Roosters, Gorillas and Lizards, Oh My!

Starting a new job can be stressful at the best of times. Starting a new job in a new country is super-duper stressful. Thankfully, I had C & L to ease the transition.

My first day at Appleby began with the "Walk of Awkwardness". The HR manager took me and two other newbies around the law firm and trust company to introduce us to every single member of the staff. Each introduction was painfully awkward in its own way. Sometimes we received the "I'm busy, don't dare bother me" stares. Other times, the HR person confused our names and introduced me as "John, the new Managing Director of the Trust Company". And of course we heard the line "I hope you're paying attention because there will be a quiz at the end" at least a dozen times. I survived the Walk relatively unscathed.

The tour ended at my office, where I had a 15 minute break before training started. I wasn't exactly sure what I needed a break from, since I had only been at work for about an hour. As I sat at my extremely tidy desk, I wondered how long I could keep it that way and tried to remember the way back to the training room. All of a sudden, I heard something outside my window. "Could it be?", I wondered. And there it was again - "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" Yes, there were roosters crowing outside my window. The next day, we went to a little market for lunch and sat at the picnic tables outside to eat. All of a sudden, my rooster friends appeared. It must have been their lunch hour, too, as they seemed to be looking for leftovers. "This never would have happened at the First Canadian Place food court", I thought. I am not in Kansas any more... The question is, did I remember to bring my ruby slippers with me??

Later on that week, one of the partners celebrated his birthday. I was in the middle of receiving instructions from another partner working with me on the project, when he looked at his watch and hurried us both upstairs. "We can't miss this", he said. There were about 20 people gathered in the hall in front of the birthday boy's office. After waiting for about 15 minutes, the much anticipated birthday surprise arrived - a dancing gorilla!!! The gorilla grabbed the birthday boy and started grinding with him to soca music being played on its boom box. The partner was grinning from ear to ear and seemed to be loving every minute of it. I heard him comment later on that he wished he had known whether the gorilla was male or female because he could have enjoyed himself more...

In addition to the roosters and chickens roaming around downtown, there are tons of little lizards running about. They're Cayman's squirrels, but far less cute and furry. I've sat on a park bench and tried to feed them nuts, but they just won't go for it.

If you're wondering why there's a picture of me holding a turtle, which in no way relates to this post, it's because I had intended to write about my trip to Turtle Farm, changed my mind and couldn't be bothered to delete the picture. That and I didn't have a picture of the dancing gorilla...