On the Beach

Well, I've been back from vacation for almost a week...and I'm ready to go back. I knew when I left that I was going to be in for a major avalanche of work when I returned my job, and in that I was right. But I also expected it to be completed by the end of this week. I was wrong.

Enough "woe is me," though. Before I came back to a perfect shitstorm of work, I was fortunate enough to spend time in the sun of Sint Maarten (or, as it's spelled on the French side, Saint Martin). It was a different kind of vacation then MLW and I would usually take, primarily because we were able to get a place to stay for free. Normally, a "vacation" fo us entails driving hither and yon and/or walking around in some place we've never visited before.

In St. Martin, there's not a hell of a lot to do--hell, they don't even have a music store. So after seeing most of the island over the course of two days (with the notable exception of the port where the cruise ships dock), we did...nothing.

Our routine would work something like this: we'd get up whenever the mini-BG woke up (usually between 8 and 9 in a.m.); we'd have breakfast, then take the baby down to the beach (conveniently located about 30 feet from the back balcony); we'd float about in the sea for the next few hours, maybe pull up some shells, then head back in; we'd read and/or sun while the baby napped; hang around for a few more hours, then go to dinner. After dinner, we'd go through the usual routine with the baby, pur her down for the night and then have some time to ourselves.

That was about it.

Part of this was due in no small part to the fact that the Beach Ghostlette is just over a year old; I doubt she'd going to be up for snorkling lessons at this age. We did take the baby to another beach one day, but since it required so much preparation as opposed to just shuttling her back and forth from the hosue, that we didn't do it again. But aside from snorkling or boating, there's just not a heck of a lot to do. So it was almost like enforced relaxation. I finished the latest book in Robert Jordan's Waste of Time series, which I may review here should I feel like throwing away any more mental energy on it.

However, this will probably be our last flight with the baby until she's a little older. She was actually pretty well behaved, but she required pretty much non-stop entertainment in order to keep her from flipping on the "whining" switch. And that's like being "on" for the better part of four hours. If our little mini-BG wasn't as good as she was, I don't know how we would have been able to cope.

Some other random thoughts:
--You pay a lot to eat rather average food; an exceptional meal is quite expensive. I had what must have been the worst veal parm I'd ever swallowed, the greasy spoon around the corner makes better for half the price.
--For such a small island, there's quite a bit of traffic. If you want to go anywhere outside of where you're staying, a car is practically a necessity.
--There's a sheen on it, but poverty seems to be pretty widespread. And the distance required to go from one end of the spectrum to the other is very short indeed.
--Did I mention that there are no music stores? The best we could do was a natural food store that sold crappy electro mix CDs for more than you'd pay if you bought them at Tower Records.

So while it was nice to get away, I think some place different would suit better next time.