Internet, Food, and More

Its been a slow past few days in terms of our research as we wait for our consent forms to be translated into Samoan. In addition, I struggled with the American Samoan Telecommunications Authority (ASTCA) to speed along the process of getting DSL for our house (we've just been "borrowing" wireless from our neighbor). Yesteray, the crew came out to our house and got both the phone and DSL modem working. However, as soon as they left and I plugged in the wireless router, the internet stopped working. Just my luck.

In the meantime, we've done some laundry and more food shopping. Really exciting stuff. In terms of food, the island gets a suprisingly good stock of groceries. We shop both at KS Mart (a normal supermarket) and Cost U Less (a rip-off of Costco), both of which are located down the street. The only real difference between food here and in the states is the lackluster selection of fresh food. But we've managed to find more than enough veggies to get by. The selection of restaurants is really disappointing, dominated by fast food and cheap Asian cuisine. There are a few seafood places that I'm excited to try out, but otherwise I think we'll end up eating in most of the time.

Yesterday, we returned to Sliding Rock to take in the powerful surf and wade on the rocky beaches. We even started a house shell collection. Today, despite the rain, we drove out to the National Park of American Samoa on the island's northern coast to check out the beautiful scenery. While we did't really stop to look around much, there are a buch of hiking trails that we'll have to return to later in the summer. We also got a beautiful view of Tutuila's northern coast.

We ended the afternoon by stopping at Tisa's, where we tried Candyman's legendary Pina Coladas (they were every bit as good as I hoped for). The water was a little rough for swimming, but we sat and talked with Candyman for a while, and he gave us a map and some suggestions on things to do while we are here. We also signed up for Tisa's Polynesian feast this Wednesday night - supposedely some of the best local food on the island. We're all very excited for the meal.

Hopefully the coming week will be a fruitful one in terms of our research. With all four of us now settled in and Professor McGarvey gone, we are all ready for the actual data collection to begin as soon as possible.