Getting settled in St. Maarten

Hello, friends! I've decided to create a blog for my time in the Caribbean as a nanny for my sisters family to best keep all my curious siblings and friends informed on my day to day life in such a different culture.

Our flight here was direct, which was extremely nice. Myself, my oldest sister, Carina, her husband, Casey, and their three kids, Andi, Tanner, and Piper, all got a ride to the airport in two cars from my parents. Loaded in the van and our sonata with 20 plus bags (literally) and a giant boxed up iMac computer, we said our goodbyes (I cried like a baby--I will not lie. I've never gone longer than a couple of weeks without seeing my parents, so this will definitely be an adjustment, although they said they're quite looking forward to the vacation themselves, heh) and made our way into the airport. We had asked my dad to do circles around the aiport until we knew that all of our baggage made it onto the plane and we didnt' have to dump anything off into his car to leave in the states. Phone call number one to my dad: "We still have all of our winter jackets, please come get them!" The bag check attendant was far more than overwhelmed at the sight of all our baggage and our screaming two year old who was awoken for the trek to the airport. We were overweight on some bags, so we were those people in the airport, unzipping bags, and throwing toiletries into lighter bags, light clothes into heavier bags, etc, etc. Word to the wise: Don't bring thirty pounds worth of aveda hair care. Oops. Notified by the airport staff that there was no way they could guarantee a safe arrival of our iMac considering the high amount of people who would be handling it, and the high probability that it would be broken en route, we made phone call number two to my dad and asked him to come pick up the computer. THAT was a bummer.

After checking all of our bags, and getting through security, we made our way to the gate. Hearing conversations of those who live in St. Maarten for a couple months at a time (mostly retired couples) I got very excited about the slow pace of life we were about to embark on. I literally heard two older men discussing their plans to meet up at "the hammock under the tree" that one man must always occupy here. We boarded the flight thinking it was eight hours, we learned quickly that this included our time change, and that our flight was really only five hours. Woot!

The flight went super fast, I had stayed up the entire night before hanging out with my best friend for the last time for a while, so I was quite exhausted. I drifted in and out of sleep basically the whole time. The final descent onto the runway was terrifying, we were slowly and slowly getting closer to the ocean, and I still saw no island to land on. When we did end up seeing an island in the horizon, and got closer and closer to it, it seemed like we were going to crash into the ocean because the island is too small, once you weren't worried about crashing into the ocean anymore, you were worried about the plane hitting pedestrians because of how close it came to the beach! But alas, we were safe, and everything was fine. I should mention that I hate flying, I always get anxious, especially when flying over the ocean for hours. I always picture myself as Tom Hanks from "Cast Away" hopefully i'll never befriend a volleyball... I'm sorry, Wilson.

Once you got off the plane we all got onto this bus, you'd think you were settled in for at least a five minute drive, but nope, it was maybe thirty seconds, it seems we could have walked to the aiport from the plane. St. Maarten is notorious for its awful driving, people constantly honk, slow down to talk to people on the side of the road, pass people in the other lane, etc. So we get on this bus and not ten seconds later a golf cart with two guys in it pulls up RIGHT in front of our bus, no more than six inches away, our bus slams on the brakes and honks, and all I do is look at my sister at the front of the bus with an expression that said, "holy crap, what did we just get ourselves into, and wow they weren't kidding about the awful driving here." We flew through customs in a breeze, and waited for our bags, then got picked up by some facebook friends we'd made through the medical school, and our church. Thank you, friends!

When we got to our apartment we were all just cranky, hot, and tired. The apartment was beautiful, we quickly changed and then went to a friends house for dinner since we didn't have any food and all the stores were closed. We came home that night, unpacked while we were half awake, and hit the sack.

The next morning we went to church. There were maybe thirty people in attendance, and almost all of them were at least fifteen minutes late, everything "island life" is VERY slow paced, nobody is EVER in a rush, and it's much more relaxed, that will take some getting used to. My family was the only white family there, and we had to repeat everyones name a couple of times after they introduced themselves, but everyone was so nice, and so incredibly genuine. I'm looking forward to getting to know them.

The first couple of days here have been complete family bonding, and media black out since we went without internet for the first four days and had literally no connection with anyone outside of our apartment door. We swam a whole lot, went into the ocean and let the waves just tackle you and send you every which way, and sand, so much sand.

The island is French and Dutch, so you see your fair share of nudity. There's this one particular couple ALWAYS by one of the pools here in the resort, they'll lay there from sunrise to sunset, and they're topless, it's quite shocking the first time you see it. Ha. We've named the pool by them the "Boobs McGee Pool" so now when the kids and I are leaving, we can tell my sister and brother in law which pool we'll be at, so I guess we owe a thank you to that lady, without her my sister wouldn't know where we were swimming.

Everyone on the island is really friendly, and they apparently love kids. They're just so much less self conscious as a whole, much more open and far less inhibitions. The other day I came up the stairs from the ocean to go into the pool, and one of the resort workers had a hose and said he'd hose the sand off of me before I got into the pool, when I reached for the hose to do it myself, he insisted that he do it, and I just stood there awkwardly while he hosed me down, the entire time I was just trying hard not to laugh.

The humidity is killer, our hair looks awful all the time, and our biggest problem is knowing whether or not to shower because who knows if we'll be in a pool in fifteen minutes, or that our flip flops squeak when they're wet. Life is good, and so carefree. I'm already loving the relaxed adjustment.

If anyone wants to visit look for the resort window covered in tin foil (it cuts down on heat that gets inside) we're thinking of renaming our apartment White Trash-R-Us ;)

Until next time, like the islanders say, whatever you do, do with a smile.