Updates from St. Thomas

Gone Fishin'

2008-07-18T09:44:00.001-07:00

Tuesday I had off from work so I went out on a fishing boat with one of my friends. Deep Sea fishing that is.. for Blue Marlin (its a big hit down here). We didn't really catch anything and the water was super rough, but it was still awesome.

Nick (our captain) catching live bait

A really cool looking house where we were catching the bait.

Clint, a passanger, pretending thats the fish he caught... gotta love those southerners

Other fishing boats trying to take our fish.

Andrew keeping his eye on the lines

Nick controling the boat from the top part (I have no idea what any of this boating talk actually is)

so pretty!

My attempt to take a picture of the flying fish, but I can't figure out where they are in the picture. Those little guys were probably my favorite part. They really do fly over the waves.

Andrew and Clint reeling in a fish!

Baracuda! (no big deal to those guys... but I was pretty pumped). Right after they let this guy go, Clint hooked a blue marlin. I got to see it jumping out of the water once it was hooked but we didn't pull it in fast enough. Huge beautiful fish though.

Rainbow.

Giving up on catching the big fish and going for the money fish (Tuna, so they can sell them to restuarants). You have to use the live bait to attract them. But first they were take a bunch of the little fish and smash them against the side of the boat so that it would either kill them and they would bleed or they would be injured and "cry" so that either way the other fish in the ocean would notice them.

After catching a white fin tuna (I really have no idea if that was what it was or not) Andrew unhooked it, took a needle pushed it through its head through the eyes, tied a fishing line around that part and hooked it up to a reel to use as bait. I just stood there in total shock and so grossed out. But the poor fish didn't even come in use bc we still had no bites.

HUGE bird.

There's the poor tuna after we realized he wasn't going to help us, they let him free.

Rain is coming.

Some ugly fish that were around our boat when we docked. We gave them the left over live bait.

Just for a little random story....

Jac and I were sitting in our room watching a movie before work one morning. In our usual attire- tshirt and underware- when I happened to look out the window in time to see a man climbing that palm tree outside out room. He climbed all the way up it and sat at the top kicking coconuts out of it, then climbed back down, collect his winnings and went on his way. I guess thats a normal habit around here.... not something i'll see at home I'm sure.

Ladies Night!

2008-07-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

One of the bars in Red Hook (where me and Jac work) has a special on Wednesday nights where ladies drink for free.

Its very rare for us to miss this night bc..
a) we're cheap
b) we love the bartenders
c) bc its a 100 yards from work.

Last wednesday I had to meet Jaclyn there after I was done work.. she had the day off (lucky girl). As always it was a very fun time.

looking good..

i got my drinks!

Jac has her's

Rich! we love him

Me and Patrick (owns an awesome sushi restaurant) and is our personal taxi if needed

yay for ladies night!

NO MORE WORK... please!

2008-07-14T16:43:00.000-07:00

work is consuming my life! but i'm still in paradise! worked Tuesday-Friday 3-10, Saturday 3-12, Sunday 9am-11pm!!!! dead tired today.

On my days off last week, I did some laundry and met a kid working in one of the other restaurants in Red Hook and started talking to him. Cody lives on St. John and said that he was meeting up with other people from work on Tuesday to hang out on one of the beaches. So the next day me and Jac actually woke up before 11 and took the ferry over to St John to meet up with the kids. Turned out to be an awesome day!

First a few pictures to make you all jealous..

Me and Jaclyn

Me trying to tell Jac to stop with the creeper pictures

Cody- my laundry mat friend!

Me and Jac making friends

The crazy roads and hills on St. John

Jaclyns BACK!

2008-07-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

WAHOOOOO I missed my jaclyn and she has finally returned to me. There's not many people I could be stuck in one room with, but I have yet to get sick of her. She started working at a sushi place on Monday and really likes it. Unlike my job, most of the people she works with are 30 or younger and white. She's keeping it classy while I working outside and smell like a "french hooker" according to Pat.

Here's what happens when we're left alone together...

dance party on the beds

How cute are we?!

Duffy's for ladies night.. ladies drink for free (bartenders- Rich, Brandon, PJ- love us)

Fat Turtle after work.. thats what I look like hell.

Jac and Pat

Jac and Orion
Pat forgets he's on an island and thinks he's still in Mississippi with his "shit kickers"

So pretty.

Right before Jac and Orion decided to steal the golf cart and then get chases down by security.

i'm still alive

2008-07-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

sorry i haven't updated.. for some reason it refuses to let me on the sites. it just keeps going to about.com saying that these pages don't exist. and when i get to a page my computer freezes.

So what have i been up to? WORKING! ugh.. stupid work. still love it there but I work 5 days a week 2:30 or 3 to 10 or 12. LONG LONG LONG days. Thanks to Rob, and thanks to me being white, I am loved there. I could get away with murder. And I love it.

