Notice the “sometimes” in that sentence! Haha! I have been loving it a lot more lately though. I did study on Thursday the 8th and some Friday the 9th. But then I goofed off all weekend!!! Friday, Vicki and I walked to the Thai restaurant (attached to the casino) to order take out. We had a 15 minute wait for it, so we spent a couple bucks in the penny slots at the casino while we were waiting. Remember, the casinos around here have free drinks! So we each got a sex on the beach to drink while we were waiting. Vicki wasn’t a huge fan, so I had mine, plus a little of hers that she didn’t finish! Then we picked up our Thai food and headed home to meet Phillip for dinner. Dinner was amusing. Vicki had no idea if she would like Thai food or not. Actually, I think she was a little scared of it. She LOVED it!!! AND she ate with chop sticks…a first for her! She was so proud of her chop sticks! I think we were both feeling our drinks a little bit. We were by no means drunk, but did find it totally amusing that we had drinks while waiting for our dinner. So Phillip put this message on his facebook status: Drunk wife + Drunk aunt + Thai food + chopsticks = great motivation to go back to school to study!!!. We actually encouraged him to put it. We thought it was hilarious and figured he’d get some fun comments from people. He did! Hehe! Turns out, they forgot to give us our spring rolls with our dinner, so we had to walk back to the casino! Since we were there, we kind of got another drink. AND then we saw that they had a buffet set up and it looked like really good food! It was free too!!! We obviously weren’t hungry, but decided to try some anyway. We sampled a little of several things…eggplant parmesan, salad, pasta salad, French bread, cake, watermelon…it was delicious!!! What a fun night!
Saturday, Vicki and I swam laps again. Then Willow and I walked over to Julia’s apartment around 5:30. Julia was throwing a Bachelorette Party for Danielle and Willow and I helped her set up for it. The party started at Julia’s pool. Her apartment complex has a nice little covered area with tables and chairs. We decorated with a banner, streamers, balloons, and tiki torches! All the girls brought a snack/appetizer/fruit dish to share and Julia made rum punch. Fun! Around 9, the party moved on to the Red Piano, a piano bar in Simpson Bay. Seriously as soon as I walked in, I heard someone yell my name. Chris, Sally, Stuart, Aure, Jen, and Mark (from Octopus Diving) were all there!!! It was fun to see them in a situation other than diving. They’re a fun group!!!
After the Red Piano, the Bachelorette Party moved to Club 11. We were a little worried about going here, because no one had ever been. It looked a little shady from the outside. One of the girls had heard that they give free champagne. We went, but fully intended to just look around and then probably leave. Well, we looked in and couldn’t believe it! It’s a fancy, super nice place!!!! We all just kind of stared for a minute before going in. They give a free bottle of champagne for every 3 girls!!! Our group got 4 bottles of champagne and it was actually really good! Then when that was gone, some guy that works on a yacht bought us a bottle. It was considered two bottles because it was twice the size of the normal ones. It was some fancy brand none of us had ever heard of. We looked at the menu later and realized it cost $280!!!!!!! WHOA!!!! That’s insane. The sad part is, the free stuff tasted way better than the expensive stuff! Hehehe! I didn’t get home till around 3 in the morning. I can’t believe I’m telling on myself and admitting all of this. But I had the best time! I haven’t been out that late in YEARS!!!! I didn’t even think it sounded fun anymore. But it was great! Maybe I’m not as old as I think I am! :-)
Sunday, Vicki and I swam laps again. It was a little harder than usual since I was up half the night!!! Then Julia, Vicki, and I went to church and picked up food afterwards. We got McDonalds for Phillip and Don (Julia’s husband) and we all got Bubble Tea for ourselves. Delicious! We dropped off Phillip’s food at school so he could keep studying all evening. He had exams Monday…block 4! He was so glad when it was over!!! (I think I always say that don’t I??? But it’s so true!)
