Today was a weird day for me. I had a realtor meeting which went well and then I had a bunch of little things to finish up. I had no energy. But, I made a bunch of phone calls, did some work on the beach, and then ran out to finish up the few things that I had left to work on. I was feeling emotional. I learned that Ted Kennedy died. I cried in the car. And then, for some reason, I started thinking back to when my Mom’s friend Doris died of cancer, and our last visit with her, and then I cried some more. Then when I was out, some lady in the shoe store got mad at me for writing down prices of her shoes, and I felt really bad. I tried to explain to her what I was doing but she was offended I didn’t ask first. Then, I tried to ask prices of some medicines at the pharmacy next door and they wouldn’t give me any prices. It was only for 2 things, I was feeling discouraged. Then, I saw some crazy man hanging out (literally) with his penis out on the side of the road. I noticed his pants undone and then I took a closer look and I was so confused. I wasn’t sure if he was peeing or what was going on. I had to park right around the corner from him.
I went home, thought maybe having a couple drinks, relaxing, and writing up some reports would help me, but it really didn’t at all. Then I ate dinner alone and it was a bit depressing. I’m not sure where it came from all of a sudden! I was meeting Josue to go to Lady’s Night that night, and after thinking about it a little I was feeling like I really didn’t want to go. I didn’t have a good feeling about this either. We drove the 25 minutes to Red Hook, had a drink, and then he wanted me to try the Shark Attack which was their version of a scorpion bowl; literally was a jug of alcohol meant for much more than one person and I drank about half of it and felt a bit tipsy. Josue doesn’t drink, so at least I could feel good about him taking me home. But, when we finally reached the hotel, I had heard a bunch of compliments from him, and was semi-prepared when he tried to get me to come back to his room with him that night. I knew it was going to happen, he had semi-tried many times in the past few nights. I politely brushed him off and got back into my hotel room, safe and sound and not worrying about boys. It just wasn’t a very good day, all-around.
Every now again, someone comes into your life and inspires you – for whatever reason. It happens very rarely, but it is someone whom leaves a stamp on your being, and may even change who you are or how you feel. Usually you will never see this person again. Sometimes I think they may be an angel sent from God meant to reinforce that you’re doing the right thing and you should feel fortunate for who you are and what you have chosen to do with your life. In walks Larissa. I was at the absolutely gorgeous Trunk Bay when the beach was starting to become sparse of people. I had seen Larissa talking to some people on the taxi over about the beaches and St. John in general, she lives on St. Thomas (in a boat which she doesn’t know how to sail!) and had a store in St. John (so she worked here). She is originally a micro-biologist. She was still here and was lying not too far from me, so I wanted to ask her how you get back. “Well” she said, “either you run to catch a taxi (looking at her phone clock) around 5 o’clock before all the taxis leave the beach and don’t come back, or you hitchhike back” (which according to Larissa is completely normal and safe here). She is a very pretty 41 year old woman, who could pass for being in her early thirties, but she has a tone of voice that came across to me as experienced and made me wonder if she was older than early thirties. Her body, by the way, is way more fit than my own. She invited me to grab a bite with her before we left St. John, and I couldn’t have spent my evening a better way. We chatted as though we were long lost friends catching up. All the while, she wanted to see all my pics, she was completely inspired by the way I lived my life. She gasped at my pictures, at my stories, and you could just tell she really appreciated everything I have been through. She even called me an inspiration, but in a way – I felt that way about her myself. She has never been married, never had any children, and doesn’t regret it. I wonder if that will be me. She was so easy to talk to, clearly a very happy, positive person, and I really wish I had met her sooner and had been able to hang out with her for longer. She invited me to visit anytime on her boat.
St. John was beautiful. Now I know, that would be an amazing place to go on vacation, and stay at The Westin. I wonder how expensive that would be. Seriously though – it was unbelievable. The beaches were pristine and turquoise. Many of them were part of a national park on the island. St. John was quaint and cute. I got off of the ferry and went to where all the people were going and I was asked, do you want a taxi? So I said, I guess so. Where to? I have no idea. So, I decided to follow the crowd to Trunk Bay. So glad that I did! The seagulls dive and steal food from you though. Not good. I got some sun, a really yummy cocktail, and I did a lot of hanging out in the water. And then I met Larissa. I was glad I did, because even though I knew I was on the way home – I was feeling a bit discouraged. Maybe it was all about being ready to come home.
