Saint Martin Episode 2: Attack of the Colons

I alternatively considered Attack of the Crohn's for the title, since Crohn's rhymes better with Clones, but Colons is probably a little more accurate.

I'll get to that in a minute.

So we've been on the island for almost a week now, and holy crud is it expensive to get set up. Right when we decided to rent this apartment, we had to pay for what we thought was first and last month's rent. It turned out instead to be a security deposit, so we had to scramble to get our first month's rent, as well as our utilities deposit, key deposit, internet, and gas for our stove (our stove uses a propane style tank that's hidden in a cupboard in the kitchen).

The real issue behind all of that, is that almost everything on the island is cash only. If you're not buying something from the big grocery stores, or ACE hardware (which has a surprising amount of home decorating goods, as well as an elevator), you're going to be paying cash.

$1600 a month in rent?

Better break out the cash.

$3200 for a car? (We just bought a 2007 Toyota Corolla which looks and sounds like it has seen better days)

Cash only.

That was one of the more harrowing experiences I've had in recent years. There's a couple of facebook pages that have people who are selling things on the island. Jes saw a guy selling the car, and we set up a meeting. We live on a hill the overlooking the ocean and Maho, and at the bottom of that hill is the Casino Royale. I have yet to see Daniel Craig fly through the air while simultaneous killing 38 terrorists.

I'm as disappointed as you are.

So we met there at about 6, we drove the car around for a little while, and other than a bit of a rattle when you rev to engine too high, a bit of rear bumper damage, a clutch that engages 3 millimeters off the ground, and a hideous speaker job, it seemed pretty good.

So we agreed on the price, and told him that we'd have the cash for him in a couple of days.

One of the main issues with cash only, is that you can only take so much cash out of an ATM at a time. Luckily both Jes and I can take the maximum amount of cash out each, so we can effectively halve the time it takes to amass cash.

But when the agreed upon day arrived to pay the seller, he messaged Jes to let her know that he wouldn't be able to make it until 10 pm instead of the agreed upon 6 pm.

Since I'd be standing around waiting for this guy outside a casino with $3200 in cash in my pocket, I was slightly concerned.

Now, Saint Martin's not exactly a giant den of thieves, but the minimum wage is like $2 an hour, and when it's not tourist season (November through April), a lot of people don't have jobs. And I have essentially a year's worth of wages in my pocket. IN NON SEQUENTIAL BILLS. (That's what the terrorists/kidnappers always want, I guess?)

Luckily, the head of AUC security, Mike lives in our building, and his wife has been very friendly to Jes, so she asked if he'd walk me down to the Casino and make sure things didn't look like they were going to go south. So we waited until the guy showed up, and he asked me to get in the car so that we could get out of the way of the casino driveway, and Mike basically said, "Yeah, this looks OK, I'm going to head back home now."

So I got in the car, and we drove off to a deserted part of the island, and I was pretty sure I was about to get mugged. He was Indian, and he answered his phone as we were driving and said some things in what I assume is Hindi, and I was pretty sure the ambush was complete. 3 guys were going to jump me, I'd be out most of our money, and best case scenario I'd still be alive.

Luckily, he just pulled over, had me drive, and counted the money. We drove to where his sister and girlfriend were waiting, we signed a few papers, and he told me where to go to get the car registered and legalized.

But man. Totally thought I was going to die for a second there.

Sooooo, there's been a slight interlude since I finished typing up there. I walked to the bedroom to change my shorts (I had grease stained them earlier putting together a paper towel holder, of all things), and as I passed the bathroom, I was suddenly tromping through water. I guess our washing machine decided that functionality is for losers. So I called our landlord, and hopefully that gets all figured out.

Anywho, some random tidbits that people might find exciting about life on Saint Martin:

There's no sales tax, and prices are usually listed with two currencies, the Netherlands Antilles Guilder, (confusingly labeled FLs) and US dollars. Euro are also accepted, but there's no standard for how much they decide the Euro is worth. I've seen anywhere from 1 Euro = $1.25 to 1 Euro = $1.40. Apparently it's whatever they decide, which seems right on par with everything else we've experienced this week haha.

Islanders will notice something you're doing wrong as a parent and let you know. Immediately, and directly. If your child is holding a straw, they're going to blind themselves, if the sun is hitting them, they're going to burn and die of cancer.

People drive according to the dictates of their own conscience, which is far more Christian sounding than their actual driving. If they want to turn in left in front of you, and you aren't going to immediately hit them, they'll go for it.

The internet here is shockingly good. I was anticipating very poor, very inconsistent service, and it's actually probably better than Mom and Dad's house (no offence, but your internet is pretty terrible). Granted, we just came from Google Fiber enhanced Provo, so it's not loading internet pages before I actually click on them, but it's totally fast enough to run Netflix, download pictures, all that jazz. It's also only $60, so it's cheaper than the US was for us too.

Speaking of Netflix, they have almost everything here. It's kind of incredible. We've got basically the entire Disney catalog (at least, Jes saw Frozen, Princess and the Frog, all the Toy Stories, and probably a bunch of other ones), Friends, Modern Family, all that stuff. The one catch for the Disney movies is that there's mandatory Dutch subtitles. All the other shows have a part of the credits in Dutch. It makes for an interesting experience, especially with Toy Story haha.

Gasoline is VERY expensive on the island and they don't actually post the price. I've heard it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.30 per liter, which comes out to... holy jeeze $8.70 a gallon. That's only slightly worse than the $7.50 we pay for a gallon of milk (side note, I'm trying shelf stable milk because you can buy it in 6 1-liter boxes for a slight savings).

Apparently electricity is also very expensive, but we haven't gotten our first bill yet, so I don't know how bad. We get a pretty good cross breeze from the tradewinds, so we try to keep the windows open and stay in the breeze during the day, and then run the AC as we go to sleep. There's an AC unit in each room, so we can put the AC on for just Autry during her naps, which is handy.

The people who bag our groceries aren't employees of the grocery store, and they work solely for tips. It's kinda weird.

OH!

Attack of the Colons, I almost forgot.

So I'm sitting on the couch, and I'm watching Autry. By that I mean, Autry is playing and running around and making noises, and I'm sitting on the couch reading a book for school and occasionally make sure that she hasn't somehow gotten hold of, like scissors or something. So Autry comes running up to me, and I pull her up on the couch next to me, and we're sitting and chatting. Then she sticks her hand out at me, and I nibble on it a little bit, and she giggles and pulls it back. This repeats several times.

Then she sticks her foot at me, and I nibble her leg a little bit. Repeat.

Then she sticks her finger at me, and I nibble it and it's got poop on it.

She had stuck her finger into her diaper, and allowed me to sample it.

I was displeased.

Welps, that's enough from me, here's a couple of pictures. They're mostly of Autry.

We love you all and miss you so much!

Autry, during one of the brief moments on the flight
where she wasn't very upset about the situation.

The view from our front balcony.
Plus the screen. I was too lazy to open the door.

Some things never change.
Like dependence on Winnie the Pooh.

Autry loves helping with the laundry.

Autry + Sunset = Dawwwwwwwwww

Thank goodness for YouTube's
selection of additional Pooh stories.

We went to the Blue Mall shopping center,
and Autry decided to taker up piracy.