A First Look from Tortue Villa

The happy vacationer has returned! And what do you know? I had a wonderful time! I have to say I'm more than a little embarrassed at how I worried and whined before the trip. It was, as I had suspected (and was continually assured), all for naught. I have tons of pictures and stories, and hardly know where to start(Sort of like the pile of coconut and salt water smelling laundry still staring at me from my bedroom floor). I guess the best place to start is at the beginning.

The morning I flew out of RDU was a little stressful (read shaking hands, nausea and hyperventilation), but I downed my pharmaceutical courage along with my orange juice and felt equal to the task of getting myself on the plane for the first leg of my trip( Raleigh to Charlotte). Again, I felt a little silly once on the plane ;we were no sooner in the air than the captain was announcing our landing.
What?!
Did I fall asleep?
These pills are great!

I met up with my travel companions, the kids of the other couple sharing the house with my parents, and until we had to board our flight we killed time with morning Bloody Marys and a lot of catching up. We were a motley group boarding that flight; I had popped another xanax, and was looking forward to being poured into my seat for the duration of the flight. Excessive pill popping? Perhaps, but I was taking no chances. I just made sure my peeps knew to make sure I got off the plane and pointed me in the direction of baggage claim once we landed.

We landed in St Maarten at 4:15, and should have had plenty of time to catch the 5:00 ferry to Anguilla, but the best laid plans and all that. Baggage claim took a life time, and by the end we were laying bets as to who was going to be shopping for new underwear. Then we hit some crazy traffic jam on the way to the ferry (of course) and we missed not only the 5:00 ferry, but the 6 and 6:30 as well. We did manage to catch the last ferry heading to Anguilla at 7, so by the time we got through customs and loaded our luggage into the two cars waiting for us (along with a celebratory Carib beer) it was pitch black. I had to wait until the next morning to check out our view.

It was worth the wait. These were all taken from the veranda off the living room of our villa, I don't even know if I can put into words just how gorgeous(breath taking,really)it was(do you hate me yet?).



I'll be writing more about the week's happenings and posting more pictures as well. There is just too much to put into one post! But for now I'll leave you with one more picture. This is a view of our villa (we're on the top floor) from the beach below.

I have vacation head..

And should not be confused with vacation hair,which for me - in a tropical (read humid) setting-is something akin to Peruvian bush woman gone wrong. Either way, I can't concentrate at all (as this post will undoubtedly illustrate). Ive been staring at the same billing issue for half the afternoon(did I mention I work in billing resolution for a corporate telecom co? No? Well, that's what I do. It's oh so glam, let me assure you). It's not like anyone else is working that hard. The all male members of my group are discussing the finer points of football(again), and listening to sound clips of Dirty Harry movies. Mark my words, in about 4 minutes the Nerf football will come out and all pretences of work will be gone. I am so immersed in testosterone around here I might just grow an appendage soon! But I digress (it's that kind of day).

I could not sleep last night, nor do I expect to get much sleep tonight, and we can just forget about tomorrow night. I'll be lucky if I don't vomit, much less actually be able to close my eyes. I suppose that will make the flight all that easier as long as I don't drool on some stranger's shoulder and someone at least slaps me on the back of the head when we land. (See that? I'm being all optimistic and going on the assumption that the plane will actually land and not crash in a flaming ball of metal and carry on luggage. Yay me!). I'm mostly packed, Ive shaved the winter legs (yikes!), and I go get my pedicure this afternoon. Things are mostly done, so all that's left is to try to stay calm. Aside from the flight, I'm actually starting to get excited about the actual trip. I think writing all my crazy shit down in my last post was actually therapeutic (who knew!?). So were all the encouraging comments, thank you! You have no idea how much that helped.

Wish me luck! I will probably not post again until I get back as I don't think the internets are free at the villa, besides I plan to be in a liquid (and thus illiterate) state for most of the time. Have a great week, and I'll toast you all with a rum drink. Cheers Mon!