I thought I was going to die driving from the ferry to the hotel. There was no one behind me on these super windy roads, and I was going a very decent speed, but randomly I looked up and the car behind me was so close I couldn’t even see the headlights. I started freaking out. I sped up significantly and maybe drove erratically not even paying attention to the cars coming on the other side of the road because I seriously thought I was going to be, and expected at any moment, a huge crash in my rear-end. Maybe the guy was trying to drive me off the road. I really couldn’t tell what his deal was. I was pissed though. Thank God the maniac eventually passed me on the right. Geez, driving is hard enough here on the left side, through windy hills, is there a need to throw in an erratic driver??
This trip The Marriott has been a bit of a huge pain in the ass. They took almost 2 hours to deliver my lunch one day, they lost my DHL slip copy (but luckily found it the next day), my damn laundry was not finished by the time that I needed to leave the hotel this morning for the hotel, and also the blow-out of my air-conditioner probably left me with lungs full of smoke and needing to change rooms in the middle of the night, and THEN, the other night, I came home to no running water. They never warned me they were going to turn the water off. Then the next day in the morning, the water ran brown and eventually the cold water was fine, but the hot water was still running brown until I got home at night. Grrrrr!!
Funny enough, last night when I was on the way home from St. Thomas, I was on the American Airlines website and was just poking around, and I thought maybe I would change my seat. And I did. But considering it was only a 30 minute ride, I figured that I would leave it where it was. Maybe fate was such that I would meet a nice person on the plane ride to PR, in the seat that was randomly chosen for me. So, the next day I go to sit down and there is a pretty girl to my right. I mentioned to her that I loved her dress. As the plane was going up, we started talking because she mentioned that she was scared to death of flying, and I could tell it helped her to talk about it. I agreed. I mentioned to her that she looked familiar. She currently lives in Marblehead and went to Wheaton. She was a year below me, and then I knew exactly who she was. I had seen her many times and knew she was on the dance team. So, we’ve been hanging out since St. Thomas. Way to go fate! I had a feeling you would pull through. It was somewhat humbling to see this pretty girl whom I had thought had everything: the looks, the friends, the activities – get freaked out by flying. I guess I’m not the only one, am I! I wonder what percentage of the world actually can’t stand flying either. (PS I love you airplane - I’m currently on the plane now, haha. )
I can’t wait to get back to Boston. We will be arriving in less than an hour now (50 minutes) and I might cry when we land.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Fear of food? How in this world is that possible? (Unless you are like me and can be killed by them, of course..)
I learned today, that in St. Thomas, you must a) buckle your seatbelt if you are in the front and b) NOT drive while talking on your cell phone – but – it is perfectly acceptable to drink alcohol while driving. I didn’t think it made sense either. To recap, you must wear your seatbelt in the front in Gambia. In Haiti, there is no need to buckle up (apparently – even though they drive like maniacs), and also – the drivers here seem to rather you didn’t buckle up, for whatever reason that may be.
My realtor set me up today with one of her agents - Nick. It was pretty random actually – which is fine cause that’s how I roll (Ha Nick says this all the time). He happened to call while I was talking to her and she said what are you doing tonight? You must take Lauren out – even before she asked me what I was up to. So, we went for some drinks and some food (though I had really just eaten dinner, not knowing that when we made plans it was suppose to be for dinner). Nick has never tried wine before. In fact, he has a fear of trying new foods. Like a phobia. I think it’s hilarious. He told me the #1 rule was to never pick up a hitchhiker. I actually saw 2 today for the first time. Nick was a cool guy – he was going to come with me to St. John but he ended up having bad luck with the jeep he was buying and he had to take care of some appointments. I didn’t see him again, but I do wish him goodluck. He learned to live with the oddities of living on a vacation island, and eventually fell in love with it – but it took him quite a while to get there, including once when his bag was packed and he was leaving, and he was convinced to stay by the real estate agent I met with, Kerstin.
I went to eat something, and it was happy hour – so apparently you get 2 drinks for the price of one. I got 2 mango mojitos at once and almost wasn’t able to drive home. Rather, I shouldn’t have driven home. It’s OK that I did, by law here though.