After exams, Phillip and I took a long walk on the beach. It was great to get out! We waded in the water, but didn’t actually swim. It was an overcast, yucky day. It poured a few minutes after we got home…glad we went home when we did!!!!
Tuesday, I forced myself to study all day long!!! I was determined to finish my final and end that stupid, awful class that made me miserable for 3 months. I hated this class!!!!! I sat for 8 hours, with very few breaks, and finally finished it! I was so happy I seriously wanted to jump and down and scream!!!! Exciting!!!!
I’ve been goofing off and enjoying the island ever since then! On Wednesday, Willow, Vicki, and I went to Philipsburg to shop and eat lunch at Kangaroo Court! We had a lot of fun!!!! And I bought another Dolce and Gabbana knock off purse from “my purse guy!” I know, just what I need right? This guy gives us super good deals AND he offers a soda/beer/water to me and everyone with me every time I go in his store! He even has Dr. Pepper…totally makes my day every time!
Thursday, I went with another Laura (a spouse also) to finish her scuba certification in the morning! So we went on two dives that morning! We dove at Creole Rock and Shark Isle! We stopped at a Lolo called Sky’s the Limit and got Johnny Cakes on the way home! Lolos are little open air restaurants on the French side. They are on the side of the road. They have a huge grill for grilling the meat. They have several side order items and the little kitchen makes a huge pan of each item. Lolos are known for having good, but cheap, food.
Thursday after diving, I showered and changed into another swimsuit! I repacked a bag for diving, this time for Phillip and me. We went late afternoon back to Grand Case to dive again. We went on a night dive!!! We actually got in the water just before dark, so that it would gradually get dark while we were down there. We had underwater flashlights to see with. It was crazy!!! We saw several neat fish and sea creatures that you don’t see during the day. At one point, we all turned off our flashlights and moved around really fast. You can see little tiny things lighting up when you do that. It’s like the Bioluminescent Bay we swam in in Puerto Rico, but not near as much of it. It was still neat to see them though! This dive was quite the experience! I certainly never expected to be 30 feet under the water when it’s dark outside!!! Phillip had gone before and convinced me that I’d like it! He was right…it was neat! A little scary, but neat!
We were starving after the night dive, so called Pizza Dan’s on the way home, ordered a pizza, and drove straight there to pick it up. It was perfect timing, it was ready right when we got there! I walked up to his window to pay and get the pizza. Pizza Dan asked me if everything was ok. I didn’t think too much of it, but when I got home and looked in the mirror, it all made sense! I actually kind of screamed and asked Phillip, “Why didn’t you tell me how bad I look???” It was so funny, I had him take a picture! That’s some CRAZY HAIR!!!
Friday, I started packing! We are sorting through all of our stuff here and figuring out what all we can take home and leave home! It’s hard to believe we only have one semester left here! We are taking home lots of clothes! I’ll just have to make myself do laundry more often next semester! On the final trip home, we have to fit everything we want to keep into 2 checked bags each and 2 carry on bags each. So we figured we better start now! I’m also making a list of everything that we want to sell. Sure hope we can sell lots of this crap and make a few extra bucks. Some of our beach toys we are setting aside though. We plan to donate them to the orphanage instead of selling them. That will be fun!
Saturday was another great day! Vicki and I went to the Merigot Market in the morning! She got a necklace that she’s been wanting ever since they visited in July! She bought garnet earrings in July. The garnet is from St. Maarten and the guy makes it here and everything. Well they kept saying they were going to make a necklace to match the earrings. I checked back every once in awhile and they kept saying not yet. Well, they finally had it. It’s beautiful!!! (I also fell in love with a ring there! I really really really want to go back and buy it, but it’s $70!!!! I haven’t convinced myself one way or the other yet. Part of me is saying, that’s way too much money, you don’t need it! The other part is saying, it’s unique because it’s from St. Maarten, so you should get it. Ha! I’ll let you know which part of me wins this argument…)
Then we drove to Grand Case and ate lunch at Sky’s the Limit!!! That’s the Lolo I mentioned earlier. It was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!! For $4, you get a ton of chicken and either slaw or potato salad! For $8, you get a ton of chicken, and one scoop of a ton of other things, so you get to try everything. We decided to get one of each meal and then share the sides from the bigger meal! The big meal came with slaw, potato salad, rice, salad, macaroni and cheese, and spaghetti. Crazy combination huh?!? We could barely eat everything between the 2 of us. It was all so good! We both want to go back already!
