Bro's can communicate without speaking. We don't talk, but our imagined silent conversation is something like:
ME: I'm bored.
ME: What's the quickest thing I can get to drink that will make me pass out?
DUDE: Uh, why are you looking at me like that?
ME: I'm asking you a question. What'cha drinkin?
DUDE: Are you hitting on me?
ME: How can you possibly mistake a look of complete and utter tedium with sexual interest?
ME (giving him the pistol shooting motion and winking): Oh wait, we do that all the time don't we?
DUDE turns to his wife and has an furtive "eye conversation" with her.
DUDE: Honey, check out the freak with the shaved legs next to us. I think he's hitting on me.
WIFE: Probably one of those Tour de France guys. Ignore him.
DUDE: He's too fat to be a Tour de France guy.
WIFE (sits up to look at me and says to DUDE): Leave me alone.
Well, that never happened, but it was how I imagined it was going to be. Fortunately for me, the Isle of Sint Maarten (if you are on the Dutch side) or St. Martin (if you are on the French side) was not dull at all. A beach vacation was survived, and I think we all had a lot of fun. That being said, our vacation started with a crime and then a delay.
June 11, 2014:
First the crime ... I have a friend at work who just retired, and he managed to get his hands on a Cuban cigar which he assured me was rolled personally by the baby-soft, cherub-like hands of communist dictator Fidel Castro. Here's Fidel when he realized that one of his precious macanudos escaped the communist "utopia" of Cuba into my own hands:
He's really mad, right? No big deal. I never liked that guy anyway. What I did like was burning up that small, precious part of Cuba, inhaling it into my lungs and letting it escape past my teeth into the Caribbean atmosphere. Fidel, that's what you get for scaring a whole generation of Americans with your damned Soviet nuclear missiles. I really miss the Cold War. Living without the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation is so dull.
In packing, I managed to remove every single thing that TSA might find objectionable. However, Fidel's cigar, Fidelito, stowed away in my backpack. Just before going through TSA, I discovered Fidelito and made the decision that it would be an offense to Anglo-Cuban relations if I just threw him out. The decision having been made, I threw out the small wooden humidor that kept Fidelito in its oaken embrace and pushed Fidelito into my Homer Simpson themed boxers. These were then returned to my suitcase. Very clever ... I know. They search carry-ons, but nobody would think to search a bag that I've checked! Losers ... I pulled it off.
In a case of reverse import crime I smuggled contraband from a country where these little Fidelitos are illegal to a place where they are not. Not sure who I tricked, but it didn't matter. I'm contrary, and that makes me happy in some infantile way. In your face, someone? Obama maybe? I don't know.
Having checked Fidelito, the good folks at Delta Airlines (www.delta.com) decided that our airplane was far too small, and they needed a bigger airplane. I'm not sure how these matters are "discovered" at the last moment rather than planned well in advance based on tickets sold. We wait at SFO for a couple more attendants to arrive. That made us a half-hour late. That's a big deal when your layover at JFK in New York City is only an hour.
During the wait, I explain to the lady at the gate that Delta is laying a great dane sized turd on my vacation. She promptly fixes the situation by moving us to the very front of ... coach. For a minute, I thought I was going to have the satisfaction of telling Fighten Fitzgerald, Boo, and Ana Cortez all about how I used my charm and chiseled Germanic-inspired good looks to get us moved up to first class free of charge. Alas, no.
In any event, my wife determines that the boarding passes are satisfactory (although still in coach), but that one of our children has been renamed by Delta Airlines as Ana Cortez. I personally like that name, and she is deserving of an alter ego real or imagined. Despite the fact that the Delta lady told the gate agent to just let us on the plane without scanning Ana's ticket, the gate agent scanned it anyway and my child officially boarded as Ana Cortez. So our vacation crime spree continues, and I've gained a Hispanic child. Boarding an international flight as someone else has to be a felony of some kind, right? Ah, once again I am satisfied, and our crime spree continues.
Upon arrival at JFK, we have twenty minutes to board a shuttle, get across the airport, run all the way to the gate at the end of Delta's international terminal, and then board the plane. Kind of reminds me of this old commercial from 1978:
It was very similar, except none of us is OJ Simpson ... thank God. We made it on the plane just in time, pulled away from the gate and then waited for two hours. That meant that they had two hours to get our luggage on that plane, right? Alas, no. Here is a travel tip. If the plane has pulled away from the gate, not a chance in hell they are doing anything other than having you sit there. My travel experience is limited, but I definitely learned that lesson.
