St Martin

For the second year in a row, we've taken a trip to St Martin with our good friends, Brian & Amber. And, for the second year in a row, we had a great time. Lots of sun and sand and alcoholic beverages. We decided to try a new resort this year so we stayed at L'Hoste Hotel on Orient Beach. Orient Beach is on the French side of the island so feels even more "international" than the Dutch side (which is where Rian and I stayed on our first trip to the island in 2005). Orient Beach is very interesting...you sometimes see things that you later wish you hadn't, considering the nudist resort at one end of the beach. The beach is very fun and active during the day, filled with people. About 5pm, most everything shuts down. And, I mean shuts down. The bars on the beach close and board up. They put the chairs away and we even got told one night (at 5pm) that we needed to get off the chairs so they could put them away. It is evident that this beach is more for the day people and the nightlife happens elsewhere. One funny thing we found was that pretty much every person walking out of the little grocery store was carrying a baguette. The French love their baguettes! No matter what time of day, people were buying baguettes.

There is a small beach and bar at the end of the runway at the airport. We went for a couple beers while awaiting Brian and Amber's flight. This is definitely a cool spot to sit and watch the planes come in. They (literally) land right over top of you!





My favorite beach on St Martin is Baie Rouge. It's pretty secluded so not too many people but there are chairs/umbrellas to rent as well as Chez Raymond, a little beachside grill that has the best shrimp kebabs and beans and rice (oh, and delicious grilled plantains!) on the island.




We celebrated Rian's 32nd birthday in Marigot at the marina. We went to Le France restaurant and had a delicious meal and good wine. Rian said "just what I wanted to do, get all dressed up and go have an expensive dinner on MY day." Well, sorry, I guess sitting in the basement playing x-box all day wasn't an option! ha ha But, he did get to have a piece of apple pie so all was not lost.

We all took a cab into Philipsburg one day and "people-watched" while enjoying drinks and lunch at the Blue Bitch Cafe. There were 4 cruise ships in that day so the people watching was great. Went to Ballerina Jewelers to see our friend Deepak (whom we like to visit each trip) and I got a beautiful new watch. Might have been the highlight of the trip for me!



Rian is like a big kid when we're at the beach and enjoys jumping around in the waves. He says it's good exercise but I like to think it's also just "fun." Here he is at Orient Beach...



All in all, it was another fun trip to St Martin. We got plenty of sun and beach time and it was nice to get away from the Buffalo weather...