Last week on my day off I went out on a boat with parasailors with Katrina and went to a few islands. Pretty fun. Here's some pictures.

Everyone but me went "surfing"... I don't like open water.

Boomer (yes.. thats what his name is, and I have no idea why..)

Boomer and Jothem

Jothem

Me brushing my hair after my only time in the water when I attempted to pee.. but I couldn't go bc everyone was watching

Katrina showing the guys how to really do it

Ty actually doing the real thing.. he was the only one who could do it.

Me and Kat

Chris driving, Ty and Jothem (don't ask Ty about his tatoos bc the response I got when I asked was "I'm sorry did I get them for you?" which I responded "well if your gonna get something permentaly put on ur body, expect people to question it"

Me and Jothem trying to get the money from between the glass

Home safe.

2008-06-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

This weekend was pretty awesome. Work is kicking my butt but I love it. One of the guys I work with is starting a rock climbing company down here, so he invited me out on one of his trips on Friday. I love doing stuff like this because you meet so many new people. It was him- Kenny from Boston, another girl I work with Kierstin (yea how weird is that) from Colorado, Amanda from Conneticut, Will from northern California, and Cody from Illinios I think. It was a great time. We all made it down the side of the clift, but Kierstin didn't make it back up, she had to walk around. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, but I am pretty sore from it now. Of course I forgot my camera at home so I didn't take any pictures... but trust me when I say that is was beautiful.

After that little adventure I had to work from 2:30 till close (midnight). It was a long, long day, but since it was Friday I still had to go out. So I met up with Kat at one of the bars. We ended up at the bars till close (4 am), went home and sat in the kitchen for an hour or so talking and making pizza bagels.

Saturday morning I felt like a train had hit me, the 3 weeks of not sleeping a whole lot finally caught up with me... but of course I wasn't allowed to sleep. I got talked into going fishing. It was pretty fun, but I get nervous in open water. I jumped off the boat after 15 minutes of them convincing me it was ok.. but then I jumped right back in.. I don't like swimming with animals. We didn't end up catching anything so we decided to go to St. John for a little. Well me and Kat were so tired that we convinced the guys to drive us back. We got back home and went to bed at 8 pm and slept through the morning. It was much needed sleep.

Sunday morning I had to work. First time ever doing breakfast, but everyone said I did a good job (which is pretty awesome since everyone down here pretty much tells it like it is and doesn't ever candy coat stuff). I met some really nice families and I gave out a free slice of pie to my favorite family from Flordia. After work I had my buddy Desi in the kitchen make me some veggie stir-fry bc he said "I'll do anything for you, Kirstin." It was amazing. Did I mention that I am one of 4 white people working here... Desi also said that the next person they hire should be white like me. I took that as a compliment.

After work and my stir-fry, me and Kat took a nap. We decided to go crash at one of the near by hotels and use their pool and casino. I lost $8 and Kat lost $5... and then we called it quits. We're so cheap.

That's all for now. I'm working every night this week, except Wed and Thurs... Jaclyn returns WEDNESDAY!!!

I'm employed!

2008-06-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

Well I finally got off my lazy tush and got a job... it took all of 5 seconds. I went into 2 places dropped off my apps and was told to come back in 2 hours. I went to Molly Molones first and the guy said "o you're from philly? go home, find a pair of tan shorts and sneakers and come back tonight to start training..." I wish finding a job was this easy at home. Today I got a call from the other restaurant saying that they had an opening as well and if Molly's didnt work out in a week to give them a call. I LOVE it.

The best part is that the people who own Molly's are friends of the Baer's (my cousin Tara's husband Rob's family). I knew this going into it, but I didnt realize how close they were... Mike's exact words were "Oh man I could tell you stories about Rob that even his wife doesn't know." So I'll update you on Rob stories if I hear any good ones. :)

(p.s. Rob- Mike would really like to hear from you.)

So that's my new and exciting news for now... I'm all reved up from working. I only dropped one thing so far (just a piece of pineapple on a woman's lap). But give it time.. I am my mother's daughter ;)

Girls Gone Wild...

2008-06-09T07:05:00.000-07:00

Well we had a full house of girls this weekend- Me, Jac, Kat, Maria, and Maria's sister Amanda. I dont think I have laughed so much in my life.

On Friday we went to St. John, which is so beautiful. It has more plant life than St. Thomas bc most of it is preserved as a national park. We had to take a ferry to get there... this is the view from the top of it.

Once we got there we went to Cinnamon Beach. Jaclyn decided she wanted to be closer to the water so she moved her towel away from us... and joined a random family. The whole time the family was trying to figure out who this "white girl" was that was laying in front of them.

I thought this cloud looked awesome. It was really windy there and every now and then the sun would poke through the clouds, but still beautiful.

