Indian food and this kid… September 6, 2008

After this ferry ride, at sunset and enjoying the stars. We were pretty hard up for a meal so we hit this amazing Indian place and met some really eager and or friendly med student just starting his first year at the brand new med school on the island. This kid quickly filled us in on his whole life. Conversation included many highlights, he’s never left home, this is his first time away from home, and he even went to college living at his folk’s house. He rode on a catamaran today the Ire Lime (remember how we met the owner), he likes to dance and was dancing a whole bunch on the boat, his professors were watching, they had an open bar… this went on for a very long time, then his food came and he left. Only to return, after filling up for some more chatter on his way out the door.

I suspect he was pretty drunk but he seemed pretty excited to talk to just about anyone. His name is Michael, this much I know because he wanted me to look him up on Facebook, but I think I’ll call him Earnest guy… Incidentally I looked him up, but he spelled his name twice M-I-C-H… and then he went to get a pen so he could write his name down.

The food was really really good. My sister and I couldn’t decide which dish was better, so we kept dipping our naan in the differant sauces until our bellies exploded to a more plump and round position than it had been before then. Ang and I spent the rest of the night reading the tail end of our books, kind of lame I suppose, but at 9pm I was spent. Which so far makes 2 completed books for me so far on this trip in 4 days.

Nevis: Sunshine Liked Me. September 6, 2008

Since we’ve finally hit the weekend, Angie promised me a trip to Nevis the neighboring island. Apparently, Nevis is the number 3 travel destination in the world. Seems a shame to not visit, particularly if there’s a chance to bump into some famous celebrity. So on the way over we, sat in front of the ferry took tons of pictures and soaked up the sun. Nevis is absolutely beautiful and remarkably clean.  The men are still aggressive and when merely passing by they are known to make all kinds of weird noises.  The women are completely ambivalent to us white girls.

Basseterre, St. Kitts, from ferry

View of Nevis and the St. Kitts Peninsula--Angie's Pic

The day started with the most uncomfortable breakfast ever since there was this blaring car alarm going off, the moment after we took our order, through the preparation and the waiting for the food and just shortly before paying the bill peace returned. Evidently, some dummy had a messed up alarm and couldn’t fix they even disconnected the battery. The car appears to have possessed by demons. It took the mechanic guy at least 30 minutes to fix it. The only thing that saved this breakfast was the resident dog that chased lizards. There are lizards everywhere cute adorable lizards. More prevalent than worms after a rain in Oregon. Better still is that the islands are completely free of snakes, thanks to the introduction of the Mongoose in the 1800′s, the Mongoose were there to kill the rats invading the sugar cane, but the Rats were nocturnal, and the Mongoose weren’t so they went after the snakes.

We did some souvenir shopping where the goodies are way cheaper than on St. Kitts and there was this guy at the ferry dock dancing to some hybrid combo of house and reggae, he was really going to town.  A part of the nightlife around here consists of a port party on the weekends, since the club scene is lacking on Nevis, and if the kids can’t get to Basseterre to party, they all boogie down at the por, and it sound like the party starts around noon.  With buddy, getting it going.  There always is someone, i guess no matter what island you’re on.

That dancing fool is in there.

See how happy we are after a few Killer Bee's

The 4 Seasons is the place to stay (particlarly if you have a lot of money to spend, and the gift shops were a joke, a $70 tank top almost made me laugh out loud), but Sunshine’s is the place to go, it’s a beach bar, and they feature this drink called the Killer Bee; it’s a secret recipe. I guess this drink is so powerful that after 3 drinks with Dad, some 15 year old started splashing around in a puddle. Now, the drink was damn good, but certainly not worth getting muddy for. Sunshine had a ton of pictures of his celebrity visitors all over. Brittany was there, and in one picture she looked less than thrilled to have her picture taken. Even more impressive than the pictures of Beyonce and Jay-z was the pic of Bob Saget, Regis, and Kelly, Opera, John Travolta, Mel Gibson… the list goes on. At some point, the sky’s literally opened up and dropped rain the size of Frisbees all over the place. We took this as a cue to leave. On our way out, Sunshine told my sister after giving me approving once over. “I like her” he went on like this for a moment or two and Angie and I decided to make a run for it into the rain.  My Mom mentioned later that Mel Gibson looked pretty wasted in his picture, so she asked Sunshine what the story was… Sunshine claims that Mel partook in a little of the local greenery with him, likely before rehab.  (also pleased to note:  that the bar is covered with flags of all kinds and prominently featured is the University of Oregon flag, Go Ducks! No sign of a Beaver around)

Next stop were the public baths… they were hot, kind of weird and incidentally probably require a shower after.  But they sure felt nice after that downpour.  