My realtor set me up today with one of her agents - Nick. It was pretty random actually – which is fine cause that’s how I roll (Ha Nick says this all the time). He happened to call while I was talking to her and she said what are you doing tonight? You must take Lauren out – even before she asked me what I was up to. So, we went for some drinks and some food (though I had really just eaten dinner, not knowing that when we made plans it was suppose to be for dinner). Nick has never tried wine before. In fact, he has a fear of trying new foods. Like a phobia. I think it’s hilarious. He told me the #1 rule was to never pick up a hitchhiker. I actually saw 2 today for the first time. Nick was a cool guy – he was going to come with me to St. John but he ended up having bad luck with the jeep he was buying and he had to take care of some appointments. I didn’t see him again, but I do wish him goodluck. He learned to live with the oddities of living on a vacation island, and eventually fell in love with it – but it took him quite a while to get there, including once when his bag was packed and he was leaving, and he was convinced to stay by the real estate agent I met with, Kerstin.
I went to eat something, and it was happy hour – so apparently you get 2 drinks for the price of one. I got 2 mango mojitos at once and almost wasn’t able to drive home. Rather, I shouldn’t have driven home. It’s OK that I did, by law here though.
Pushovers
Car dealers here are really strange. They all eventually gave me in the info that I needed, but they are very hesitant to do so. Everywhere else I have been they would say sure and happily read off prices to me. I’m thinkin maybe it’s a US thing, since this technically is part of the US. Or maybe they are self-conscious because they know that I am comparing the price to the continental US and it’s the same car here, just more expensive due to the importation of the vehicles. I’m not sure. I tried numerous tactics to get information and it did end up working out just fine – (because in reality, I am sorta relocating a large group of clients who will be buying their products… well, not really, but…..)
The grocery store owners like me. They are all middle-eastern for the most part. I bet it would be interesting to go to that part of the world; ha – maybe I wouldn’t be safe on my own there. I tried to be very wary of my surroundings today. I feel like I was out on my own in the dark a little too often at times. I was in a really questionable area and there was a guy who approached me to tell me I was pretty (this was in broad daylight though). I was still a little nervous. I must go to bed now. I don’t know why I stay up this late all the time.
The grocery store owners like me. They are all middle-eastern for the most part. I bet it would be interesting to go to that part of the world; ha – maybe I wouldn’t be safe on my own there. I tried to be very wary of my surroundings today. I feel like I was out on my own in the dark a little too often at times. I was in a really questionable area and there was a guy who approached me to tell me I was pretty (this was in broad daylight though). I was still a little nervous. I must go to bed now. I don’t know why I stay up this late all the time.
Caribbean Beach (check) Happy (check)
Ah, I love the Caribbean. Today my friend Josue and I went to Megan’s Bay beach (which is considered one of the top 10 in the world) and it was pretty nice. There were sea gulls and large pelicans flying all over the place trying to find the schools of fish that kept on swirling around us. The seagulls would repeatedly land on the pelicans and try to steal the fish out of the pelican’s mouth as they were catching the fish. It was very comical. The vegetation was lush and the mountains crept up the sides of the bay area. I’m curious though, what was the determining factor in declaring this one of the top ten beaches in the world? No complaints here, though – we spent the afternoon bobbing in the ocean bath water. Large foot-long iguanas are all over the place, I even almost got rear-ended yesterday while stopping for one that was walking in the middle of the road. I made the quick decision to stop because I couldn’t really swerve to the right (there was a blind drive and THAT could have been a really bad situation).
I feel really bad that I keep turning down Josue when he asks me to hang out after we get home from dinner. This is the third time he has asked me and I turn him down. I really just don’t want to put myself in an awkward position – not that I feel threatened by him in any way, but I’m just worried that he’ll try to kiss me or something and I don’t want that. We’ll see how long I can avoid it for; this was our 5th day in a row hanging out together though! We sat down to dinner and he said he wanted to sit in a particular seat because he needed to be looking at the door. I thought ewwww… I have heard THIS before, last time I dated a cop. I think it’s cheesy, one of the show-off things that they say. Josue is a customs officer at the airport here.
