Miss a family wedding? Never! So, when my niece decided to get married on the beach in St. Barts, I of course, said "yes!" St. Where? And, how do I get there? Apparently, if I lived up north like most of my family, I could have easily taken a plane non-stop from Newark to St. Maarten and then caught the ferry to St. Barts. But instead, from Tampa, I had to fly to San Juan, and then to St. Maarten and then hop the ferry to paradise island (or should I say the roller-coaster boat from Hell. But, I'll get to that later after ample Dramamine, Xanax and some liquid pink stuff).
I generally travel everywhere by car, so I must have had "international travel-newbie" written all over me when some nice guy showed me how to swipe my passport to get my boarding pass. I'm sure my lovely mug is now in some government data base for the rest of my life.
While waiting for my flight, I splurged on a bran muffin and latte from Starbucks and read the New York Times, all the while looking like a seasoned traveler, but feeling like the road before me was never-ending. Once aboard, the guy sitting next to me, Pablo, said a prayer in Spanish before we took off and I somehow, felt comforted. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, another woman crossing herself when we got above the clouds. The first leg of this flight from Tampa to San Juan, I lucked out by not having to sit next to a super squirmy pre-ADHD two-year-old who didn't understand "no", "stop it" or "sit" in any of her native languages. She was two seats down from me so that when she had an "accident" and later tossed up a gazillion undigested Cheerios, my lap was spared. Too bad for the poor guy sitting next to her.
When I got to San Juan, I was making a mad dash to the multi-lingual, multi-symbol labeled, gender-neutral, shower-available-for-$12 lavatory when I noticed a flight boarding to St. Maarten. My flight wasn't for another four hours, so in Spanish, I asked if I could get on. Si! They let me! It boarded outside and one of the flight attendants took my baggage and loaded it in the nose of the plane so I could get up the wobbly, narrow set of steps barely suspended from the exit door to the ground. The flight was ear-numbingly loud and only about 10,000 feet in the air. When we landed, we all waited outside for our baggage, in the pouring-side-ways, spit-ball rain. My baggage was no where to be found. The attendant told me to go to baggage claim. I told him that I had seen my suitcase being loaded into the nose. He looked and said they must have given it to someone else. I stood my pudd;e-forming ground and said it had to be there. So much for my quad-lingual talents. No amount of English, Spanish, Sign Language or Greek would help me. I was at a grave linguistic disadvantage since he spoke mostly French and smiled through his apologetic English. They looked until I was saturated with fear and soaked with pelting rain. Finally, the captain looked and found it. Apparently, they thought it was the crew's baggage since it was small, black and had American embroidered into the cloth. Relieved, I took my soaking self into the airport where a long line snaked from one end to the other with people waiting to go through Immigration. I stood there dripping and thought I heard my sister's unmistakable voice. Sure enough, about 50 people in front of me was my sister Lynn, brother-in-law Ron, nephew Justin, and his wife Cheryl. Reunion! We got through Immigration, ate lunch and waited for four more members of our party (the Bannisters) to arrive before catching a taxi to the ferry to St. Barts (not knowing what was in-store).
Henri, our Taxi driver gave us a bumpy, whirling-dervish, stop and go tour in his French sing-song cadence while negotiating the narrow streets of poverty-stricken St. Maarten. He speaks Dutch, French, Spanish and English. St. Maarten reminded me of Cancun where the sea-side scenery is spectacular with lush resorts and the outskirts of the country were thread-bare poor. He was such a happy guy; friendly and welcoming and explained the history of the island with pride.
