Pros and Cons Of St. Croix

So after being here for a little over a month, we have started to get a grip on things.  Here is a list of the good and bad things that come with being here.

Pros

The People-  We have met some of the nicest people in the short amount of time that we have been here.  All most all of the people that we have met have been extremely helping, whether it is to help us find jobs, a car or whatever else it is that we need. 

The Beaches-  On the days off we have, we try to go explore and find a new beach.  There are endless amounts of them.  Some of them are calm and tucked away in lagoons, and others are open with big waves at resorts.  They are all different and have their own feel.

Bar Games-  One of the bars that we frequent, Cheeseburgers In "American" Paradise, since Jimmy Buffett sued them, has little bar games to play.  One of them is that you pay a dollar and get to roll five dice three times.  If you hit five of a kind you win the pot.  The other night the pot was up to 750.  Philip got four of a kind.  Almost. 
Another game they play is squares for Monday Night Football.  For four dollars you get a square.  There are a hundred squares predicting the scores of the game.  If you win you get 200 hundred dollars and a square on the big board.  The big board is for the Super Bowl.  Last Monday we won thanks to the Patriots shellacking of the Jets.  The prize for the big board is Twenty Thousand Dollars!

 Food-  The restaurants here all have great food.  We have yet too just have a horrible meal.

Cheap Booze-  The booze here is outrageously cheap.  It is like buying alcohol in Mexico. 

Open Container- There is no open container laws here.  You can take booze with you anywhere.  Walk out of bar with a beer and drink it on the way to your next.  Not a problem.

Relaxation-  Everyone here is completely relaxed and easy going.  Very rarely do you come across someone who is in a bad mood or in a hurry. 

 Cons

Old people- enough said.

Service-  Due to the fact that everyone here is relaxed, you usually get crappy service.  If you do get good service it is because the people have just moved here and are not used to making people wait.  It is not unusual for a meal to take over an hour and a half and not get a single re-fill during that time.  It is very frustrating.

The weather- Everyone keeps saying that the weather will get better, but right now it sucks.  It rains almost everyday making the water cloudy.  Waking up to blue skies is always a blessing.

Massive Pot Holes-  There are pot holes everywhere here, like two feet deep pot holes.  Driving the roads here is a challenge.  It can be very fun though trying to avoid all of them.  You do not want to get in the car if Philip is driving at night without his glasses because it is guaranteed he will hit every pot hole on the way and you will most likely get airborne.  

Expensive Items-  As cheap as the booze is, everything else is that much more expensive.  Eight dollars for a gallon of milk, and so on.  It is kind of comical to go to the grocery store and see how much stuff costs. 

No See Ums-  This is by far the worst part of the Caribbean.  No see ums are little gnat like mosquitoes that will drive you crazy.  They are about the size of fleas, hence the name, but they have a strong bite.  When they bite you it will make your leg twitch.  And they are everywhere.  We all have numerous bite marks all over. 

So that's the list.  I'm sure as time goes on there will be more to add too it.  But,  overall the good outweighs the bad.  Hopefully soon we will be able to go to Buck Island for the day to go have some fun.

St. Croix The Retirement Village

We have moved to a retirement village.  There is nothing but old, older, and ancient people here.  The other day at work I was taking food out to Drew's table and asked him where it was going.  He said to the younger couple.  By younger, he meant the couple that was sixty.  I'm not kidding.  Saturday night was a swinging time at Topside with karaoke.  Classics from the fifties.  Drew had a lady fall out of her chair and a man take a break from his oxygen mask to cuss him out.  Pretty soon we are going to start having a bingo night.  All of the locals keep saying that once Christmas comes around it gets better.  Maybe their grand kids come to visit or something.  We make our own fun here and have been having a blast, but we are ready for Christmas to come and things to get going.

Kookin It

We have been going to the beach on a regular basis now that we have our work schedules figured out.  Unfortunately the water has not really been clear enough yet to go snorkeling, which is what we have wanted to do since day one.  So instead we have been going to the Carambola Beach Resort.  The beach at the resort is nice and gets alot of waves.  These waves are very fun for body surfing and just messing around.  Here are some pictures from the days we have been.  Hopefully soon we will have awesome underwater pictures with a bunch of fishies.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day was a laid back but fun day for us.  Drew cooked us our Thanksgiving lunch which consisted of turkey burgers, and turkey hot dogs.  We spent the rest of the day watching football.  That night we got invited to an employee party at one of the restaurants here.  It was a great meal and best of all free.  That concluded our day.

On Friday is when we finally got to go a beach for the first time since we have been here.  It has either been bad weather, or work, or something else that has always prevented us to go have fun.  We traveled to the west end of the island to a resort called Carambola.  The resort was super nice and had a nice beach.  We intended on going snorkeling, but the guide told us we should wait for a better day.  So we spent a couple of hours just messing around in the water, getting what Drew calls "seahabilitation".  We hung out at the beach for awhile and then went to a bar and grill right on the water called Off The Wall. It had great pizza.  It was a nice relaxing day, but Drew and I had to go to work that night.

We had an epic night at work with the total of our combined tips being a goose egg.  It turns out that in town that night was "Jump Up", which is why no one was at our place.  Jump Up is an event held four times a year to bring money into the town.  It's just a huge street party, with a parade and marching bands and people walking around on stilts.  This was by far the funnest night we have had so far.  We met up with some friends on the boardwalk in town and hung out at the brew pub.  It was a great night, with a live reggae band playing. And that was our Thanksgiving.  It was sad to be away from home for the holiday, but we made the most of it.  Unfortunately I did not take my camera to Jump Up so there are no pictures from it.