Last day in St. Maarten, first day back in the office

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a pretty bad sunburn… oops! Guess the St. Maarten rays are stronger than I thought. As a result, I decided to forgo any additional time in the sun… but since I had slept another 11 hours (!) until 9:30am, I didn’t really have a ton of time for that anyway.

I drove back toward Phillipsburg (the capital) and the airport, and it’s only now that I’m safely back in the US that I feel comfortable telling you just how scary those roads were (since my mom reads this blog). I’m a fairly good driver, even in snowy/icy conditions (which these were most definitely not), and even I was totally scared when I was driving. First of all, while the roads were paved, they were so torn up that many times you absolutely COULD not drive on the proper side of the road or your car would get stuck in a massive ditch/pothole. Second, the roads were so narrow that sometimes when there was a car coming in the opposite direction, you had to both slow to an almost complete stop in order to safely pull as far right as possible and allow each other to pass. But the final twist was that the roads wound up and through the mountains and were often so steep that I was sure they couldn’t be deemed safe. At two separate points on my drive back to the airport, I wondered if I was going to die up there in the mountains, and I thought what a bummer way to go that would be. But lucky for you, I’m here and still posting!

When I finally got back to Phillipsburg, I drove through the town a bit… and got reminded how much I dislike cruiseports. Just so many trashy knockoff shops and not that much culture! In fairness, I didn’t spend much time in Phillipsburg, but I just dislike that whole souvenir/shopping culture when I’m traveling. I would much rather take incredible pictures to remember the trip than go buy some cheap t-shirt in a store.

And when I say incredible pictures… I do mean incredible pictures. For lunch, I stopped at the famed Sunset Beach Bar, on Maho Beach near the airport. “Why is it famous,” you may ask? Because anyone can take pictures like this:

Believe it or not, that’s not doctored at all (you all know I can’t do photo editing any more complex than resizing in Paint)… that is an actual plane landing overhead on Maho Beach! I was too prissy to go stand under it myself (the sand and all kinds of other debris get blown around, and I didn’t feel like dealing with that), but this was taken from only about 30 feet away, and I think it’s one of the coolest pics I’ve ever taken.

After a quick plane trip home and a good night’s sleep in my own little bed (complete with soft Modal sheets that felt great even with my sunburn), I headed into the NY office today. I can’t remember the last time I went into the New York office instead of working from home – guess that’s just evidence that I truly am here in New York for a while! Today has been fairly relaxed, with the toughest part being having to pick out a business casual outfit that would hide my tacky halter top sunburn on my neck. Lucky for me, I went with an orange sleeveless turtleneck, because when I was catching up on blogs this morning (gosh, I am so behind!), I learned that orange is the new “it” color for spring. And I even wore it with a white pashmina, further flaunting my sense of style! Clearly, I am just trendy by instinct.

On tap for the weekend: a whole lot of nothing. That is, I don’t really have any plans now, but I am determined to get in lots of working out. New York fit bloggers, let me know if you want to meet up for any cool runs, fitness classes, or generally active activities. Happy Friday, everyone!