The Ferry: We met Francesco's sister, Christina and the photographer, Shiloh at the ferry dock. Then we ate. Big mistake. After having our passports checked for the 5th time, we boarded the ferry. It was stormy and the seas were rough. Cheryl doled out Dramamine to everyone an hour earlier, so we were prepared for the ups and downs of a 40 minute boat ride. I'm lucky enough to be alive to tell you that an entire bottle of Dramamine could not have prepared us for this ride. Most of our party went outside. I stayed below with my sister and Mr. Bannister. Bad idea. He faced front and would preface an upcoming dip by saying things like "holy shit" or "oh my god". My sister and I sat with our backs to the waves. Not five minutes into the ride, Lynn started saying "I'm going to throw up". Great. I tried to comfort her by making her talk about Tammy's dress or her grandchildren, to no avail. And what did I do? I closed my eyes, put my head down with my chin nuzzled deep in my cleavage, hummed some song I made up and rocked the entire time. My inner autism had surfaced big time. At some point, I did look up to see my sister grab a white plastic garbage bag out of one of the attendants' hands just in time to save her outfit. Why they offer white, transparent garbage bags for churning stomachs on churning seas, I have no idea. Forty minutes later, we all said our prayers of thanks and stumbled off the boat. My sister looked like she'd died and come back to life, only barely. She was sweating and cold, shaking and crying, ashen and green - almost. A total mess. We all vowed to take a plane back. I finally stopped humming and rocking but kept wondering how I was ever going to get back home.
Once we found our land-legs and our stomachs, and showed our passports yet one more time, we were greeted by the rest of our party. Tammy and Francesco (the wedding couple), Jason, Aschley and Aiden (my nephew and his family), best man John, Francesco's mom and his aunt Teresa. Hail, hail, the gang's all here with the exception of Evan, my other nephew, who would arrive tomorrow via the same ferry. Poor thing. I would have texted him, but once in St. Barts, I had no Internet or cell service. I do think someone warned him, though. He arrived in much better condition than we did. So, let the wedding begin!
After a hair-raising drive above daringly high cliffs on what seemed like one-way-only roads, we found our stunning villa, dipped in the pool, watched the sunset and readied ourselves for another spin on the crazy French blacktop. Dinner started at 7 and lasted until 11. Euros were converted to dollars and at the end of the night, 18 of us had dinner for $1400. I was too tired to wrap my brain around my $100 dinner, but giant shrimp on steroids, grilled to perfection may have been a good bang for my hundred bucks. As I discovered, six pounds later, meals are late, long and luscious on St. Barts.
Christina and I were the first up and the first to find coffee and pastries on our first morning there. We spent most of the day on the beach and driving around the island. While floating in the Caribbean, we saw a complete rainbow circled around the sun; we were awestruck. In town, I bought little bottles of vanilla, spiced and coconut rum at a great little "rhum" shop only to have customs confiscate it in St. Maarten. I was not a happy camper, but I am sure the customs agents had a great happy hour on my dime (or my 87 Euros).
The wedding was sweet, simple and classy. Tammy's dress was entirely vintage lace and entirely stunning. The happy couple was married against nature's backdrop of blue skies and a peach sun dipping into the Caribbean. The wedding dinner was an eight course feast that seemed never-ending with delicious blends of island flavors, laced with lots of love and laughter.
The last day was spent traveling. We all were dreading the ferry ride back, but it was a beautiful morning and the waves were calm. We said our good-byes and skimmed across the sea without incident. This time, we all went up top and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.
At the airport, everyone scattered off to their respective flights home and I felt a little orphaned as I watched my sister fade into the airport crowd. Family is a nice place to visit. I got to meet my nephew's son, Aiden for the first time, I saw the last of my sister's children get married and I even learned that my father had a twin who died when they were two years old; a tidbit of family history that escaped my knowledge for all this time. I also learned that no matter how exotic a destination, there is no place like destination: home.
Think we're sisters?? We drove way too fast past this place in St. Maarten.
Most of the gang (Ron, Aiden, Jason, Aschley, Jason and Aiden
Aschley, Nicole, Jason, Tammy, Mr. B.,
Cheryl, Justin, Christina.
An everyday view. A critter on the path.
Heading into a storm on the ferry. They call this a road?
Ron, Tammy and Francesco, Lynn. At last!
Sunset view from our villa. Justin & Aunt Nancy