After we left the beach, covered in sand, we went to a deli to pick up lunch. It was amazing. Sometimes its sad that we get more excited about the food we're eating than the places and beaches we're visiting.

On Saturday we went to Magen's Bay. It took me and Jac a while to figure out that Magen wasn't a real person... I'm pretty sure everyone who was on the beach that day thought we were on some sort of drugs. We laughed for about 4 hours straight.

Here are the girls playing frisbee. Maria had to stop playing Ultimate Frisbee because everytime she dove for it she would lose her top... which Jaclyn announced to the entire beach "BOOB!"

Pretty view.

Jaclyn soaking in the sun (with sunscreen on of course).

We watched these crazy birds for an hour. They were fly over the water and when they saw a fish they would drive head first down into the water. It looked like they were bombing the water. You can see one of them diving in the center of the picture.

While we waited for people to meet up with us to grill, the girls got a little strange. I blame it on the sun, lack of food, and wacked out minds. They decided to have a photo shot in the water. Me and Amanda were the photographers. I swear people near us starting moving away.

Yesterday, Jaclyn and Amanda left :( but Maria is still here because she got offered a teaching job at a school on St. John!! YAY! Jaclyn has decided shes coming back for the summer too! So watch out people of St. Thomas because with us 4 under one roof.. things could get wild.

2008-06-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week we got a tour of the island. While Kat worked me and Jac used our charm to convince the boys to drive us around. Driving around here is a tad bit different then driving at home. Hills and curves everywhere. Notice anything different in this picture?

Yes, they drive cars with the driver seat on the left, but instead of driving on the right side of the road, we drive on the left...

All the cars down here are pretty crappy because of the condition of the roads, no one bothers with nice cars... the one we were in didn't have a working passenger side window. It was so stinking hot that we had to drive with the door cracked. Don't worry we were all had our seat belts on.

We stopped at some "tourist-y" look out point... the boys LOVED that we took pictures of everything.

Orion, Jaclyn and Me.

So pretty!!

We decided we wanted real island food so they took us to a place in town where we got rice and beans and veggies. DELISH! This is a picture of the town and the strip club. :)

Hope everyone's having fun at home in good old PA.

Weekend Update

2008-06-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

Well this weekend Katrina worked so me and Jaclyn were on our own... we managed to enjoy ourselves.

Saturday
This is a picture of our "backyard" that I snapped on our way to the beach. We just stood there for about 15 minutes trying to figure out how we got so lucky.

Since we don't have food in the house we tend to eat out a lot. This place is right off the water and has amazing food. The breeze was awesome and Jaclyn said while we were sitting there it was the first time since we stepped off the plane that we weren't sweating. Its been a shock to our systems since when we left it was about 60 degrees at home.

This is an example of a "bad" day... stupid clouds.

Here we are looking hot and laying on the beach... nap time.

Sunday
Yesterday me and Jaclyn went to another island with some of Katrina's friends while she worked (poor girl). It was absoultely beautiful.

The "captain" and "crew" and Jaclyn trying to stand.

Yea Jac! it was nearly impossible to drink on the boat. Everytime we took a sip nothing went into our mouths. It just flew out of the can.

The view from the island (I can't remember the name).

The beach and bar. People that work at these places move very very very slow... unless your a girl :) The boys had to wait 15 minutes until the bartender acknolwedged them. Me and Jac got a drink in about 15 seconds. P.S. I ate a curry CHICKEN wrap. It was delish.

BOO :( we had to leave.

Jaclyn taking over the wheel.. she looks like a pro.

After our little trip we went out for sushi. DELISH! Then we saw The Strangers in the movie theater... that was an experience. Loudest theater I've ever been in. It was hilarious. But the moive was terribleeeeeee. After that we got back home and all passed out as soon as we hit the bed... It's tiring living in paradise.

2 tickets to paradise

2008-05-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the deal... I'm a loser and have joined my cousins in the blogging nonsense. I figured this is the best way to make you all jealous of my new "home." Here's a few pictures to get it started.

The trip started with a 11:35am flight out of Philly. We had a connecting flight in Miami so we got some lunch and sat around and chatted. Jaclyn and I spent A LOT of time together the first day and still managed to find tons of things to talk about, such as "how awesome would it be if you could actually land on clouds..." Did I mention it was a long, long day.

Here's me setting up my station in our room. Me and Jac are sharing a room for now and Katrina is in one of the rooms that they usually rent, but since there aren't any renters right now she gets the room to herself.

Wading into the most amazing water EVER. Me and Jac went snorkling yesterday but by the time we got to the reef I was exhausted. We swam to shore and sat in a section of the water that felt like bath water.

IGUANAS!!!!!!!! They are everywhere and I LOVE it. The first day here we were laying by the pool and one of the men working at a nearby house caught one of these awesome things and I got to hold it. I was pretty excited (my mom knows my obession with them... and I'm totally bringing one home with me).