We get back to that ferry and that guy is still dancing. By now I suppose about 4 hours have passed, I suspect he never stopped, this time he had his shirt pulled around itself in that t-shirt bikini style.  Like I said… “that guy” exisits everywhere.

The way back was on a barge. We sat on double stacked garden chairs; it felt like we were escaping refugees. But mostly, I felt pretty conspicuous; being the only 2 white girls, every time I looked around we was being stared at.  Sadly, there were no celebirties to run into, I suppose they are avoiding islands during hurricane season, unlike some dummy’s

It’s unanimous, he’s a douche. September 5, 2008

I waited a while for that guy Stumpy, but he never called, no major loss, I got some more sleep, then I headed over to the Caribbean side and walked around by the beach bars. There wasn’t a single tourist to be seen. I suppose Hurricane Season and Tourist Season are never going to work together.  Since I was a lone target, I suspect that I purchased my very own hand crafted piece of tourist art… a necklace one I could buy anywhere, better still, one I will likely never wear.

Drinking for free tomorrow!

Since I had walked from one end of the beach to the other and couldn’t really find a suitable spot to get some sun, plus the waves were huge (waves were huge due to the hurricanes, although they didn’t hit the island they really do a number on the region all around) so I just made my way over to the Atlantic side and went to the Marriott beach, checked out the pool and pool bar. I think the ocean waves and a nice Advil are the perfect cure for the hangover beast that had attacked.

If you peek around the corner you can see the bar

Once the sis got off of work (at almost 8pm), we decided to try some Chinese at this place my Mom really liked the last time she was on the island. It was ok, mediocre, maybe better but the service was so shitty. It took an hour to get water and order, longer still to get the food.  Feeling partially satisfied because I did get to drink a Ting with a Sting (Ting is like grapefruit soda the sting is Rum), Angie drug me to the beach bars again, all of which were totally hopping thanks to Friday Night. Unfortunately, Angie only wanted to go to Inan’s. She wanted to meet up with a friend real quick.

Ting seeking sting

For starters, Angie has always had a loose definition of “real quick,” and the whole island time mentality suits her well, I really didn’t care though. I’m on vacation, personally I am really get into this whole island time concept too.  I wonder how they’ll feel about it in the office, ask me to do something, and I just kind of get to it when I get to it.  What kind of blew was that I can’t understand a single word spoken by the locals. It’s supposed to be English, but being the native English speaker I am, I’m confident not a single English word has been spoken when speaking amongst each other.  When they do speak English,  it’s a struggle to follow it, Kittians, as to be expected have thick accents, and a liberal interpretation of English vocabulary.

Some guys “taught” me dominoes, a game I already knew. I had fun; beers were coming frequently and not out of my wallet, but I think the guys had hopes I’d hang out for a while.

The cops cruised by carrying rifles dressed like rebel invaders (camo/steel toed boots), some dressed kind of like a cop, they were meant to be intimidating.  Mostly they were just out to mess with people and look for weed and/or trouble makers (like myself).

Angie was working some Mojo exchanging numbers with some local guy (that I’m sure she wasn’t interested just amusing).  She later told me that she gives out her US number so they can’t actually call her.  Shortly after, she was giving me the sign to go, and giving it again, and again. So I finally escaped the domino game, only to be given these childish sulky looks and a full on lip pout because I wouldn’t stay longer from this guy from Toronto.  My thought on this sort of behavior is always the same… suck it up and be a man.  After leaving my sister informed me that she “hated” that guy because that last she saw him he was playing back-seat Domino’s telling everyone what they should be doing.  So it was unanimously agreed, he was a douche.

St. Kitts the arrival… September 5, 2008

I finally arrived in St. Kitts and I feel a lot like a truck hit me, so since I had significantly lost my thunder and spent the day limin’ (Kittician for relaxing) by the pool and watching TV. Having access to cable is almost as good as being on a tropical island.

I forced my sister to go out, and it was at this point I made the treacherous mistake of mixing white wine, Carib (beer), Rum from the Pina Colada and Vodka cran together, causing a hangover that hit me like a tidal wave. It’s shocking I actually did this, I do actually know better, perhaps jet lag causes delirium. The hangover was the merely the pay back for an unusual night, which is exactly the way I like them.

