Caribbean Cool.

Okay, I am finally up and running and ready to post some pics from our recent trip to Saint-Martin, aka Sint Maarten.  Our flights coming home were pretty rough and as a sufferer of severe motion sickness, let's just say, it took me a while to get my land legs back.  Not gonna be Capt. Jack Sparrow anytime soon, I'll tell ya that much.

Well, St. Martin is a Caribbean island that hosts a large Dutch population on the Southern half of the island (Sint Maarten) and a French population on the Northern half (Saint-Martin).

We rented a room through our fave place, https://www.airbnb.com/, and stayed on the Dutch side, but veryyyyy close to the French border.  We were literally RIGHT on the water.

Yep, that's the view from our balcony.  Just a staircase down to the beach.

The best feature of the place we rented (other than the beach of course) was that the owner owned two beautiful sister dogs, and one of the lovely ladies would sleep in front of our door every night and when we opened our door in the morning, there was our friendly Walmart greeter.

This dog was the perfect cure for missing my own dog.

 The Dutch side of the island is known for its nightlife, beaches, casinos, and drinks (more on that later) and the French side is renown for its cuisine (and yes, more on that too).

Our vacation consisted of a lot of beach-hopping and sampling the island's cuisine offerings.

 

Sint Maarten is known for its guavaberry rum, as well as, other fun rum drinks, so below is THE Old Man Guavaberry Rum Shop and a pic of a locally made rum drink, bottled and beach-ready for your beverage pleasure...

 

 

The locally made rum drink seemed to contain a banana or plantain (still not sure), a vanilla bean, and some guavaberries.

We checked out the French market in Saint-Martin, wandered around, and picked up some fresh off the boat red snapper for a delish dinner.

 Sorry guys, but you tasted really good...

 The doors of the buildings where the fish and meat vendors were located.

Annd of course, no visit to a French market or neighborhood is complete without some French cuisine and pastries...

Seriously, the meal at this place was one of the best meals of our entire trip.  The food was Creole cuisine and we had the conch stew and pork ribs, and both were incredible.

And of course, sticking with the food line of thought (and apparently because that's all we did on this trip), I wanted to share some pics from Yvette's Restaurant.  The restaurant is run out of a woman's home (Yvette's I presume?) and is a local favorite featuring Cajun and Creole cuisine.  Everything on the menu was AMAZING.

Lest you think all I did on the trip was eat (which I did...a LOT), here are some other pics I snapped along the way.

Oranje School in Philipsburg

This is the post office in Philipsburg.

I loved how there was street art everywhere.

Cemetery in the French Quarter.

Can't help but photograph aged things.

  Mural on the side of a local art gallery in the French Quarter.

Church in French Quarter

And because no vacation post is complete without my door obsession (see here), BOOM!

Now that I'm home, I might actually, GASP, try and make some art!  I'll keep ya posted.

Until then, I'll leave you with this image that went through my head every single day in St. Martin.  God bless you, Johnny Depp...and rum. Bless that too.