Vacation Part 4-the final chapter

I am back for an update and will hopefully finish talking about my vacation on this one. Although with me one never knows. So lets start today's blog with a lovely photo of my dad feeding a big lizard. This was taken in Aruba where the lizards are nice and big. My parents just love seeing them and my dad just can't get close enough.

Ok, back to my vacation. I left off on Wednesday of my trip while I was in Phillipsburg the Dutch Capitol. I had lunch at the Holland House which is totally expensive but the food was good and they have a nice patio outside with a great view. After that I wandered around to the stores I like to visit and picked up my few gifts and a couple of things for me before taking the long walk back to my car and thankfully it was right were I left it. St Maarten has a small problem with car theft.

Then it was back to the hotel for more reading, swimming in the pool or the ocean, the choices were overwhelming. One of the evenings, I can't remember if it was Wed or Thur I had just showered and hopped into bed to read when I hear someone yelling my name. Considering I went on vacation alone it sort of freaked me out. Turned out it was Marvyln, the manager of the hotel. A giant leatherback turtle had come onto the beach right down from the hotel to lay it's eggs. I followed her outside and their was the largest turtle I think I have ever seen in real life, it had to be 4 feet long at least and 2-3 feet wide. They said the eggs were the size of golf balls, by the time I got there she was covering them up with sand. There were some tense moments when we thought she was confused cause she could not seem to make it back to the ocean but after about 20-30 min she found her way back and we all cheered, it was so cool.

Nothing much more exciting happened until Saturday. Now we move back to my friends Anne and Hans. So remember I told you that I asked them to make my mom a pendant. Well, here it is.

How cool is that????? I love it, I told mom that if she hated it I would keep it, I was really hoping that she hated it, no such luck. She loved it too. Anne designed it after I fumbled around trying to tell her what my mom would like, my description was basically small but unique. Not alot to go on but they did a damn fine job. It is about the size of a quarter. The tanzinite is from some earrings I picked up several years ago but always hated, don't ask me why I bought them, why the hell would I know? I was totally bummed that I could not afford to buy/have anything made this year. Now everyone needs to go check out their website http://www.meevis.com/ to see all the other cool stuff they made. If you go to Hans' blog you can see the totally awesome spinning ring he made, he started it while I was there. It is so cool to watch him turn what looks to me like a chuck of ugly metal into some beautiful work of art. So neat.

To side track from my story one more time I made Anne and Hans a quilt that I brought with me and I thought you might enjoy a glance at it. It was small and made to be a wall hanging or a throw for over a chair since in St Maarten there is not a real need for quilts or blankets of any kind. I am not sure this picture is very good. I took it on the bed of the hotel and the light blue background does not really do much for it. If you have not noticed I have self esteem issues and was wigged out about giving it to them. I kept waiting to hear the tense, "isn't that nice", with the underlying "how fast can I get rid of it once she is gone". Happily they seemed to like it so either my radar was off or they really did like it. I got the same way when I gave my mom her quilt at Christmas. I had visions of her throwing it at me telling me it was the ugliest thing she had ever seen....did I mention the self esteem issues?

Ok, back to my vacation. So on Saturday night Anne made fondue for my birthday and invited over Claire and Barry. God, I hope that is his name, my brain turned off and I can't remember. Anyway they are good friends and we met the last time I visited. They are great fun to talk too, Claire makes my sides hurt from laughing so much. We all sat around the table trying to figure out how to get the food in and out of the pot cooked, still attached to the fork, and hopefully ours since we all had a bunch going at once. It was too funny. Anne had covered the table with tin foil which was a brilliant idea so then we just had food everywhere. Anne also remembered that my favorite dish is Tomato & Mozzarella salad so we had some of that too. I swear I could just eat that everyday for breakfast and never get sick of it. We talked and laughed and had a real nice time, I so look forward to it every trip.

Sunday morning I was back to my reading, swimming, and walking the beach. All in all I read 13 1/2 books on vacation. Now keep in mind that I am a really fast reader and one of the books I skipped alot of pages, she just went on and on about feelings and images, bored me to tears but I was already too involved and wanted to know what happened to the people. It was like a 450-500 page book and I bet I read only 300 pages or so and of course the ending sucked. One other book I read about 50 pages then trashed but other than that all the ones I brought were good.