Josue introduced me to Kineps. They are little green fruit that have sweet/tart fruit under the skin but surrounding the nut in the middle. They are really good! One of the locals cut down like a tree of them so that I could take them home with me and put them in the fridge. Breakfast tomorrow.
Last night we went out to a latin restaurant – I ate some concoction made of fried plantains and some other stuff. It was good, but a bit too filling. And I was told I have never eaten Dominican food unless I have tried mangoo. I think that is how you spell it. It’s almost like a stew (apparently) made of plantains.
Tonight I worked out and a very large guy said to me (we were the only two in the gym) that he was amazed to see me go on the elliptical machine, and said that he could never ever keep going that long. I was pretty flattered, especially after how amazed he seemed. He said he may have even been inspired to try it himself. “Don’t you ever get tired on that?” I happened to have a non-winded session (I would have kept going if it wasn’t so late).
I feel really bad that I keep turning down Josue when he asks me to hang out after we get home from dinner. This is the third time he has asked me and I turn him down. I really just don’t want to put myself in an awkward position – not that I feel threatened by him in any way, but I’m just worried that he’ll try to kiss me or something and I don’t want that. We’ll see how long I can avoid it for; this was our 5th day in a row hanging out together though! We sat down to dinner and he said he wanted to sit in a particular seat because he needed to be looking at the door. I thought ewwww… I have heard THIS before, last time I dated a cop. I think it’s cheesy, one of the show-off things that they say. Josue is a customs officer at the airport here.
Josue introduced me to Kineps. They are little green fruit that have sweet/tart fruit under the skin but surrounding the nut in the middle. They are really good! One of the locals cut down like a tree of them so that I could take them home with me and put them in the fridge. Breakfast tomorrow.
Last night we went out to a latin restaurant – I ate some concoction made of fried plantains and some other stuff. It was good, but a bit too filling. And I was told I have never eaten Dominican food unless I have tried mangoo. I think that is how you spell it. It’s almost like a stew (apparently) made of plantains.
Tonight I worked out and a very large guy said to me (we were the only two in the gym) that he was amazed to see me go on the elliptical machine, and said that he could never ever keep going that long. I was pretty flattered, especially after how amazed he seemed. He said he may have even been inspired to try it himself. “Don’t you ever get tired on that?” I happened to have a non-winded session (I would have kept going if it wasn’t so late).
Remember... Drive on the LEFT
So, I may have completely and absolutely forgotten that Puerto Rico was a US territory. Completely forgot. They even use US currency. My friend from Puerto Rico mentioned it to me when talking about some lady who was stupid because she didn’t know that and I just laughed like… duh… ya she REALLY must have skipped that geography lesson. Oops.
My A/C blew out tonight. Me being slightly tipsy, was thinking – eh whatever, no big deal. However; smoke poured out of the A/C and the bellhop couldn’t even come in my room the smoke was so bad. I didn’t realized it until afterwards; I didn’t want to open a window cause I wasn’t sure if they were going to believe me that the a/c blew out and there was smoke everywhere. Haha, how silly. If you even go out of my room now and into the hallway you can smell the smoke. So then, I had to pack up my life and move down the hall. A superfun thing to do at 3 am after you have unpacked everything since you were going to be here for over a week.
Everyone has been very nice so far. Permission isn’t a major issue, but people just seemed puzzled, like – um, what are you doing? Usually it’s either a problem or it’s not. Here, I feel as long as you explain yourself well enough, and act super sweet in the mean time, it’s fine. I have actually found the managers to be extremely nice, if you play your cards right. Though the car dealerships seem to be a bit of a challenge. I am 1 down 4 to go and I have heard the owner of Ford here is kinda a nightmarish asshole. We will soon find out. I love it here. I love the music, I like the people, the food is great, the beach is lovely, it’s humid as hell. And everything, even my work to a certain extent, is just relaxed. Though, I try to take extra precaution when trying to remind myself to drive on the LEFT. Drive on the LEFT. I will need to take a picture of the Reminder: Drive on the LEFT side signs. As a matter of fact, I would love to take one home with me as a personal souvenir. Hmmmm….
