First Impressions (from Cheri)

It is with great trepidation that I venture into the land of the blog, but here goes! Howard and I have different writing styles, but my hope is that our voices will blend and harmonize on paper like the Indigo Girls do in song. We'll see...

After 17 hours of travel, Howard and I landed in Saipan at 1:30am, dazed, disheveled and disoriented in time. With only a few winks of sleep between us over the course of the last few weeks, we dove head first into Saipan life. Although the island and islanders are very laid back, we have been constantly busy and on the move since we arrived, trying to set up house here. Yesterday, we found an apartment, my dream house. So today is the first day I've been able to slow down, sit back, reflect and write, since our arrival in Saipan.

Saipan is warm and breezy, surrounded by beautiful teal and cobalt blue waters and white sandy beaches. The kind of place you try to conjure up when resting in corpse pose in yoga classs. The water stays shallow a long way out from the shore and there are no waves. The sunsets over the water are fabulous, pink and orange and purple. We experienced our first one Friday night while walking on the beach and then shared tropical drinks at a tiny beachside cabana outside the Hyatt. The people are friendly, welcoming us with wide, open smiles. They come from all over - the Philipines, Japan, Korea and locally - the Chamorros and Carolinians. Many of the women have a charming way of singing their English words when they talk. So lilting and sweet. The tempo of life on the island is relaxed. It often takes much longer to look at an apartment or house than you expect because people are often ready to draw you into long conversations and show you all around their property. Everywhere we look, we are assured that everyone in the neighborhood is a family member and therefore the area is quite safe. There are many large families and they group together on family land in neighborhoods and sections of town.

It's going to be fun trying out all the different cuisines in Saipan. We've already found great sushi, Thai food and a wonderfully bountiful farmer's market. The farmer's market had plantains and bananas, mangoes and papayas, long beans, bok choy, okra, tomatoes, some cucumber like thing (to name a few) ... and all kinds of precooked dishes, bbq chicken, bbq pork and chicken on sticks, empanadas, noodle dishes and on and on. We filled plates at the farmer's market last night for dinner. So good!! The night before we purchased local fish, sold out of coolers in the park and cooked it up in our hotel room! Mmmm! But it'll be even better when we have our kitchen set up and possibly a grill on the terrace.

Now, the other side. Of course, there is a yin and yang to every place and situation in life. There are roaming, stray, skinny dogs everywhere. Unneutered and fertile dogs, puppies galore. They call them booney dogs. There are also dozens of chickens and roosters crowing from various locations most of the day. The economy seems slow here, as it is elsewhere these days, with many closed and boarded up hotels and businesses lining the streets. The water is salty and can be brackish, so you can't drink from the tap. The salty air and water causes the sides of buildings to have blackish stains that they are constantly whitewashing, but really unable to keep up with. The people seem to be simple in dress and lifestyle, yet there's a mall here filled with stores like Luis Vuitton and Cartier. For the tourists, I suppose. Seems a little out of place to me. Good coffee and good wine are both hard to find, and anyone who knows me, knows those are two of my main staples in life!! Howard found out where to go to get some wine today, so don't be afraid to visit. We'll have it all figured out by the time you get here.

So, you probably want to know what we've been up to. Saturday and Sunday we spent searching all over the island for the perfect house. I'm going to continue programming from home like I've been doing for the past 22 years. The only drawback is that I have to work during US business hours so I can communicate with my coworkers in California. That means my work schedule is from 4am to noon, leaving my afternoons free to do as I please. So I want to find a place close enough to walk or ride a bike to the beach. That's our limiting factor in finding the perfect nest. We found a nice house high on Capital Hill, but unfurnished and too far from the beach. Scratch that out! We toured or drove by many large apartments with pools, but not really all that nice. A little like college dorm living and I'm just not into that right now. On Sunday, we drove to the other side of the island and found a nice apartment HIGH up on the hill and another beautiful house, but, again, they were a really long way from the beach and the house was too expensive. We were beginning to give up and decided to drive down to the beach to take a look. On the way down, we found another For Rent sign! What luck! We checked it out and it looked pretty good, especially with the ocean so close by. Wrong! We drove on down to see how far and the road went on forever, parallel to the shore, again up high. We finally reached the beach, a little disappointed in how far it was from the possible rental. Again, the beach was gorgeous with almost no other people around (not surprising as far down the dirt road we had to go to get there!) Upon making it down to the shoreline, we realized that this side of the island is mostly cliffy, with few beaches that were not very accessible, so we returned to Garapan to continue our search.

We had gotten many of our leads from friends and the internet and were running out of listings, so we began driving around, looking for For Rent signs and asking people we met along the way. We met the most incredible woman named Winnie (like Winnie the Pooh, she said) who had a place for rent, but she thought it was too big and too expensive for us. So she hopped in our car and took us to her sister-in-law's rental house. There we met her sister-in-law, Marguerita, who is a spry 75, and were shown the house. We were there for over an hour, eating star fruit from her trees, touring her land and her new erosion/flood control system she had just put in (concrete curbing running from the top to the bottom of her property, a long, long way!), visiting with her 6 dogs and just talking about stuff. They were a really warm, sweet family, but the house was in a valley and I think it would get really hot when summer arrives. I'm so picky!! We went to bed Sunday night, not much closer to finding that dream house.

Monday afternoon, after Howard got off work, we found 2 possible places to live, closer to the beach but high enough to get some breeze, and in safe neighborhoods. We were discussing these two locations on our way to the third and last apartment to visit that night. It was approaching dusk, but when we drove up, we were speechless. We got out of the car and before us was the most awesome, sweeping view of the ocean you could imagine. The sun was setting and I was in love. By the time the owner got there, it was getting pretty dark and there was no power inside the apartment, but I could still tell it was going to be just fine. It had a large terrace looking out on that view and plenty of space for me to work at home comfortably. I was sold, and since Howard's so easy to get along with, so was he. We went back over during the day on Tuesday and it was just as beautiful as I thought. So that's where we're going to live, moving in February 19th. I can't wait!

We've managed to keep ourselves active, exploring and starting a new life. This has helped to keep the darkest thoughts and moods at bay. A little. But during the quiet moments and as we begin to slow down, the sadness starts to creep back in. I hope we can begin to replace the bad memories with all the wonderful memories we have of Nathan. It's going to be hard to do. But for now, we're moving onward, hand in hand down the beaches of Saipan, with Nathan and Danielle tucked deep in our hearts, always with us. Danielle is our rock. Howard emails her frequently. Google chat keeps me in touch. And mental thoughts keep us with Nathan. And so it will be. Let it be.