Sint Maarten: Day 6

This morning I was awoken by the sound of a ringing phone. It turned out that it was my father. He was calling to tell me that he had finally received the login name and password that were needed to access the internet from our apartment. While on some fronts this was welcome news, I was also aware that this would likely mean that I would start using my computer more, basically wasting my time surfing the web and other related time-wasting activities.

Within the first few hours this was certainly the trend. And until my father returned home for lunch it was basically all I did.

After lunch things weren’t all that much different. My father had gone back to work so I divided my time between various unimportant computer related tasks and reading (with much less emphasis on the latter activity).

In the late afternoon my father returned from work from the day and we started to think about what we might have for dinner. I suggested that we might try the restaurant where we had attended the orientation mixer as we had both enjoyed the food. Unfortunately, the cook was off for the night so the kitchen was closed. Another restaurant nearby was also examined and found to be less than ideal as a location for dinner (though it sounds as though it might be good for lunch).

We then walked back to the apartment and decided that we would just head back to the restaurant at which we had eaten the previous night. The only downside was that we would be arriving a little later than the previous night, which would mean that we would have to hear a little more of the house band’s nightly show.

While my father had the same dish as the previous night (minus the calamari appetizer), I decided to go with ribs. Again, both of were very satisfied with our quality and portion sizes and their inclusion of vegetables with the dish.

Near the end of our meal, our waiter from the night before came by to say hello, clearly recognizing us immediately (we likely are a pretty recognizable couple due to our unusual demographic combination). This type of thing, along with our satisfaction with the food, may help us to go there again next week.

The walk back to our car meant that we had to pass between the beach and the runway. As we were close to halfway through the trip I noticed a plane approaching. Though it was quite clearly a smaller prop plane we decided to stay and position ourselves in the middle of the runway so that it would fly directly overhead. As it approached, the plane’s lights began to reflect on the water and the sound to become overwhelming. It soon passed directly overhead and then immediately landed on the runway behind us. As we continued our walk we noticed another plane preparing to make the same trip.

Again, due to the early sunset, our evening was relaxed and uneventful. We sat in the apartment and drank a beer or two while playing a game of rummy.