Predictably, my sister wasn’t really down for hanging out a bar of any sort, particularly not actually talking to people. Her idea was to sit at a little palm covered hut at the Frigate Bay Beach Bars, sip some wine and skedaddle. Naturally, this isn’t at all what I have in mind. I promptly move to the bar at Mr. X’s Shiggity Shack, (women can drink for free if they are topless, but I saw the sign too late ) and start talking to some Italian tile guy from the island. He introduced us to the owner of The Ire Lime a catamaran, some guy in movies or something and not to be out done “the Cable Guy” quickly joins. The cable guy is wasted, he’s old and he looks like the stump legged grandpa on King of the Hill. He even talks like him too, being that they are both from Texas.  Better still, he likes me and thinks I’m purdy…  I can actually imagine him calling me a Philly, but this is really because of the accent not because he actually did.  CG is a cattle guy and make some sort of living on the island, I believe installing cable.

See the similarity...

Almost my boyfriend

CG has this great idea that I will lay around and get a tan (he was not so much concerned with my tan, as much as he was interested in what I’ll be wearing as I work on my tan) while he has a meeting and then we can sit around and drink at one of the beach bars called Shipwreck. Angie worked the next day and judging from her sour expression and growing impatience she’s not going to be too sad about sending me away. So the plan was to get Stumpy (aka Cable Guy, aka Grandpa Pervy) the house phone number and he’d call, pick me up and take me and the movie guy to the beach. Honestly, I couldn’t have cared less about going or not, I just figured it’d be a whole lot better than cruising around alone, plus there are few things I find more entertaining than a slurring drunk. He really was wasted, my now very ticked off sister had given him phone numbers (and confirmed by calling his phone at least 7-8 times at this point because he kept forgetting).

Meanwhile, while Angie was dealing with that annoying nuisance, I had found new drunks to distract me at the Monkey Bar, more like a dance club and where you’d likely see locals, students and tourists, I met this great gal from England who appeared to have spilled a drink all over herself (either that or an embarrassing sweat problem).  She worked the Marriott Casino, told me to come find her if I need anything. I have no idea what I could ever need, but I was fascinated with the ginormous wet spot on her chest

Ang drug me out of there and when I woke at 9am to get ready in case that guy called, I was hit by a deep regret for consuming something pretty close to the alcohol equivalent of the Graveyard.

The Roach September 4, 2008

Finally, about ready to leave Tampa, meeting the kid turned out to be a whole lot better than one could expect. Due to some small miracle on his part, he got a room at the Marriott for nothing. After spending a few hours of roaming the front entrance of the airport, not even the terminal, this turned out to be a welcome surprise. Normally, a sane girl would know better than this, however there is no logic once you’ve been traveling for 18 hours and aren’t even drunk enough to pass out. Rest assured, the kid was totally harmless, seriously. We established dividing lines on the bed with a pillow, and camped out for a movie, Iron Man. He hated it, and I fell asleep. Nothing particularly exciting happened, the poor kid had figured that his friends were going to laugh at him for not closing the deal… he’s probably right.

I did see my first real cockroach on my hand towel as I dried my face. Nick had to kill it in the bathtub. The mere existence of the roach had him a little bent so we ended up getting a new room, and a free breakfast that we couldn’t take.

Nick said that he was thinking about writing a book about his trip. I asked him to make me super hot and really cool, I hope he doesn’t’ forget this. I should have told him that he could that he could say he closed the deal…

Planning can be flawless, but something always gets left behind September 3, 2008

And this time it’s the camera.  I’m listening to this guy talk about his acid reflux over my shoulder.  And am contemplating purchasing a neck pillow.  This flight is going to be packed and I see a whole lot of babies… concerned.

The longest flight ever… September 3, 2008

The first day and a half of my trip have been spent in airports, as will the last days; this is likely punishment for the fortune of a practically free trip. Well, not exactly free, but the flight and the room aren’t setting me back a penny. However, the cost of living is what’s going to kill me. We’ll see how it goes; at least I get paid next week.

So it’s a real bitch traveling on frequent flyer miles, on the bright side I slept thru every flight, and with out the use of my precious anti-anxiety medication.