So the days past quick and before I knew it, it was time to come home again. I left on Saturday at about 2pm. My flight was supposed to leave about 4:45pm and of course it was delayed but only by about 30 min. When I got to Charlotte I was so busy rushing to get to my gate I failed to notice that flight had also been delayed. Once I really looked at it I saw that my 10:20 flight to Chicago was now 1:45 am in the morning. When I made it to Chicago I still had a 2 hour drive home to make so I was less than thrilled. At least for once the airline did something about it and managed to pull another plane out of the hanger and we managed to get up in the air about 12am.

And to make my already long day longer by the time I got to Chicago they were having thunderstorms. So I got off the flight, made my way the 2 mile walk to call the hotel to come pick me up and take me too my car. It is now 1:30 am in the morning and I am so tired I am in pain. I get in my car and of course it has to make a funny noise so the whole drive home I am worried that the wheel is going to fall off and I am going to flip over on the highway. I crossed into Wisconsin and the fog was so thick you could only see a few yards in front of you, by this time I just did not care, it was 2:30 am and I hauled ass home. I was 2 exits from my house when the cops start directing everyone off the highway so of course I had to take the long way home, added at least 10 min to my trip and at 3:20 in the morning that is alot of time. Happily for me Jody was awake so I just called and talked to her so that I would not fall asleep.

3:30 am in the morning I finally, and I mean finally made it home sweet home. My kitty was thrilled to see me so I played with her for about 15 min, showered and fell into bed. Managed to wake up every 1/2 hour or so till 7am, I guess I was just too damn tired to sleep. Finally at 7am I crashed till 11am. So that is the story of my latest trip to St Maarten.....not sure I will make it back next year, especially with gas and food costs going up so fast but I am already planning for my return in 2010....I already have a few books picked out.

Forgive any errors on this, I proof read it and fixed it but it did not save right so I lost that and I am too tired to read it again so it is what it is....see you later, Amy

Vacation Part 3

You realize of course, if I have a mind too I can drag this vacation theme out till we hit at least part 75. So I woke up Sunday morning to the sound of waves breaking right outside my bedroom. That is the sound I miss most when I am here. I wish I could live closer to the ocean so I could here it more often. Sunday was a tough day of deciding things like do I swim in the pool or the ocean? Do I walk up the beach to the left or to the right? Which book do I begin reading next? Life decisions like this should not be made lightly. So I pretty much did both, had a little time in the ocean, then hung by the pool for a while, read a book, and got a little sunburn, after that I was more careful about putting suntan lotion on right when I got up then again around lunch time. The picture below is a full frontal view of my hotel room, I will grant you that this view is not the greatest but if you turn around it rocks. I was standing in the waves when I took this shot.

The picture below is of the pool, although I think that goes without saying. There were only 2 things that I did not like about this hotel. The first was that on the side of the pool I am standing, just a few hundred yards from that is the main airport landing strip so there were times when I had to cover my ears however it was generally for just a short time. You could hear it some in the rooms but it was loudest at the pool. The other thing that was annoying is they have a small ant problem in the kitchen so I was always killing them. I suppose if those are the only 2 complaints they can be overlooked.

Being that this was my 5th time on the island I was not really that interested in going to town to shop. The Island is split into 2 parts, the French side and the Dutch side. There is a capital on both sides, the French capital used to be the "nicer" side however Anne and Hans had told me that it was not in such good shape anymore and quite frankly I really had no desire to go. I mean why would I want to leave the beach to go to a small town to see how run down it had gotten?

I did go into Phillisburg on Wed, that is the Dutch capital. Finding parking over there is a HUGE pain in the ass. I must have circled for 20-30 min cause everything is one way and I was trying to find a public parking area they had shown on the map, I think they lied cause I could not find it anywhere.

So I parked hell and gone from where I wanted to be and started the long walk to Front Street. That is the place were most of the shops and resturants for the tourists are. They have also built in boardwalk that faces the ocean so that is nice to walk. Sorry I have no pictures of that, I just forgot to bring my camera that day. So after almost getting attacked by a stray dog (that is a problem on the island however it is not as bad as it used to be and I am scared to ask how they fixed it). I walked along front street but I really only wanted to go in a few stores that I have been to before. I only got a few magnets and some things like that for a couple of people. How many Sarongs, shot glasses, nick nacks, and t-shirts does a person need anyway? They have alot of Jewelry stores, but now that I met Hans why would I want anything from anywhere else? There are alot of cosmetic and perfume stores, since I am ugly, nothing more can be done so that rules out the cosmetics and I am allergic to all the perfumes so what is the point in that?

Ok, I am leaving you hanging cause I have some other stuff to do tonight. I will pick up were I left off tomorrow after I get home from my hair cut, I have an exciting life let me tell you!!!