Day 2 & 3 Exploring the beaches/hotels

Well, here are some picture of the grocery store, and some of the hotels and beaches! The water color is just unreal! I can't describe it. Far out in the distance by the barrier reefs, you can see waves. But the water near the show is a green color and very shallow. Tons of Japanese tourists here.

The grocery store was big sticker shock. One gallon of spring water (69 cents at home) is $2.75 here!!!!! Yikes! We are going to have a big water bill. Milk is over $5.00 a gallon! Bread is $5.00 a loaf! Bagged Malt-o-Meal cereal is $9.00 for one bag!!!! You can see me with the grocery cart. That little bit of stuff in the cart cost over $70!! It would have cost $400+ to fill the cart like we do at home!

Werner was happy to see that they had a nice supply of good German beers! Expensive, but available at least!

We were going to set up my cell phone, but they wanted $39.95 for an 80-minute SIM card. That's ridiculous, so we bagged that idea.

Anyhow, the first day we visited the beautiful Nippon Hotel resort. Then today, at 8 am, Herta our German host took us to the Sheraton for a water aerobics class. We swam at 8 am outside. Unreal! Very refreshing, and again, lots of nice people, beautiful views, and Japanese tourists!

Time to leave the internet cafe for now! Please keep checking back for more!

Love, Werner and Lori

P.S. Clarhens and Hannah, we miss you and love you! Hope you are having fun with Miss Nancy!

Our living situation

Well, today we awoke a bit tired, and ventured forth. The sunsets from the previous evening were glorious, weren't they?

First of all, I guess I should show you where we are staying. Through a German friend, we are staying in her bed and breakfast. She has given us her "apartment", so we have a nice, 1-bedroom, 1 bath apartment with TV and kitchen, all to ourselves. So we can visit when we want, and be alone when we want.

Here is the house, and the patio outside our kitchen door. I have not yet had a chance to take photos of our actual apartment, but I will do that soon. However, here are some pictures of the house, and also of our private patio outside our kitchen door!

TV is the same as in America - Vonage commercials non-stop. There are a couple of Australian channells on the cable, because if you look at your map or glove, we are fairly close to New Zealand.

Because of their Spanish heritage, they have wild chickens in Guam. They are everywhere - like robins in PA!! So they start crowing at 4 am. If you feel like it, you could go out and catch a chicken and/or gather wild eggs. Unbelievable! The first AM we were here, I thought I was imagining things when I head hundreds of roosters crowing at the same time!

And I just HAD to throw in the photo of a nearby chapel. It features a live cow tied next to it! This is a westernized island, and yet the original culture still shines through!

Anyhow, hope you like the house! We do!

Day 2 - Arriving in Guam

Wow! Our flight to Guam was LONG. It took 8 hours from Houston to Honolulu. Then we had a 1-hour layover for refueling. Then, we had another 8-hour flight across the Pacific to Guam. The South Pacific is so VAST! The inhabitants of both Hawaii AND Guam are Asian, from Indonesia. It is hard to imagine these people in dugout outrigger canoes navigating the Pacific, and settling into island civilizations, but they did. It is SO hard to wrap your mind around that when you fly over it for 8 hours in an airplane going over 500 mph!!!!

The "natives" of Guam, the "Chamorros" are GREAT! First and foremost, they are Chamorro-Americans. There aren't many good paying jobs in Guam, as it is mostly tourist trade, although the military sector generates some civilian govt. jobs. Many join the military due to the presence of Anderson Airforce Base on Guam, and they go to Iraq, Afghanistan, or Africa and fight for us. The American dream is alive and well. They were enslaved by the Japanese during WWII, so they appreciate freedom! These people are happy to see their fellow Americans visiting from the mainland, and they all dream of affording a $1,000+ plane ticket to get off the island to the mainland of America! Such nice, friendly, talkative people! SO POLITE AND WELCOMING!

And aren't the views great, too!?

When we arrived in Guam, we were greeted by the good old Red, White and Blue of old Glory, whipping in the sunset against the green ocean and palm trees. Well, FIRST we were greeted by that American institution called "McDonald's". Then of course, by TSA. :-) THEN, by the flag!

Day 1 Houston Layover

We flew BWI to Houston, Houston to Honolulu, and then to Guam. These photos, with the Fox Sports Restaurant and the E18 sign are in Houston. Wow!!! What a NICE airport. The Bushies have done quite well for their home state of Texas.

The views flying into Honolulu were stunning. Unfortunately, my camera was stowed over my head, and I couldn't get to it! Rugged volcanoes and mountains. Oceans that were indescribable shades of blue and green! Instead of girls with flowery "lei's" greeting us as we disembarqed in Hawaii for a break, we were greated by TSA security station!!!! Ha! Ha! So much for romantic Hawaii! You had to get through security and head to the nearest airport shop, where they had a rack of nice, freshly made lei's available for purchase! :-)

Here are some pictures from the Houston airport stop!

More later!

Getting ready to go!

Hello friends!

As some of you may know, but more of you probably do NOT, Werner and Lori are headed back to a tropical island, where Werner used to live for two years. Guam. We're going alone.

It's nearly time to go! The kids' permission letters for various school officials and medical personnel are all now written! They are looking forward to having lots of fun with their baby/housesitter! Yeah! No "Mom & Dad" for THREE WEEKS! Yeah! No kids for THREE WEEKS! Everyone gets a vacation. A good deal for all.

The suitcases are not yet packed, but they've made it out of the basement and onto the bed. The groceries for our housesitter are bought, and we are just ironing out the final little details to be able to leave our children safely with our housesitter/nanny without any snafus. Today, Lori had a 1.5 hour massage in preparation for being crammed into an airplane for OVER 20 hours on Wednesday morning. :-) We head to Baltimore tomorrow (Tuesday) evening so that we can make our early-morning flight a wee bit easier. We'll be at a friend's house, just 5 minutes from BWI. Nice to have friends (with free long-term parking) in those kinds of places.

We are unsure as to what our computer situation will be like in Guam, but we are hoping to be able to post a couple of times per week, with photos, and give your own "virtual tour" of our vacation on the beautiful, South Pacific U.S. island paradise called GUAM. :-) If NOTHING happens to this blog - fear not - it simply means we do not have any computer access.

Check back soon.