I had the world’s longest layover possible in Tampa. Good things about it are that the Internet is free, but the nightlife is lacking, seriously this airport is empty after 10. But thanks to the kindness of a stranger, I was immediately pointed in the direction of the bar, one that closed at 11, that’s about 8 pm west coast. So I made my way to the next airport bar TGI Fridays, I think this is my first time at one. The bartender was horrified, so I ordered some sliders, also a first; I have always wanted tiny hamburgers. They sucked, fries good. Met a neat kid, 22, he sold most of his stuff and was making his way to St Thomas to see if he can make a career in real estate, evidently, at 22 he was already successful in Boise. We had the same flight to Puerto Rico, Fridays closes at 12 so the kid and I made our way around the airport looking for cards. The best part about this kid, Nick, was that he was scared, not petrified, but you could tell that this was huge, and since he didn’t know what was waiting for him. He literally hopped on a plane and changed his life. I think that is so cool.  It’s the perfect time to make such a radical change, the older you get the more stuck you become.

Ok so I actually did do some stuff this weekend September 2, 2008

After Thursday, my birthday…  the most widely celebrated birthday on the planet… second to Christmas, at least.  I did some coffee shop time on Friday, this honored the most treasured day off on my work calander, the Birthday Free Day Off and that’s about what I did, celebrated my freedom and daydreamed about unemployment, I slept in, drank coffee, sipped on some birthday wine, watched some movie, and went to bed early.

Normally a long weekend would be planned out for months, slated with exciting awesomeness, jammed packed with plans and requiring another long weekend of recovery.  This weekend was different, due to the pending vacation, budget took precedence, well, kinda took precedence  I have to admit it was kind of nice to have nothing to do, no place to be and no calls to return.

I did end up out on Sunday nite, went to a bar with carpet so sticky you stuck to the floor and smoke so think it made me feel chippy, if it weren’t for the sweet bartender, all would be wasted.  I even heard rumors of a visible kitchen rat…  hey, but they did have pool tables and darts.  What else could you want, and I hear the rat is a bit of a pool shark.

Somehow some aimless destinations, landed me back at the Space Room, haven’t been in years.  Happy to report, not much has changed…  except this glowing mural on the walls (which was pretty neat).  Still smokey, still really smokey.  I can’t wait till 2009.  I had a riveting chat about split ends with a long-haired guy, met a creep-o, watched the creep-o get thrown out for molesting the wife of a very huge man.  So aside from smelling like ass, it was nice to visit SE again.  It’s been too long and I forgot there were bars outside of Downtown.

Labor Day: Spent doing nothing September 2, 2008

Well, almost nothing, I did lay around and watch Ghost Rider with Nick Cage… lame.  I got a hot dog, picked up a friend at the airport and most importantly received a bag of squeeky cheese from Wisconsin from my friend for my airport driving duties.

This is my first bag of fresh cheese from Wisconsin and I think I’ll go back just to get more.   These delightfull little morcels of cheese curd squeek at their freshest.  My curds did suffer a bit from air travel, but one can’t complain about cheese curd perfection.  lol.

My far more impressive event of the most relaxing 2008 Summer Weekend, was the nice little bike ride down town, arriving to people watch the Saturday Market.  While I could have spent hours watching the lady with the loud moo-moo and the huge heart-shaped plastic rainbow earings try to put her pearl necklace on, the weak-assed Margarita from Voleur (although, I do strongly recommend their late night menu with the yummiest Mac & Cheese) sent me off to find better cocktails on the other side of the river.  So by way of M’s suggestion we made our way to La Carreta on McLaughlin, to find more satisifying Marg’s for a whole lot less.  The greatest thing about this stop was 2 fold: One, I have driven by this Mex restaruant for years, since birth, I swear, and not one single occasion brought me in.  So that alone made the stop pretty greatthe bartender was also a ton of fun (look for a nice redhead) and they had this green warm verde dip for the chips that was super yumm!

How long has it been August 31, 2008

Well, for starters I didn’t intend to take such a long break. It’s been over a month. Totally unintentional. What’s happened in the last month? It’s hard to say, blur comes to mind.

But really freaking good things have been happening. I found my Ipod. I got a trip to St. Kitts as a birthday gift. I had an amazing birthday and a necessary day off of work the day after. Went on a bike ride yesterday, which involved some amazing strawberry margarita sampling.

Oh and I went on a date with a guy saying he was 29… he was 23, still had baby teeth.

And right in front of me is a very tempting ad for a corn field maize at Sauvie Island (get it maize)…