Why, yes, we have lived on an island!

Greetings from Edgartown Pizza in the heart of Edgartown, Massachusetts - on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Once, when we were applying to seasonal jobs in the US Virgin Islands, our potential future employer asked us, very smugly, "Have you ever lived on an island?" Why, yes, we had. At that time, we were, in fact, living on Catalina Island in California. We had also lived on Oahu in Hawaii and Mount Desert Island in Maine. None of those impressed her. We wonder if living on Martha's Vineyard this summer would fit the bill. Somehow, we doubt it...

Alas... Here we are on our 4th island. May this be our luckiest! If you remember from our blog last year, we haven't had terribly good luck on islands - Hawaii, we got our stuff stolen, Mount Desert Island was the only time we quit and left in the middle of the season (and still feel guilty about it! Sorry, Gabrielle!), and Catalina almost burned down four days after we arrived. Yeah, you could say we were apprehensive about coming to another island. But here we are...

Martha's Vineyard has been much different from what we expected. What did we expect, you ask? Well, most places we've spent the summer start their official season around mid- to late-May, being in full swing by Memorial Day weekend. We arrived here June 3rd (the day after Erin's birthday!), thinking we were really late, only to find no one here. The first day we went to the beach and found no one else there to take our picture, so we had to improvise (came out well, don't ya think? Nothing like a self-timer and a stand made of flip flops!). The stores were still not all yet open, and the ones that were closed around 5 o'clock in the afternoon. It was almost as if the sidewalks were rolled up as soon as the sun went down. It wasn't until after the 4th of July that the island really got into the swing of things. The summer season here will probably end by the beginning of September - such a short season! Dorothy, we're not in Alaska anymore!

We also expected to see the rich and famous everywhere we went. Spike Lee has a home here, David Letterman has a home here, Meg Ryan, Richard Dreyfuss - they're all here, but we haven't seen them yet! You hear about Martha's Vineyard and picture celebrities lounging in their luxiourous surroundings and walking down Main Street perusing the stores, throwing down money like it grows on the trees in their fancy yards. It turns out, though, that Martha's Vineyard has three fairly normal towns with fairly normal populations. Majorly disappointing. Bring on the rich celebrities to sponsor our future traveling! We want to see Brad and Angelina!

We also expected perfect weather and to spend every minute at the beach, which we thought would be right outside our front door. Boy, were we wrong! One minute it's so humid here that you're sweating through your uniform, and then the next minute, the fog has rolled in off the water, blanketing everything. The island is also much bigger than we expected, and we have yet to ride our brand new bikes all the way to the beach (but we're trying!) - the beach is about 5 miles from where we live (we know, it's sad, but we're out of shape!). Also, there are all sorts of trees and plants here, some of which we seem to be allergic to (Erin's eyes haven't been the same since we arrived!).

On the other hand, sometimes it's good when things are not what you expect. We didn't expect to meet and work with a crazy Transylvanian who cusses in Italian, but she makes us laugh so much, even in the midst of all her fury. Erin wouldn't know what to do without her! We didn't expect to find the oldest carousel in America here, nor to have so much fun riding it and trying to catch the gold ring for a free ride. We didn't expect to hang out at the arcade, and we definitely didn't expect Begee to win an .mp3 player at one of the games, but we do and he did! We didn't expect to find Gingerbread Houses, which are so colorful and so elaborately decorated, but we have enjoyed walking around and looking at them. We didn't expect to be pinched by a crab while swimming in the ocean, but it's happened to each of us - twice! (Okay, so maybe that one isn't so good, but it's wildlife, right? That's something.) We didn't expect to find the shortest ferry ride in the world - the ride to Chappaquiddick Island costs $2 and takes about 2 minutes, but is worth it for the kayaking on and swimming in Poucha Pond. We expected lighthouses, but not 5 of them, and it's been fun driving to them all and walking around them, especially the Gay Head Light in Aquinnah (the cliffs there remind us of Big Sur, and our hearts go out to everyone there with the fires).

The thing about seasonal work is that you often go to places with preconceived notions of how they are and what they will be. If you are a tourist and only visiting the place for a day or a week, you may leave believing you've done and seen it all and thinking the place is like what you saw on TV or read in a magazine. Working and living somewhere, however, even if only for four months (yes, we have 94 days left - already counting!), really shows you the community of a place, its heart and its characters that make it special. It isn't the Martha's Vineyard shot glass or the t-shirt (though of course, we'll buy those too) that make us happy to be here - it's the guy we see on our way to work every day who rides his bike pulling a trailer with his dog in it, and it's being able to experience the 4th of July parade and fireworks and sample every bowl of clam chowder (Begee) or ice cream cone (Erin) on the island, trying to find the best ones (still looking!).

Being here in Martha's Vineyard hasn't been without its fair share of challenges (anyone want to be a shuttle driver or a front desk clerk? We desperately need staff!), but, as we turn that corner on Beach Road heading into Oak Bluffs and catch our first glimpse of State Beach and our first whiff of the salt water and sea breeze of Nantucket Sound, it makes us feel happy to say, "Why, yes, we have lived on an island!"