several lizards/salamanders, gnatty ants, a roach. We also discovered that our a/c wasn't working, but the maintenance department was quick to respond, especially since it was a holiday.

On Tuesday we said goodbye to the Hilton and headed to our new house. The movers arrived shortly after we did and delivered our unaccompanied baggage. Price's crib had some damage to the paint and we didn't receive one box (of toys), but other than that everything is in good shape. Our temp furniture is pretty dingy! But I am thankful to have couches to sit on, a table to eat at and a bed to sleep in. The bed is REALLY uncomfortable and we are sleeping on it funny. Our heads are in the middle of the room, at the end where our feet should be. This is all due to a crazy animal chirping noise we heard as we were falling asleep- I was so fearful that this critter was going to crawl up the wall from under the bed or come in through the window, I refused to sleep with my head under the window. Don thinks I am nuts, but very sweetly agreed to sleep with his head at the foot of the bed. I also forgot to send pillows ahead, so we filled pillow cases with beach towels and random articles of clothing to serve as makeshift pillows until we get some real ones.

We also were blessed with a cable installer in the neighborhood who finished his scheduled jobs for the day earlier than expected so he squeezed ours in and we got phone, Internet and TV a day sooner than we thought we would.

All in all it's been a good week. Don is back at work and I am just trying to get Price back into a routine and on a schedule. I think Don is feeling better about the decision to live on base and things are going well.

Home is....

a. where your heart is

b. where you hang your hat

c. all of the above

If the correct answer is a, then home for us is still back in the states. Of course, that is to be expected since, if the correct answer is b, we are hanging our hats in a hotel room.

Home, housing, houses have been the main topics of conversation for Don and me the past few days. I think we have come to a resolution, but it was a rough journey to get there.

On Monday, during in processing, Don found out that he was not put into a combat deployment bucket (yay!!). Instead, he has been assigned to the HARRT team. The HARRT team is is a humanitarian response team and will deploy as needed to offer humanitarian aid in the region. So, while we don't expect that Don will have two long (six months each) deployments while we are here, we do expect that he will be gone for several weeks at a time a few times each year. (In fact, he was actually slated to leave today to participate in a week long training exercise, but luckily someone pulled him from that). Knowing this, I became a bit more resolute in my desire to live on base.

Don, while being slightly open to living on base IF we were offered a 3 bedroom, still wanted to look at some off base options. I agreed and hoped for the best. We met with Housing and were told we would only qualify for a 2 bedroom. This didn't make either one of us happy- me because I really want to live on base and felt like 3 bedrooms would be the only thing to convince Don and also because of what we had heard from EVERYONE was that we would probably be offered a 3 bedroom so when we didn't, it was really disappointing. We went and looked at the 2 bedroom, it was actually nice and larger than either one of us expected. The lighting fixtures were AWFUL, but it had a full dining room, decent kitchen with lots of cabinet space, a sunroom/office, ok bathroom, great laundry room and 2 small bedrooms. It was a stand alone house, which was nice. And after what we've been living in for the past few weeks it seemed ok to me, but Don, not so much. Below is a picture of base housing, but not of the unit we looked at, or even from the same area, but wanted you to get an idea (we forgot to take pictures ourselves, this picture is from the local newspaper).

After looking at the house on base, I tried to put on my brave face as we looked at some off base options. The first house was in one of Guam's few western style neighborhoods. The houses are all new and there is still a lot of construction going on. And, I mean- a lot! There were construction workers everywhere, the house we looked at was finished on the inside, but still needed to be landscaped. The house was nice, it was big, it was new. I hated it, of course Don loved it. He (as I am from time to time) easily swayed by the clean, spacious, newness of it all. What jumped out to me was the fact that the owner was installing a security system, (Don thought this was a positive, I saw it as a negative- they wouldn't install it if it wasn't necessary). The houses were really close together and they all looked the same. Basically, it felt like unsanctioned, off base military housing. But, something about it just struck me as bad and not a good fit. Especially with expecting Don to be gone from time to time.

Not the exact house, but similar- again the only thing that is different between the houses in this neighborhood is the exterior color.

We have one more house to see, and by this point, I know that Don and I have reached a stalemate. I will also admit, that by this point I am a mess and unable to discuss housing, because it reduces me to tears. I am so concerned about not making friends and not having a support system here, and I'm so tired and jet lagged that it's all just too much. I am at my limit and adding a housing conundrum to it all just pushes me over my limit and the tears start to fall.

So, again as we head to the next house, I try have an open mind. This house is even farther from base and in a traditional Guamanian neighborhood. We pull up to the house and it's nothing spectacular on the outside- but there are trees and grass and I have a better feeling about the house than the first one, even though the neighborhood seems a little sketchier. We walk into the house, it's a split level with the living areas upstairs and the bedrooms downstairs, nothing too impressive until you look out the back windows and see the ocean. The back patio has a covered lanai and an outdoor shower. Of course, of the 2 off base houses, this is my choice, but not Don's, and as awesome as the view is and as much as out of town guests would love this, I still want to live on base.

front of house

view from back porch

We tried to talk about it at dinner (which consisted of croissants and mudslides) to no avail and the mudslide led me to slumber even earlier than usual. We woke up at 2 am and talked about, but again ended up no where- knowing one of us was going to be disappointed and both of us being afraid of the consequences of putting our foot down on one house over another.

Over breakfast, we opened up the talks again. We decided to look at the house on base again, and ask again if we could get a 3 bedroom. Don realized (or at least verbalized for the first time) that he could only be happy if i felt safe and secure. I also told him, that I was very much open to looking off base in a year, once I felt more comfortable with the surroundings. we both had valid reasons for wanting to live where we wanted to live. so we told the housing office our decision, and then she dropped a bombshell that we may not even be offered the house or type of house we looked at! My optimistic self is still holding out that we may be offered a three bedroom, but if the choices we are given aren't at least as nice as the original house we saw on base, then it'll be back to the drawing board.

I am not really worried. I know we will end up where we are supposed to end up and I will do everything in my power to make whatever house we end up in feel like a home. I am just ready to start hanging my hat in a house and not a hotel room.