THE UP

The weather was fabulous, met a lot of really nice people and some strange ones.LOL

Baywatch Party was awesome considering the torrential downpour.
Special Thanks to Contessa, Bruce, Sugarae for all your advice and suggestions
Lisa gave the donations to Barbara on Wedneday. Barbara Pm’d me this morning and told me the grand total was $936.00 and she was topping it up to an even $1000.00
Plus we donated the remaining cooler bags to ICAN for the childrens lunches. Thank-you to those who donated.

Special note to Contessa. Lee Lee, Glitter Goddess, Lauren, Theresa, Mr St Martin,
Rastaman and Dany, Thanks for the company on the beach for my first 12 days solo

Lolo’s- Went with Rastaman for the first time, it was amazing, the ribs were delicious

Cito’s- A bunch of us, ok a large group showed up and the waitress was very accommodating. Another good feed of goat ribs.

Villa Belle Mer –Randy and Dany were gracious hosts as always in their fabulous
villa which has just received some amazing upgrades. This was very impromptu
Get together for the new arrivals.

Paradise Bungalows – Nice clean comfortable, and extremely affordable. Bruno is
a real gentleman and for those who don’t know he owns Le Cottage in Grand Case.
Our first time staying on the French side, we preferred it as there was very little driving
Involved to get to Orient. Next time we would get the 2 bedroom for the full kitchen, and
Sleep alternate nights in the upstairs loft. Neighbours were all TTOL’ers Peconic (Brian, Deb and Tracy) who gave us our daily fix of jello shots courtesy of the lovely Deb.
Beside them Bob and Jean, and beside them Tim and Pam. So I would guess Bruno
Is getting his advertising dollars well covered by bookings

THE DOWN

Where to begin…
Getting to SXM
American Airlines flight 667 as cancelled, no notification, and they checked my bags in Halifax straight thru to SXM. A 6 hour layover in San Juan a puddle
Jumper from San Juan to SXM.

Departing SXM
American Airlines Flight 660 was at first delayed, then told we had to wait and see if it would be cancelled and then were told it would arrive at 9pm (5 hours late) Got to JFK
At 2 am. Got 3 hours sleep and got into Halifax at 2pm.
WE WILL NOT BOOK THRU AA AGAIN...WE ARE INVESTIGATING CONTINENTAL AS THEY FLY FROM HALIFAX.

After 3 days on island got a little cough, and thought it was from the mosquito coil. The cough turned into hacking to the point I ended up staying in bed for the entire day the day before we left.. Went to Emergency at home on Saturday and found out I picked up a strain of influenza virus which resulted in a bronchial infection, Got a puffer and some antibiotics. On the mend. In hindsight I should have gone to a doctor in Grand Case and nipped it in the bud. Lesson learned.


THE SIDEWAYS

Unity Car rental – excellent service as always. Even though my flights were messed up
Someone was there to meet me when I arrived. The car went dead the day before we left. Having no cell phone, we tried on Peconic’s Skype to call Michael to no avail. Tried emailing to no avail. Then I thought I would log onto TTOL and figure something out. I PM’d Ray (Caribdugan) He called Unity for me and within 30 mins Michael was there with booster cables, drove us to Pedros started the car and we made it back to Paradise Bungalows when the car died. I PM’d Ray again and asked him to call Michael and tell him we needed a car in the morning. Within 20 min Joseph showed up with a Picante.
This was indeed amazing. Special Thanks to Caribdugan, Michael and Joseph at Unity.

CONCLUSION

We will always rent a cell phone from now on.

We will go to the doctor immediately

We will not fly American

The next ICAN Bash will be for donations of new kids books and toys.