Thursday, January 27, 2011

"I take it one day at a time, but sometimes several of them attack me at once". -little book of inspirational thoughts.

It was up at 6:30am to work days at the Lobster Grille. Cliff and Carl were working today, Cliff on hotline and Carl on Pantry (the Pantry person usually makes the employee lunch, which is a bigger deal at lunch because they feed more people at lunch than at dinner). Cliff is always very nice to me, but he was anxious that he show me how HE sets up, prepares, cooks and plates the food rather than letting me do much of anything. Best not to argue or make a fuss. Plus, you never know what you might learn. It's days like this that it's hard to stay at work when I'm not doing much. Cliff asked me when I was leaving and if I was planning on coming back. The answers: March 1 and no. I told him I'd have to have a job offer before I'd come back. Apparently he would like to open his own restaurant! He does like to cook. I did end up leaving at 1pm rather than 3pm because we weren't that busy. Cliff told me first that there were 116 guests, then another time that there were 128 guests (which usually equates with being busy). Who knows which answer is the right one? Not me.

I went back to my room and showered, then packed a bag. I am on the 7:50pm Liat (a French Caribbean airline) direct flight to Sint Maarten to visit my friends Suzanne and Pat. Same weather there as here, so I won't need much. The flight is only about 36-40 minutes long. I didn't realize how close St Thomas is the St Maarten/St Martin (if you are familiar with St Maarten, then you know that one side is Dutch-Sint Maarten-and the other side is French-St Martin). It sure seems like a hassle, though, to go between some of the islands! And O'Neal, the taxi drivermtaking me to the airport, says sometimes Liat is early, sometimes they are late. It IS the Caribbean, where much of life happens very slowly and is doesn't seem to matter to the people who live here. The only people who get upset about slowness in anything here, are visiting Americans. Otherwise, it is easier to just accept that this is the way it is. He is picking me up at 5:00pm, which seems early for a 7:50pm flight, but it's not worth arguing, as you pretty much do things on their schedule (call us a captive audience, lol). When you leave St Thomas, you have to go through Customs, not sure why, so it does take longer to get checked in for your flight. The same was true when Jordan and I took tour of the BVI. We had to go through Customs on St John, even thou our final destination was back to St Thomas.
Amazing the things you just end up accepting!

I probably won't be blogging while I am on St Maarten because it would be international access and end up being quite expensive, so when I get back on Sunday, I will catch up with everyone. Here's to a change of scenery! Hazzah!