Our flight down to Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM) in Sint Maarten was uneventful. Nothing exciting happened like spilled pretzels, peanuts or Delta cookies. Nope, not a thing happened. The cool thing about landing at SXM is that the appearance is that you are going to belly flop on the ocean, but then you hit the tarmac. Probably because from the ground at Maho Beach, it looks like this:
Pretty cool, huh. Here's a travel tip to dealing with rental car guys at airports ... give the appearance (yeah, right) of being pathetic and they might just give you a bigger car. We had reserved the smallest car available from Avis. Something between a Fred Flintstone car and a tricycle.
When the rental car guy looked at the four of us with our bags, he said something like, "Hey, dumbass, how do you think you are getting all of those people and bags to your hotel in this tiny shrimp boat?" Knowing this was part of the game where he gets me to pay for a SUV or something, I just replied that it was fine, and that "I've got it handled." Seeing that it isn't fine and I am truly a dumbass of the cheapo variety, he upgraded the size of our car for free. Ah yes, the law of unintended consequences for once did not bite me in the ass. That rental car still looked like it spent some time on the streets of Baghdad but it was larger than the shrimp boat. Mission accomplished.
Avis handed me a really basic, almost pictorial map of Sint Maarten/St. Martin and off I went to find our hotel. As with Ireland, we basically just pointed ourselves in the right direction and started driving. One plus is that you don't have to drive on the left-hand side of the road.
PRUDISH AMERICANS PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYES!!!
That map would prove useful in getting from area to area, but it didn't help you at all if you get into towns like Marigot (French side) or Phillipsburg (Dutch side). Nonetheless, I was surprised to discover a rather attractive and topless blond model in the upper left corner of the map. She was helping all of us weary onlookers to "Pay to be Alive". How might you pay to be alive? You pay to attend a spa, of course. Here's the advertisement without the text.
Hey, look, she's alive! Must be because she paid for that spa day. Otherwise, she would have remained as dead as you and me. I never went to the spa. I still feel dead.
What shocks me about this picture is not the attractive blond. I know that what flies in other countries with regard to nudity does not fly in the Home of the Brave. In that regard, this is a minor curiousity to my American eyes. What does surprise me is that I could find the advertisement through a Google search of "pay to be alive" and "sint maarten". Let this be a lesson. In the land of the internet, nothing is ever erased or forgotten - not even crass advertising slogans.
Moving on. We stayed at the Royal Palm Beach Resort, and it was very nice. If you go to Sint Maarten, I highly recommend you stay. These are time shares, so that means that we had a kitchen and two bedrooms with a balcony. If you want an idea of exactly what our room looked like, just click on the link: https://www.diamondresorts.com/Rentals/royal-palm-beach-resort What you see there is exactly what we got right down to the view out of the master bedroom and balcony. You are also conveniently located across the street from some excellent restaurants and down the street from a grocery store. We gobbled up some Johnny Cakes at Johnny B's and then I bought a whole bunch of Red Stripe and Heineken at the local store.
Travel Tip: American dollars are the currency for Sint Maarten. In St. Martin (the French side), they take dollars or euro's. Prices are quoted in euro's but they will give you the same price in dollars. That means you should pay cash for everything in St. Martin in dollars if you can. It will save you some $$$.
June 12, 2014:
After not being provided any assurances at SXM that our luggage would actually arrive, I awoke to notice that my teeth had slipped on fuzzy slippers. I figured it wouldn't bother me to skip a night of tooth brushing, but it did. Not to worry, our luggage made a 9:00 a.m. appearance, and all was well.
After herding my fellow family vacationers out the door, we took off for Marigot. I'd read that they have the best pastries and outdoor market. The pastry notion was dead on. Adjacent to the market (meh) was a little slice of heaven call Sarafina's. On TripAdvisor it was made known to me that "Food amazing - don't use the bathroom." Um ... I suspect that bathroom isn't too far from the kitchen, right? Well, let's just check that out shall we?
WARNING!!!! DOUCHEBAGGERY ABOUT TO OCCUR!!!!!!!
In an Unexceptional Travel Blog first, I've just posted a picture of what I ate on vacation. Who really cares, right? I find that generally when people post a picture of what they ate on a social media site, they want you to envy them.
DOUCHEBAG: Look at me, I have food!
ME: A first for you? Congratulations, I guess???
Nobody cares that you ate something that looks like it is a kale flavored booger. Let's reason this through. Ask yourself whether you have ever had a conversation in which you discussed the food depicted on a photo which was posted by a friend on a social media site.
No. You haven't. But you have had a conversation about what a douchebag that person is for having enough hubris to think we actually give a damn what he/she ate Friday night and would subsequently feed to the dog on Saturday morning.
Yeah! You have food! You did it!
Have you also noticed that 99.9% of these photos show "healthy" food. This smacks of elitism. The poor eat fast food and you don't see a lot of "Proud Papa" pictures of Big Macs do you. Adding something which indicates you have been suckered into the latest fad diet (hint ... paleo) just adds to the douchebaggery. I lovingly ask you to stop for your good and ours. However, every rule must have an exception or two.
