Mid Semester Break 2

Seven weeks left til the semester is over. We just had our much needed three day weekend... celebrating the climax of the semester. I spent it on St. Maarten!!!
On Saturday my landlord highlighted my hair to make the super blonde ends match the super brunette roots. She did a great job blending it so it looks ‘naturally’ Caribbean highlighted.

Took the ferry to St. Maarten on Monday. We were told to be there between 5-5:30am… which means be up and frantically running around the house at 4-4:30am! A group of us had decided to go, but since we lived on other sides of the island, we car-pooled in pairs. This was not a good idea since the other half of ‘our group’ slept in and missed the boat!

The ferry left port at 6am sharp, after charging us $6US exit tax. Leaving the island was beautiful as the sun rose with Nevis behind us. I even was about to see Ross and my unfinished apt house!
(Remember if you click on the picts, they will appear much bigger in a new window.)

Then my nausea meds wore off… PUKE! It was pink cuz I’m a girl. Not really, the puke was pink cuz I ate watermelon for breakfast. I went downstairs and passed out, so I don’t remember any more of the trip until we were docked and everyone was already off the boat.

St. Maarten was so neat! The drive on the right side of the road! It was weird. They also had this great clean grocery store, and nothing looked moldy! So weird! We walked further and saw restaurants; lots of restaurants that served reasonably priced food! Excitement building! Rumor was that there was a McDonald’s on island.

We walked down the wrong road and ended up passing a string of plastic-smelling tacky clothes stores. We ventured and found a hardware store, which my friend later returned to purchase a small vacuum. Realizing how off the beaten path we had gotten, we headed toward the ocean front strip, where of course, the high dollar shops were located.

Then we saw it: McDonald’s! Oh how exciting! It’s been… April since I ate at McDonald’s, and Dec since my friend had. Ordered food, but they didn’t have the buffalo hot wing sauce, so I was a bit disappointed. No matter! Reasonably satisfied, we did the tourist thing and headed for the beach for a nap… after getting an alcoholic beverage. Yes, it was still morning.

With some time wasted, we toyed with the idea of visiting the French side of Saint Martin, but that never came to be. The side we landed on was the Dutch side, hence the weird spelling of Sint Maarten. Venturing into a few shops, I invested in some cool T-shirts, Cuban cigars, and a new white and blue bikini.

Time was inching closer to when we had to be back at the boat, so we started heading back. My friend ran in one last store to look at cookware, and I followed. It then occurred to me that they sold pillows and I needed pillows! I bought 2 super nice pillows for $8US each. A very good buy methinks.

Rushing for no reason now, we plunge into the long line to board the ferry. Not wanting a repeat of the trip coming, I claimed 4 chairs on the bottom deck and sprawled out with my new pillows. I don’t remember the ride back, but I was told that the sea was so rough that at least 3 waves covered the entire boat during the first 30 minutes. Everyone felt some degree of seasickness during that 3-hour trip.

Six hours on a ferry and six hours on St. Maarten didn’t quite equate, but all in all, it was a good trip.