Saturday, July 16, 2005
St. Thomas, Day 2
I learned from Ms. Write Again Soon that prolific blogging is not necessarily a function of internet access. So instead of a brief summary upon my return, I've taken to pen and the back of a taxi rate list to chronicle the utter nothingness of my first adult trip to the Caribbean. It was close to 20 years ago (or so I recall) that my family took me to Disney World and a family cruise that stopped off at islands in this area. It seems that long ago since I wrote out thoughts on paper as well.
To begin, an excellent airfare was brought my attention close to 2 months ago, and at a last minute plea I found Leila (who just entered the world as Ms. Blue Like Mine) amenable to the idea and we booked. I didn't do much inpreparation. As I explained, the last week has been stressing with a roommate's appendicitis, a search for a new roomy, and my strive for DRS employment. I even thought I had a room at the Marriott reserved, but a dozen hours before departure learned that was an intention I had failed to realize. Leila and I took off early yesterday morning, made our connection, and landed 3 and 1/2 hours later. Everything about the airport, the taxi, and Charlotte Amelie seemed of another world (a third world, to be exact). Leila said she kept expecting people to be speaking another language. Frankly, I felt like I was in Kigali and kept watching for signs of mass genocide. I know that's harsh, and I'm not implying anything wrong with the town other than it being a bit run down, it juts seemed so reminiscent of the scenes from various movies about whiteface in a foreign land. Our taxi, for example, was a van with 8 vacationers packed in, its years showed, and our luggage was thrown in a rusty rack on the roof. My bag made it, and I just told myself anything was worth making it to the embassy in time for the next airlift of foreign nationals.
Back to reality, our taxi wound through town, up over the island, and to the far east end, peppered with resorts. We are now staying for cheaper at Point Pleasant, which is sort of a resort/condo hybrid. While it was billed as a resort and comes complete with check-in and guest services, each unit in the villas that climb the side of the hill are privately owned. The guest book indicates that Marc & Robert of Atlanta, who I assume are a gay couple, own ours. They're quite chatty in the book on each of their many returns, most about where they got their most recent lizard wall decoration.
After cracking open our bottle of rum, Leila and I went to the balcony, which overlooks the water, St. John, and the British V.I. in the distance. We were swarmed by inquisitive(/hungry?) seagulls at first, but when that subsided we went to work making a list of goals on the back of an envelope (being the Type-A personalities that we are), complete with completion dates in the manner damended by my TCR employer of late. I'll share the final list later. Dinner was at the water-edged bar and restaurant, where we met Shawn of Ohio, our grungy activities director. Back on top of the hill we went swimming near our villa in the moonlight. Being alone, I promptly went in the buff. A few more drinks, a call to the parents, and I was out by 9:45pm. On the plus side, I was up at 7:00am! Straight to the balcony, where I've been ever since. I have the V.I. Lonely Planet book, Cloud Atlas (my first book of fiction in 3 years), my iPod, and this scrap of paper for these notes. Leila's now up, and when she finishes regaling Marc and Robert of our first night, we'll go to breakfast at the Wyndham next door. Then its off to Red Hook for food and paper, as we clearly have too many lists to immortalize. More then!
To begin, an excellent airfare was brought my attention close to 2 months ago, and at a last minute plea I found Leila (who just entered the world as Ms. Blue Like Mine) amenable to the idea and we booked. I didn't do much inpreparation. As I explained, the last week has been stressing with a roommate's appendicitis, a search for a new roomy, and my strive for DRS employment. I even thought I had a room at the Marriott reserved, but a dozen hours before departure learned that was an intention I had failed to realize. Leila and I took off early yesterday morning, made our connection, and landed 3 and 1/2 hours later. Everything about the airport, the taxi, and Charlotte Amelie seemed of another world (a third world, to be exact). Leila said she kept expecting people to be speaking another language. Frankly, I felt like I was in Kigali and kept watching for signs of mass genocide. I know that's harsh, and I'm not implying anything wrong with the town other than it being a bit run down, it juts seemed so reminiscent of the scenes from various movies about whiteface in a foreign land. Our taxi, for example, was a van with 8 vacationers packed in, its years showed, and our luggage was thrown in a rusty rack on the roof. My bag made it, and I just told myself anything was worth making it to the embassy in time for the next airlift of foreign nationals.
Back to reality, our taxi wound through town, up over the island, and to the far east end, peppered with resorts. We are now staying for cheaper at Point Pleasant, which is sort of a resort/condo hybrid. While it was billed as a resort and comes complete with check-in and guest services, each unit in the villas that climb the side of the hill are privately owned. The guest book indicates that Marc & Robert of Atlanta, who I assume are a gay couple, own ours. They're quite chatty in the book on each of their many returns, most about where they got their most recent lizard wall decoration.
After cracking open our bottle of rum, Leila and I went to the balcony, which overlooks the water, St. John, and the British V.I. in the distance. We were swarmed by inquisitive(/hungry?) seagulls at first, but when that subsided we went to work making a list of goals on the back of an envelope (being the Type-A personalities that we are), complete with completion dates in the manner damended by my TCR employer of late. I'll share the final list later. Dinner was at the water-edged bar and restaurant, where we met Shawn of Ohio, our grungy activities director. Back on top of the hill we went swimming near our villa in the moonlight. Being alone, I promptly went in the buff. A few more drinks, a call to the parents, and I was out by 9:45pm. On the plus side, I was up at 7:00am! Straight to the balcony, where I've been ever since. I have the V.I. Lonely Planet book, Cloud Atlas (my first book of fiction in 3 years), my iPod, and this scrap of paper for these notes. Leila's now up, and when she finishes regaling Marc and Robert of our first night, we'll go to breakfast at the Wyndham next door. Then its off to Red Hook for food and paper, as we clearly have too many lists to immortalize. More then!