After lunch, we spent the afternoon snorkeling for sea glass. (The Lolos are right by my sea glass beach and I never discovered them before…man, I was missing out!) It was really wavy, which stirred up the sand and made it hard to see, so we didn’t find as much as usual, but still had a blast and found some neat ones! I found 2 blue ones that are really pretty! That made me super happy! (Blue is extremely rare!) We went back to the Lolo after snorkeling and got Johnny cakes to go. Johnny cakes are sort of like a donut I guess. They don’t have sugar or icing though. Just a round fried piece of dough…they are really good! They are very popular around here! Vicki and I ate ours in the car while they were hot and we brought a couple home for Phillip. It was a great day!!!!
On the drive home from Grand Case, we saw kids on the side of the road selling bags of fruit. We pulled over to ask what kind of fruit it was. The girl told us and then even repeated it for us, but we still had no idea what she was saying! We don’t even know if it was in English or not! She said it was only $1 for a bag though, so we decided to try it. We gave her $2 (you ALWAYS tip here) and away we went with our mystery fruit! I posted a picture on facebook later and a college friend identified it as a Malay apple…at least she thought so! We looked up pictures of Malay apples and we think she’s right. So we decided surely they weren’t poisonous or anything, and we tried them! Not bad, not great…definitely an interesting adventure! (Sara liked this story…she thought it was very amusing!!!)
Sunday, I worked on packing some more. I have 3 bags that weigh 54 pounds each. Yes, I know the limit is 50, but you can usually get by with a couple more. Plus, in St. Maarten, they really don’t care, so we figure 54 will be ok. Let’s hope! I have another bag around 40 pounds, still open to put last minute things in. One rolly carry on is mostly full, one is empty, and we still have our laptop backpacks that we can stuff a few things in. Think our parents are ready to store even MORE of our stuff???? Then Vicki and I swam laps, went to church, and picked up food after church again! We got McDonalds for Phillip and we both got Bubble Tea!!! I think this may be our new tradition. Hehehe!!! (And I don’t feel too guilty, because my Bubble Tea food and slushie were actually 10 cents cheaper than Phillip’s McDonalds food!!) We dropped his food off at school again so he could keep studying. Poor guy…study, study, study!
This morning, Vicki and I went to school to do laundry! I hate laundry day anyway, but today started out even worse. I carried one laundry basket down to the parking lot and was coming up to get the other, when I fell UP the stairs! My flip flop got caught on the step and down I went! I caught myself with my hands, but my right toe hurt like crazy! I looked down and it looked like I had bent the nail back! I reached down to touch it and blood came out from under the nail! Not a good sign…When I looked closer, I could tell that my toenail ripped halfway down it and half of it bent back and was no longer attached. That’s going to be painful for a few days! I have my toenails painted bright pink at the moment and you can still tell that it’s turning black under it. Fun fun…
Other than that, laundry actually went ok…I only had 4 loads this time, which wasn’t terrible for once! (The clothes we packed…well they’re still dirty! Ha! We plan to wash them at home before storing them! I don’t think our parents will charge us $6 a load at least! Hehehe!)
Vicki, Willow, and I swam laps again this afternoon! I really enjoy swimming laps in our pool here! It’s a beautiful pool, surrounded by palm trees! Amazing!
Good luck to Phillip on Final Exams tomorrow morning!!!!! His exams are from 8:00-1:00 and he has studied for them a ton! It will be such a relief when they are over! Then we have the rest of the day to goof off. We fly home on Wednesday!!!! HOORAY!
We can’t wait to see our parents! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment