Caribbean 2015:
Day 10 - St. Martin
Day 10 - St. Martin
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Saturday, December 19, 2015: We awoke to our 10th consecutive sunny day in the Caribbean. What are the odds? Well, probably pretty good. |
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We headed back to the Sunset Cafe for breakfast. |
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Our room rate came with free continental breakfast consisting of baguettes, croissants, jams, and orange juice. Of course, we purchased a couple cans of Coke Zero to go with it. |
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While relaxing in our room before checkout, we started receiving alerts that our flight was delayed and that we would probably miss our connecting flight. With limited Internet availability to try to change our flights, we decided to leave for the airport right away instead. |
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We checked out and got a taxi to the airport, sharing with another family. As we started to enter the van to climb into the backseat, the two-year-old girl in the middle row just looked at us and firmly said, "No!" You have to respect that level of honesty. But we climbed in anyway. |
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We drove through St. Martin mostly along the waterfront. |
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Pretty. |
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Tom took most of these pictures because he had a better vantage point. |
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Note the French flags. |
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Despite the French culture, it's still easy to find some American culture too. |
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Never forget, Christmas was now less than a week away, so holiday attire was completely appropriate streetwear. |
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Here's a medical laboratory (which is of interest to people like Debbie who write medical laboratory software), ... |
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... and here is a currently-closed German mini-mart. |
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This border crossing is on the other side of the island from the one we saw the day before. |
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Welcome to St. Maarten! This was now our fourth arrival into the country so far this trip. |
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Now we were back in familiar territory, ... |
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... and we definitely recognized this roundabout near the airport. |
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Of course, we had to photograph the Pink Iguana, moored right across ... |
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... from the airport terminal. |
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We got our connecting flight changed, because at this point, our flight leaving St. Maarten was already going to be much too late to make our connection. Getting through immigration took quite a long time, but we had hours to spend and didn't mind the wait. |
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We were behind this family in the immigration line and wanted to get a photo of their kids' adorable luggage. Each of the four children had their own matching carry-on case and backpack, decorated as a bumblebee, ladybug, panda, and penguin. So cute! |
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Someone please buy that giant Tic Tac box of tiny Tic Tac boxes for Debbie. We couldn't buy it because we had just filled the remaining space in our backpacks with pirate-, ocean-, and mermaid-themed books for our granddaughter, and a little tea and rum for ourselves. |
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For lunch, we had to try Johney Burger. |
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The fast food restaurant featured eight signature burgers, four of which were named for the Dutch side of the island, and four named for the French side. |
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Debbie ordered the SXM, with lettuce, tomato, bacon, fried plantain, Gouda cheese, and Sunset sauce, plus a side of onion rings. |
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Tom went with the Philipsburger, with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, bacon, mushrooms, Cheddar cheese, and Sunset sauce, plus French fries. Both were delicious and expensive. |
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Many hours later, after many more flight delays, our plane finally arrived. At this point, it wasn't looking good that we were going to make our much later connecting flight. |
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We were hugely relieved when we finally boarded the bus to take us out to our plane. |
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We passed a private jet with the Milwaukee Bucks logo on the tail. Team visit? Or owner's personal jet? Oh, to be that wealthy. |
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Finally we boarded. |
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Farewell, St. Maarten. We are happy to report that we did make it home via Charlotte by 1:00 AM. ** THE END ** |
Copyright © Deborah Schilling/Thomas Bundy