Memorial weekend update

Sorry for the abrupt posting hiatus. The Mrs. was visiting from Maine and I decided to take some time off from being writerly. We did a rickshaw tour of Oak Bluffs, walked on the beach, saw "Terminator: Salvation" (awesome, totally edge of your seat with a bunch of cool little throwbacks to the originals -- PS, matinees are $7 here, surprise) and took a bus ride around the entire island to see some new things together.

We walked around Edgartown and did some window shopping (one shop has a massive, $12,000 hand-carved door from northern Pakistan ... just what I was looking for!) and bussed through West Tisbury, Chilmark, and Aquinnah. Aquinnah seemed great with its high vantage point on the corner of the island and cliffs and stoic lighthouse, but it was too foggy and cold to make much of it. I'll be back on a nice day. I also got Mary addicted to "Lost" -- WHILE on an island. Score.

I will visit you properly some day, mysterious lighthouse in Aquinnah.

My first shift at Mediterranean on Friday was fantastic. It's so cool to join dozens of people in the same boat; living on the island for the summer and making some green at a restaurant. The atmosphere is great, the people are fun, and the food we get to munch on in the kitchen is unbelievable. Hopefully this'll kick up my social life on the island a bit (meaning more experiences and more blogs and more delving into "island living"). I met Marcio on the first night, a 30-something Brazilian bartender who is giving tennis lessons (for $87/hour) and wants to hit around some day soon. Woohoo!

The high point of my first shift bussing tables (will soon try my hand at bar-backing and waiting) was when I heard a table of four speaking German. I studied Deutsch for both my senior semesters at UMaine and have a good friend from Austria. I dove on the opportunity to ask, "Sind sie von Deutschland?" (not the best way to ask if they were from Germany, but it did the trick). Then we had back-and-forth for a couple minutes -- solely in German. Awesome! I touched base with them once more in the evening, auf Deutsch, and was thrilled at how well it went over. Unfortunately I won't be making tips until I've "trained" for a few shifts...

Another thing that's great about Mediterranean is that people dine for two, three hours easily. Reminds me of Europe. Awesome.

Mary just left and the weather is amazing. Going to read on the beach before work at 4.

Please bear with the occasional lull interesting posts or posts of any kind -- the summer has barely begun and the pieces are just getting set in place for some great writing and island experiences to come.