The roads are windy, they are steep, there are numerous blind drives, and there are hills that my car can barely get over. It’s quite amusing, so far. We went to the Fat Turtle tonight and danced a little. I love the music. Reggae, reggaeton, it just screams Caribbean, vacation , Block Island type mentality. As much as I’m ready to go home, I’m not quite sure I’ll be ready to leave here yet. I guess it will depend on how fast I can finish my work! Time for bed so I can get it done!
My A/C blew out tonight. Me being slightly tipsy, was thinking – eh whatever, no big deal. However; smoke poured out of the A/C and the bellhop couldn’t even come in my room the smoke was so bad. I didn’t realized it until afterwards; I didn’t want to open a window cause I wasn’t sure if they were going to believe me that the a/c blew out and there was smoke everywhere. Haha, how silly. If you even go out of my room now and into the hallway you can smell the smoke. So then, I had to pack up my life and move down the hall. A superfun thing to do at 3 am after you have unpacked everything since you were going to be here for over a week.
Everyone has been very nice so far. Permission isn’t a major issue, but people just seemed puzzled, like – um, what are you doing? Usually it’s either a problem or it’s not. Here, I feel as long as you explain yourself well enough, and act super sweet in the mean time, it’s fine. I have actually found the managers to be extremely nice, if you play your cards right. Though the car dealerships seem to be a bit of a challenge. I am 1 down 4 to go and I have heard the owner of Ford here is kinda a nightmarish asshole. We will soon find out. I love it here. I love the music, I like the people, the food is great, the beach is lovely, it’s humid as hell. And everything, even my work to a certain extent, is just relaxed. Though, I try to take extra precaution when trying to remind myself to drive on the LEFT. Drive on the LEFT. I will need to take a picture of the Reminder: Drive on the LEFT side signs. As a matter of fact, I would love to take one home with me as a personal souvenir. Hmmmm….
The roads are windy, they are steep, there are numerous blind drives, and there are hills that my car can barely get over. It’s quite amusing, so far. We went to the Fat Turtle tonight and danced a little. I love the music. Reggae, reggaeton, it just screams Caribbean, vacation , Block Island type mentality. As much as I’m ready to go home, I’m not quite sure I’ll be ready to leave here yet. I guess it will depend on how fast I can finish my work! Time for bed so I can get it done!
Finally in St. Thomas!
Tomorrow I will be driving on the left side of the road. Ick! This makes me slightly nervous. The roads here are very windy and hilly, very dangerous. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult to get around.
Today I ordered room service and it took an hour and a half to get to me. I actually had finished all my work and needed to wait until they arrived at my room before I could go anywhere, or even take a shower. I was so annoyed.
Luckily, I had no permission problems at the grocery store that I went to (the 1st one). The manager was nice and I worked for 4 hours and had to leave because they were closing. He started explaining to me why everything was so damn expensive. Ugh I hate that I didn’t finish.
When I got back to the hotel, Josue was waiting for me outside. Just kidding. But he just happened to be there and so we went out to get some food at the Shipwreck. He really is a nice guy, he has helped me from figuring out where everything is to driving to show me some of the places, showing me tricks in the business center so that I don’t need to pay the ridiculous prices they charge just to use the internet and print anything. He has a great room a floor above mine; he actually has a loft. Not a bad deal. Well, I guess he is living there for like 8 months, I think I would want that too…. Anyways, I hope he’s not thinking that we will be anything more than friends. He’s a nice guy but I’m not interested in more. (Ha, when am I ever?) He asked me if I wanted to go to the Fat Turtle tomorrow night, so of course, hell why not. Oh by the way, he’s a customs officer, the guy you have to talk to before you can be let back into (or let in for the first time) to the US of A.
Anyways, somehow it got to be much too late. I think I’m still on Brazil time – (wait no that doesn’t make sense, it would be later than it is now if that was the case….) Goodnight!
Today I ordered room service and it took an hour and a half to get to me. I actually had finished all my work and needed to wait until they arrived at my room before I could go anywhere, or even take a shower. I was so annoyed.
Luckily, I had no permission problems at the grocery store that I went to (the 1st one). The manager was nice and I worked for 4 hours and had to leave because they were closing. He started explaining to me why everything was so damn expensive. Ugh I hate that I didn’t finish.
