We made it here safely!!!
Let’s just start at the beginning…Phillip found out that he was accepted to American University of the Caribbean on December 12th, which means we had just a little over 2 weeks before we needed to move St. Maarten! Talk about short notice! We notified my work…telling everyone there, especially my students, was so hard! I was busy that week packing up my classroom…my parents were a huge help with that! Then we had to pack up our apartment…thanks to our parents for that too!!! (And for storing most of our stuff!!)
We bought plane tickets for December 30th at 7:00 (6:00 our time) out of Louisville. The day before our flight, we still didn’t have a place to live!!! That was scary! We had been talking to a lady named Jane, who was trying to work things out to rent us her apartment. She rents out several on the main floor too, but they’re all full and we were trying to get her actual apartment, the one she lives in when she’s on the island. She worked everything out for that to happen, but would need time herself to fly here and get all her stuff out. Everywhere we called/emailed had crazy prices…we’re talking like $350 a night at most places because this is their busiest time of the year. Jane made some phone calls…she has lots of connections on the island, and got us a good deal at La Terrasse Resort. So we have a timeshare for 2 weeks till we move into our real apartment, which is in Tradewinds. We are in the city of Cupecoy.
We had to get up at 2:00 a.m. December 30th to get ready, drive to Louisville, and catch our early flight. Our parents all took us to the airport…it was soooo sad to tell them goodbye. That was the worst part!!!! We flew to Charlotte for our 3 hour layover…I started reading the second Twilight book, New Moon, which I got for Christmas and it was killing me not to read till then! Our next flight was about 3 hours and 15 minutes long. We were able to sleep off and on for a couple hours, which was great! We then landed in St. Maarten, went through customs, and waited for our baggage…which actually all arrived!!! You should have seen us, lugging 9 bags out of the airport, through the door, to see 2 smiling faces waiting for us. Thank goodness for Megan and Bert, who came to get us! They even borrowed a car from a friend, so they could bring 2 vehicles to get us and all of our luggage. They were so sweet! They drove us to the office, where we had to sign to papers for our 2 week timeshare lease. Finally got that figured out, then lugged everything to our room, where Phillip and I finally got a chance to change out of our long sleeve shirts! We were sweating by that point! (Weird huh, especially since it was so cold that morning that they had to de-ice our plane!!!)
Then, Megan and Bert took us to AUC (American University of the Caribbean) campus to pick up our car, which of course wouldn’t start! We were warned though that the car alarm would probably drain the battery over the Christmas break. So, they jumped our car, and off we went, back to our timeshare.
So we’re staying for 2 weeks at La Terrasse Resort. Our room is really nice. It even has a kitchen…full size frig, small stove, microwave, convection oven. There’s a king size bed, a small table, 2 chairs, and a TV. There’s also a huge balcony, with a lounge chair and a table out there…and it overlooks the pool and the ocean!!! It’s absolutely amazing! What a view!! I still can’t believe we’re really here!
We took a quick walk to explore a little…had to see the pool of course! We crossed the street and went into Casino Royale. We were actually hoping they had free sodas, but of course not! Well, we were tempted, thought maybe it would be our lucky night. We started with $5.00 and left with $5.00 so at least we didn’t lose any!!! We also saw a sign about free champagne and pastries for New Year’s Eve…hmmm…that could be fun! Then we walked to the grocery store, but we were too tired to plan things out very well, so didn’t buy much. We could not believe the prices…we had been warned, but geez they’re awful! Here’s what we got:
2 liter of coke: $2.00
Cheapest bread they had: $3.90
Peanut butter: $3.65
Medium sized jar of grape jelly: $2.55
Small box of pop tarts: $3.05
Bag of noodles: $1.99
Spaghetti sauce: $3.65
Ritz crackers: $5.15
We tried not to buy too much because we wanted to see if another store may be cheaper…then back to the room…
We sorted through our luggage to see if everything made it ok. I opened the big green suitcase and knew something was wrong! I could smell something really strong. Sure enough, a bottle of fingernail polish was broken!!!! Luckily my polishes were all in a little makeup bag and we had put that inside a trash bag, just in case. So it didn’t get on anything except the other polish bottles! It was my clear polish, so wasn’t terribly messy. If something had to break, that wasn’t bad at least!
