Sint Maarten: Day 14

My father woke me up on the early side, allowing us to have breakfast together before he went to school to give his last lecture. Fortunately, he had completed the lecture early enough not to have to submit it to the printing service at 7:30 AM (as had been required several times this week).

After breakfast, my father and I made our way over to the university. Our first stop was the combination bookstore (without books) and registrar’s office. Within just a few moments of arriving we were able to successfully accomplish the goal of our mission. We then moved up to my father’s office so that I could take a few photos of him in his office. Afterwards I took a few more photos of the main building and founder’s statue.

After the impromtu photo shoot I stopped by the library to pick up a tropical fish identification book Wendy had agreed to loan us and to donate some books to the recreational reading section of the library. I decided that I might as well leave my books here for people without access to a proper public library or bookstore as opposed to carrying them home just to have them on my shelf for the next number of years.

Unfortunately, my grand plans as they related to the library were unsuccessful because Wendy had not yet arrived for the day. I then returned to my father’s office and left my donations with him. He agreed to head back to the library after he finished his lecture and take care of the tasks I had been unable to complete.

Soon after I returned to the apartment I moved on to my typical morning activities. These are mainly related to checking email and various things online, nothing all that important or consequential.

Eventually, at about 11:00 AM I received a call from my father indicating that I should expect the some members of the cleaning staff in the very near future. They would be arriving to clean the sunnier of the two rooms for the other MUN professor that will be teaching her as of next week.

I ran out to start a load of laundry before the cleaners arrived. Soon after I returned the first cleaner arrived. After looking around the apartment I tried to explain that she did not need to clean both bedroom, but only the one that had been emptied out. Eventually, after much explaining she finally grasped what I was talking about (it was almost like the cartoon light bulb).

Within a few minutes of the arrival of the first cleaner a second cleaner came. Almost as soon as she came in she started to recount a story about someone being taken away by the police and some additional interaction with the police. None of this really made sense and they ended up leaving the apartment together before I was able to figure out what was going on.

Once they returned I continued dealing and re-dealing games of solitaire. As unexciting as this was I really didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t really want to be in their way while they were cleaning, and I doubt they wanted me there, but I also needed to wait for the laundry to finish and I also needed to be near the apartment so that my father and I could get on with our afternoon plans once he was free with his academic obligations.

At the usual hour, or maybe even a little earlier than normal, I received a call from my father. He was calling to let me know that he would be heading back to the apartment for lunch and an afternoon outing. Almost as soon as he entered the apartment and saw the extent of the cleaning operation he realized something that had already come to me, and that was that it was probably appropriate to go somewhere else for lunch.

This change in plans wasn’t really all that problematic. Instead of eating lunch in the apartment we decided that we would take the bus to Philipsbug, as we had previously discussed, and then get lunch once we arrived.

Like the time I went to Philipsburg to see the library, we drove to Maho to catch the bus. This time, unlike the last time, we had to find a place to ditch the car for the day. We decided on the parking lot by the Sunset Beach Bar as they seem to always have available spaces for free (though this was likely an abuse of the privelege).

Soon after we made our way back to the bus stop we were picked up by one of the local buses (a van with four rows of seats). As we got closer to Philipsburg the bus began to fill up. Soon enough all of the available seats were taken, including some neat fold out seats and the two spots in the front to the driver’s right.

Almost as soon as the bus filled up it started to empty out. A number of people left once we reached the outskirts of Philipsburg. Everyone had left, except us, by the time we arrived at the center of Philipsburg. Soon after we caught a glimpse of the harbour we asked the driver to stop and hopped out.

Upon reaching the beach that surrounds much of the harbour shoreline we noticed that we were still a ways away from the core of the shopping district. Fortunately, this wasn’t a particularly difficult journey and only involved walking along the beach until we reached the action. The only problem was that the place I was thinking about for lunch was at the far end of the beach and commercial district, meaning almost as long a walk as possible.

Without any problems we made our way to the same place I had eaten lunch with Wendy, the university librarian, on Wednesday. As soon as we arrived signs of Canadian ownership popped out. Somehow I had managed to miss the ‘eh’s and maple leaves the last time I was there ( I guess I just wasn’t looking).

We each ordered a (kid sized) Heinken, a burger, and fries. As usual, I had to go great lengths to explain that I didn’t want anything on my burger, just the bread and the meat. Shortly after we had each taken a trip to the bathroom our burgers arrived, followed a few minutes later by our fries.

Once we wrapped up our meal we made our way to the central shopping district in search of ‘deals’ and appropriate purchases. Sadly, we found very few deals and even fewer worthwhile purchases. We ended up leaving the area with many few items than we had intended to buy.

Soon enough we were back on the bus. Like the first trip, things soon filled up, and then ended up clearing out so that we were the only passengers. This time we called for the bus to stop at an appropriate location (unlike on our trip out).

As we were making the short walk back our car we noticed that the big Air France plane was taking off. As this would likely be one of our last chances to see the ‘jet blast’ phenomenon we decided to try and get a little closer to film it. Following my father’s lead I took up a position across the street from the end of the runway. While in the position selected by my father I realized that we were right behind some of the engines, not safely to the side as we had discussed. Once I made this clear we both took a few superficial measures to move out of the way (in reality we just moved about ten feet towards the edge of the runway).

The revving of the engines alerted us to the impending rush of air and sand. As I had experienced before, standing behind a jet at this location means being pelted by sand and whatever other debris is at the end of the runway. Fortunately, experience had taught me to stand with my camera side on to the blast, rather than taking it head on.

As the jet made its way down the runway and the rush of air lessened we were able to examine ourselves and see what the jet had done to us. Fortunately neither of us was in any way injured or damaged. On the other hand, both of us were covered from head to toe with sand. Unlike having sand just thrown on you, this sand has been blasted at you by jet engines and has a much greater tendency to hang around much longer than is pleasant. For hours afterwards I was able to find grains of sand in my hair on the side of my head that received the brunt of the blast.

On our way back to the university my father remembered that he wanted to check out the nearby private school. I thought our chances of finding someone to talk to on a Friday afternoon were slim. As it turned out I was wrong. We ran into the principal (just as she was about to head to the pool) in the main office area. She was able to give us a pretty good rundown on the school on the spot.

Soon after we made it back to the apartment my father returned to school to try and wrap up his final academic obligation. While he worked away I engaged myself in email checking and web surfing (some of which was in relation to a project that I was working on for my father).

Eventually, my father returned to the apartment and set up shop in the newly cleaned bedroom. While he continued to work I started preparing dinner. As usual, we had meat, two vegetables, and yucca root. Unfortunately, as soon as I poured the yucca root into the frying pan to brown it I could tell that it wasn’t quite right, it seemed a little harder than ideal. The browning process didn’t prove to assist in changing the texture, not that I really thought that it would (though I certainly hoped it would).

It should also be noted that this meal marked the end of my father’s membership in the ‘Clean Plate Club.’ He was unable, or unwilling, to eat about two and a half pieces of the poorly prepared yucca root.

My father spent much of the rest of the evening working away while divided my time between the works of Mr. Waugh and my continued adherence to the siren call of my laptop.