St. Maarten: Saturday

I came from the north
escaping convention
modern invention
that won't let me be
To the shores of St. Martin
With my fiction addiction
to restart the fire
a dreamer's remedy - - J. Buffett

Saturday morning we flew to St. Maarten/St. Martin for a quick over-night trip. We met up with our friends, the Moreno family. The are really nice people and have been to St. Maarten before so they were wonderful tour guides. A little background. St. Maarten is not an independent country. It is actually two territories. The southern third of the island is Sint Maarten, which is a territory of the Netherlands. That makes Sint Maarten part of the Netherlands Antilles, which are spread all over the Caribbean and include five islands. The northern two-thirds of the island is Saint Martin, which is a territory of France along with several other Caribbean islands.

St. Maarten/Martin is is about the same size as Nevis at 35 square miles, but is what I would call a craggy island. Where Nevis is shaped like a tear drop, St. Maarten/Martin has inlets and lakes and a lot of bays. It is as if the volcanic lava flow spread out quickly and created little fingers of land. It is a very pretty island. It is also fairly well-developed and has a lot of shopping opportunities. (It also happens to have several Subways, McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC restaurants as well).

Saturday, we arrived and the Morenos met us at the airport. We picked up a little (and I mean little) rental car and headed into Philipsburg to check into the hotel. We stays at the Holland House Beach Resort, which is right on Great Bay. We had a great view and were right in the middle of the duty free shopping district. There is no place to park, so Jaime and Brian were driving around and around and around trying to find a place to put the cars. Once they were able to find spots, we headed out for a little shopping. There are more jewelry stores on Front Street in Philipsburg than you can imagine. We didn't buy a whole lot. Around noon we headed to a little restaurant down the street from the hotel. The food was pretty good, but our waitress could have used a personality adjustment. Right above this restaurant is a bar called the Blue B**** Bar. Couldn't believe that one so I had to take a picture!

After lunch we walked around. The kids wanted to swim, so they took off to the beach and the adults sat under the palm trees and chatted. That was nice and relaxing. I suppose we could have done more meandering and shopping, but I was perfectly content to sit and do nothing. That evening we drove over to the Simpson Bay area and had a little dinner at a seafood restaurant, which served mostly shrimp. Poor Danielle gets sick on shrimp so I felt bad about that. The place had live music. It was the worst rendition of Margaritaville that I have ever, ever, ever heard. When Brian suggests that I go sing instead, phew! After dinner we went back to the hotel and had a glass of wine. Nolan and Julian stayed upstairs to watch TV, which was nice for them and good for the adults too :)

OK, this isn't allowing me to post pictures. You will have to wait for those later. Sorry :)