By the photo above, you must think me a hypocrite. Not so. I already know I'm a douchebag and so do you if you: 1) know me; or 2) have read any other entry on the Unexceptional Travel Blog. Therefore, I know that there is nothing that can be done to impress you. I also have no deep-seated emotional need to surprise you with a picture that causes you to question,
"Gee, that's odd. A picture of food. I never would have known he was a douchebag".
Nope. You know it. Also, this is not healthy food. In fact, this sh*t will kill you, but you WILL die happy. To that end, if you already know that you are a douchebag OR if you are posting a picture of something that you can consume but will slowly kill you (i.e., beer, whiskey, pastries), I offer you no malice. Carry on in the joy of your short life.
Perhaps you have noticed that if I don't have much to say about a place I visited that I fill time with a rant. True. The outdoor market and adjacent areas of Marigot are very nice. Otherwise, skip it. Nothing else to see there except maybe the fort that overlooks the market. Besides, that rant put me in the mood to tell you a sun burn story.
Orient Beach looks like this:
Orient Beach is famous for the beach and the "clothing optional" Club Orient (www.cluborient.com). I've been exposed to these feral nudist types on occasion. It had been a year since I was exposed to the skinny, water bathing and dope smoking hippies at Lake Siskiyou. I had read about Club Orient prior to arrival and figured that I had to drive in their driveway to hit the public side of the beach. Well, I did that and when I made the turnaround in the parking lot, it was dong village all over the beach. That is not something you want to see ... old, beer bellied dudes letting it all hang out. People pay to belong to that club. Is it really that much fun getting sand in your nether regions? The answer is "Yes" if you get to do it with other fat dudes?
Anyway, we parked and made our way to the public part of the beach through one of several of the outdoor bars, past a "big bosomed lady with a dutch accent" and onto the beach. If you noticed the Rod Stewart lyric from "You're In My Heart" you get a shiny, clothing optional star for your speedo! And yes, she was big bosomed and looked dutch ... probably was considering where we were in the world. Anyhow, I just couldn't help but work the lyric into the blog.
The ladies promptly threw all of their stuff down and got in the water. I occupied an umbrella and started wondering what I was going to do for the next five hours. I was going to get drunk if possible. Anyway, Nicolas (pronounced "Nico - lah") quickly arrived and gave me a menu. I think my wife was thinking about leaving me for Nico - lah with the French accent, but she left with me. Not sure why.
I know that it is now popular to take a photo of my feet resting on the lounge with the azure ocean behind said feet. This is intended to announce to the world my state of relaxation. I didn't take that picture because I'm a man. That is cliche. Instead, I put the beach goer potty cycle into effect. Drink beer, get up, pee in ocean, return for beer and so on. Don't judge me ... we've all done it.
In any event, I ordered up a bucket of Carib beer and started on the drinking. I put on the buzz early, so I can let the buzz wear off early. The whole time I was thinking that if my buddy, Scott, was there, we'd surely tear that place up and make a mess of the thing. Oh well, not to be. The girls returned, drank some of my beer and ordered food. Day pretty much over.
During this process I took off my shirt and commenced to get a raging sun burn along the left hand side of my body. I'm not much of a shirt taker-offer since I no longer have the flat abs that are so ridiculously in style now. In fact, mine were so "washboard" as a kid that my belly button stuck out. I spent my whole childhood wanting to add muscle and now skinny with very little muscle is in. I now have muscle (and some chub), but oh well. My point is that this portion of my body has not been exposed to sun since I was probably 23 years old. I got cooked. Nothing screams "Tourist!" like a big ole sunburn. Last vacation, I took my sun burn to Ireland. I earned this on while on vacation. Either way, its now my thing to be on vacation while sun burned. Stupid.
In any event, the World Cup started on this day and everyone on the French side was excited to cheer for Brazil. I know there is a proximity, but that's like me cheering for Canada for anything ... It just doesn't make sense. On our way off the beach, we made our way through the bar and some of the local French guys told me to pull up a seat for the game. I had to decline, but on the way out we could hear the collective lamentation of the fans over the noise of our car when Croatia scored first. Having some hindsight now, it would have been a real treat to have been present when Germany drubbed Brazil 7-1 in the semi-final. I would have liked to have witnessed some of this first hand:
And may be a little more of this:
Folks, this is what happens when your whole identity as a country is wrapped up in the ability of eleven of your citizens to play a game. I guarantee you if the Germans lost, they wouldn't be crying about it. They can fall back on their ability to make awesome cars and start world wars on a whim. Every country has its thing I suppose.
Back to the hotel to smoke Fidelito and drink Red Stripe.
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