The Virginia Blogs: Sacre Bleu! Het is Sint Maarten!

See? I told you I would get back to it...

St. Maarten/ St. Martin is one of the most laid back islands. It doesn’t have a huge population, and a majority of those who have homes there, don’t live there. I believe that both Madonna and Richard Dryfuss were offered up as examples of a the island’s home owners.



We had visited several years ago when the dock we were currently at was state of the art AND brand new and they were excited that the ships no longer had to tender in to port. See that pile of rock and stuff there? Yeah, another new pier. This one is going to be big enough to handle the Oasis of the Seas.

Because it is laid back, there are about three excursions you can take on this island: the Island Tour, the Kayaking in Marigot Bay and the Butterfly Farm Day Trip to Orient Point.

Well, Orient Point was the one we wanted to go on. Of course it was, there were butterflies. We dig butterflies. And naturally, the night before, we got the call that the tour was cancelled. Because that’s the way it rolls for us.

Since Tom is NOT a beach person, we decided to take the Island Tour. I started to get angry with him because he kept falling asleep on the bus. However, half way through, I had to change my tune because it was hot, I was sticking to the seat, the AC wasn’t working and the tour was boring. The island is beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but this tour was just not doing it for us.

This is Marigot Bay:



The stuff of nightmares, according to Tom. See that undeveloped island in the middle of the picture? Last time we were here, we took the Kayak tour, and that was wear we kayaked too. Let’s just say that smokers shouldn’t try to keep up with someone who loves to kayak and knows how to paddle. There was a tow rope and cigarette involved in his return to shore.

Anyway, St.Maarten is made up of two sides, Dutch and French. The ships dock in Dutch St. Maarten and Marigot is the big town in St. Martin. A lot more happens on the Dutch side, even though the French side is larger. We were also told that the main language on the island was English or Creole, and that French and Dutch were spoken only very infrequently. This was the first time we were able to get over to the French side and it was very European looking. And naturally, anything with French Roots has something named Louis the Something somewhere.



And that Quartier d’Orleans is not where you want to head. Just head for Philipsburg.

However, our bus had an hour and half stop in Marigot, so Tom and I started wandering around. There was a “shopping mall” that they were very proud of that had about 10 stores in it. And we were there so early that most of the stores were still closed.

There was a mother yelling at her kid, in French. There were two gentlemen eating breakfast and speaking in French. There were signs everywhere in French. The ladies at the market we wandered over to all started to speak to us in French. The times for the taxis were called out in French, as well as the dock for departure was all in French. The information was written in French. So the guy who said that there wasn’t much French spoken on the Island must’ve never actually gone to the other side of island, and certainly doesn’t know the French love of their own language.

We boarded the bus and continued on our tour, and I was only too happy to end up back in Philipsburg. We were immediately assaulted by someone who wanted to try and con us in to a time share. We tried to be nice, but finally wound up just walk away from her.

We meandered through the town of Philipsburg. I should mention here that St. Maarten is one of the places in the Caribbean that still has actual jewelry deals. You can honestly get good deals on precious and semi-precious gems here, so we’re always interested in looking. Most things are guaranteed to appraise 30 to 50% more in the US, and you can get diamonds duty free; the only draw back is that they are NOT conflict free gems. Most of the are DeBeers. Hmph.

After some hunting we found two pieces- the most gorgeous of which you will get to see if you are going to be at Nicole and Brian’s wedding. Otherwise, wait for the pictures. Ha.

We walked around Philipsburg for a little while, waiting for the next water taxi to take us back to the boat.



There aren’t nearly as many moored boats in Philipsburg bay as there are in Marigot, but it’s still pretty.



We were back in plenty of time, and sat around relaxing mostly. We were treated to another gorgeous view, this one with a history.

The island you see in the distance is called Saba. There are less than 1500 people living on it, and the top of the mountain is 2800 ft above sea level, which is impressive since the island is only 5 sq miles. Now, if you’re a movie buff, you’ll know that THIS is Skull Island from the original 1932 version of King Kong. The island was used as background for the beginning of the film.

And if you’re SCUBA diver, this IS the place to go. The entire immediate shoreline is a marine preserve.



Next up, Antigua...

The Virginia Blogs: Um. We're homeowners?

I promise that I will get back to the vacation soon. Honest.

We're not moved in or anything, but we're well on our way to being such.

Ok, so this is one of the stories I need to write down. We've been thinking and trying and trying to save for a house for about 3 years. We've gone looking and driving by and talked to a realtor or two over those years. When we moved down here, I made a concentrated effort to start looking at houses. The problem has always been that what we like, we can't afford. What we can afford we don't like. What we like requires major repairs, or what we can afford is in the ghetto.

Been there, done that, got the hell out.

So, we found some townhomes in Yorktown that we liked. They were nice. They were new. They were still building. We decided to keep an eye on them for a while and perhaps in Sept., go talk to them. I would once in a while wander back to the website and stare longingly at the floor plan, and sometimes wander through the other site and homes they were offering.

It had probably been 2 or 3 months since I had been back to this website, still wandering about looking for other houses we might want to consider. Well, as I wandered I came across a new development name I had never seen before: Fenwick Hills. Hmm. Ok, I'm curious.

I click on and play with the first house that comes up. It had a fun little 'build your own' button, and you could adjust things the way you wanted. Then I looked at the price.

Bwah? It fell under my mark for any home we might consider. Well under. Like $10,000 under. I showed this little find to Tom and he liked it. He probably thought nothing more of it after that. I did though.

The next day, since we had nothing to do, I decided to take us up to these sites and check them out. Maybe get a little information, think about it sort of thing.

We wound up in the wrong damn development. The houses were HUGE and gorgeous and I kept thinking, "There's no way these are the houses in that online brochure..." Sure enough, when we walked into the sales office, the lady said that the houses start about $350 and go from there. She was nice enough to direct us to the proper place.

Well, I walked in and asked for some information. I poked around the decorated model for a few before the lady could talk to me. Being that I was actually going to school to be an architect at one point, I was noticing details and was pleased with what I was seeing. I had to pause to wipe the drool off the granite countertops...

The lady was nice enough to talk to me and give me some information. I asked for a slew of information, and she happily answered me. I finally decided that Tom had to come in and see this place because I was loving it-- despite that it was not the place we had come to look at.

I dragged him, a bit of kicking and screaming, and we wandered through the townhouse. It was simply gorgeous. It was also completely out of our range. However the house that we had originally come in to ask about was in our price range, in our square footage range, and had actual land with it.

We drove home and I would say that by the time we got home that night, we decided to go back and apply for the house. What was the worst that could happen? They laughed at us and said no. I've had worse happen. So has he.

Well, they didn't laugh and they didn't say no. And sometime between August 16th and September 16th, we will be closing and moving into our house.



Our house will have a garage where the window is on this one. We are also probably going for a greyish/taupe for the siding.



This is the floor plan we picked. Actually, the only thing that we added on was the bay window in the living room.

And here is where they are going to build it--


I'll have a picture when they put the sold sign on the lot. Because I'm excited and cheesey that way.

ADDED 2020: 

Through a series of miscommunications, bad credit, and a totally unreasonable request from the realtor, we wound up not building this house. I'm still mad about the situation, but I'm not mad that the house didn't get built. A year later we'd move back to Philly, and just a few months after that, the shipyard had massive layoff and nearly my whole former department was eliminated. We would have been stuck in James City County, VA with no job and massive mortgage. 

Things work out.