Then I read the Bible (I read a chapter every night) and started to read New Moon, but even that couldn’t keep my attention. We were both so tired! We went to bed at 9:45 and slept for almost 12 hours!!!! That felt great!
Wednesday morning, we had to go to Simpson Bay to the bank, to deposit rent money into Jane’s bank account. We went to the parking garage and our car wouldn’t start again!!! UGH!!! Very frustrated with the car at the moment! So went to the front desk and asked about a taxi. The girl was really nice and recommended the city bus. She explained how the bus system works. It’s actually a van, but the license plate on the front says “bus” so you can tell the difference…the others say “taxi.” The busses are only $1.50 per person each way, so not bad. We told them we were going to the “Mailbox” (post office). We knew the mailbox was right across the street from the bank! So we made it to the bank, waited in line forever, and deposited the money with no problems. One more thing finished! We walked around and explored Simpson Bay area…lots of neat little tourist shops and another great ocean view. We walked into the McDonalds there and were surprised to see that prices there were pretty normal. The Subway sandwiches, however, are $8.00 for a six inch…yikes! We went into another grocery store and checked out prices there too. Then we took the bus back and had PBJ sandwiches for lunch.
We wanted to go to campus to explore and use internet, but without a car, we were going to have to walk. Megan said people do walk from where we were, but we decided that could wait. The pool and ocean sounded much better!!! So we changed, put on a ton of sunscreen, and went to the beach! We just have to walk across the street and we’re there! The beach is gorgeous! This is Maho Beach, which is the one the planes fly over when landing! The landing strip is right beside our resort, so the planes are crazy low when they fly over you at the beach! Also, when planes are taking off, the jet engines blast out such powerful blasts of air that the sand blows like crazy and stings when it hits you! (Apparently stories have it that sometimes it can blow people down and blow clothes off of people and everything!!!) We didn’t get that close! It’s just a small section of the beach where this happens. There’s even a huge sign warning people. It has a picture of air from the plane blowing a person over, and warns against physical danger if you get too close! Crazy! Anyway, we played in the ocean for awhile and had fun looking for shells. Then we came back to the pool for awhile and laid out to dry off before returning to the room.
After looking at prices at the other grocery store, we had a better idea what we could afford. We were planning to fix spaghetti for dinner, but wanted a veggie to go with it. We went back to the store and stocked up this time! We found some more things that weren’t terribly expensive. We’re hoping we’re set for a week or so now. Some funny prices:
16 Kraft singles: $5.45
Can of green beans: $1.65
Small bag of sugar: $2.90 (We brought kool aid with us!!!)
We were starved by this point and our spaghetti dinner was so good!
We went to the casino across the street for New Year’s Eve. We got free noise makers, free hats, and free champagne! Fun stuff!
Thursday morning we slept in, went for a walk to the beach, then met Megan and Bert and they jumped our car AGAIN! This time, we decided to drive for a longer time, hoping the battery would charge more. So we went to explore…drove around for a couple of hours. We found the “Cost You Less” grocery store, which is where we’ll want to shop once we’re in our real apartment. It’s supposed to be a little cheaper than the smaller chains. We saw lots of casinos and lots of great beaches. We even drove over to the French side for a little distance. Then we drove to campus, and behind campus we found our apartment complex! It looks nice, and is very close to campus!!! That will be great! The school that I could possibly sub at is very close too!
Then we went to the pool for about an hour and a half. We’re wearing 50 sunscreen and already have tan lines! Not much, but they do show a little…it’s funny! Hard to believe it’s January 1st and we’re laying out!
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