When I got back to the hotel, Josue was waiting for me outside. Just kidding. But he just happened to be there and so we went out to get some food at the Shipwreck. He really is a nice guy, he has helped me from figuring out where everything is to driving to show me some of the places, showing me tricks in the business center so that I don’t need to pay the ridiculous prices they charge just to use the internet and print anything. He has a great room a floor above mine; he actually has a loft. Not a bad deal. Well, I guess he is living there for like 8 months, I think I would want that too…. Anyways, I hope he’s not thinking that we will be anything more than friends. He’s a nice guy but I’m not interested in more. (Ha, when am I ever?) He asked me if I wanted to go to the Fat Turtle tomorrow night, so of course, hell why not. Oh by the way, he’s a customs officer, the guy you have to talk to before you can be let back into (or let in for the first time) to the US of A.
Anyways, somehow it got to be much too late. I think I’m still on Brazil time – (wait no that doesn’t make sense, it would be later than it is now if that was the case….) Goodnight!
Trashy city no pun intended
I had to go through downtown Port Au Prince to go to a couple locations for survey yesterday, wow was that a sight. First off, the road there was just a solid mess of huge holes. Then, piles of trash everywhere and people rummaging through it and around it, it almost appeared that the whole city was a public dump. Not only that, but I drove through a street full of cars, broken cars, with the most insane parts missing. My driver told me that this was the street for the public garage. You take it here and people take care of the car. Out of all the places I have been so far, I have not seen a town quite in shambles this badly.
I drank coconut water straight from the coconut today, well I’m not actually sure if it was a coconut or not, I think it was like a coconut but not what we know of a coconut. It was a green/yellow large round fruit - the top is sliced off so you can drink the water from the spout in the middle. I thought it was alright, not great though. They said it was very healthy for you. Then, they cut the fruit in half and scrape out the inside, which is a thin strip of a jelly-like substance. Surprisingly (especially for me!) I really didn’t like the consistency of it, so my driver ate the jelly.
Here, for some very strange reason, everyone has 2 cell phones and 2 landline numbers. EVERYONE. I’m really lost as to why this is the case
Never seen such incompetent people at a flight location in my life. Here and back. The Haitian people in general seem very nice, very smart but man – there were about 10 fights over seats on the plane ride back, and I had my own issue which I spoke about above about the ride over. The stewardesses had to get in the middle of all the fights to be the one to sort them all out. I couldn’t believe it.
From there, the flights were fine. Although, we had a really hard landing in St. Thomas. Right before landing, the plane kept rocking back and forth and dropping and going back up again. I was really nervous and almost screamed when we landed really hard, but then I realized we were fine and on land. Without realizing it, I actually grabbed the hand of the lady sitting to my left.
I met a nice Puerto Rican guy at the hotel who was here working who helped me find good restaurants to visit and also tried to convince me that I should rent a car rather than use a taxi, which I might actually do.
Well I really need to get to work now! More tonight.
I drank coconut water straight from the coconut today, well I’m not actually sure if it was a coconut or not, I think it was like a coconut but not what we know of a coconut. It was a green/yellow large round fruit - the top is sliced off so you can drink the water from the spout in the middle. I thought it was alright, not great though. They said it was very healthy for you. Then, they cut the fruit in half and scrape out the inside, which is a thin strip of a jelly-like substance. Surprisingly (especially for me!) I really didn’t like the consistency of it, so my driver ate the jelly.
Here, for some very strange reason, everyone has 2 cell phones and 2 landline numbers. EVERYONE. I’m really lost as to why this is the case
Never seen such incompetent people at a flight location in my life. Here and back. The Haitian people in general seem very nice, very smart but man – there were about 10 fights over seats on the plane ride back, and I had my own issue which I spoke about above about the ride over. The stewardesses had to get in the middle of all the fights to be the one to sort them all out. I couldn’t believe it.
From there, the flights were fine. Although, we had a really hard landing in St. Thomas. Right before landing, the plane kept rocking back and forth and dropping and going back up again. I was really nervous and almost screamed when we landed really hard, but then I realized we were fine and on land. Without realizing it, I actually grabbed the hand of the lady sitting to my left.
I met a nice Puerto Rican guy at the hotel who was here working who helped me find good restaurants to visit and also tried to convince me that I should rent a car rather than use a taxi, which I might actually do.
Well I really need to get to work now! More tonight.
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