Showing our Karakter

Just three hours after I'd laid my head on the pillow, I was awake again. There was just too much everyday things going on to actually remain sleeping, even though it was New Years Day and I desperately wanted to sleep in! So I swung my legs over the bed and - OUCH - that's right, my back. What I did to it I'll never truly know but it felt like all the tension was laying in a big potato sack at the bottom of my spine. When I sat down for a small time, getting up again was a struggle.

My friend asked me to help her out with some goodies, so I messaged L to see if it was possible and if so, if he'd drop it at my house. Since I was now officially an invalid. He came over and of course offered to massage the pain away, which I obliged to for a short while before my hunger pains took over and I hobbled over to the corner shop to see if it was open on this public holiday, the first day of 2012.

It wasn't.

I was now with E, who I bumped into on the driveway, returning all flustered from her party time with the American guys, who'd asshole-ishly not offered to drive her back to mine in the morning. Well, by this stage it was the afternoon, but she'd had to walk down the long, winding path to get into their "enclosure" and wave down a taxi, which she tipped double just because it got her home. Poor thing, it was a hot day.

Our only choice for food was Coral Island, the dodgy Chinese restaurant/bar I always pass with my eyes firmly on the ground as the clientele tend to yell things out to me. Turns out M, from the night before, is a regular and has actually been one of those people to ask me for a drink before I got to know him! Ha! He walked in while we were waiting for my fried rice, and bought me that drink. We were already back on the beers by this stage.

Had planned to go to Karakter beach for the 2pm "Dive into 2012" the Dutch people organised to bring in the new year, but I just couldn't get it together. My head was all over the place, my body was sore and tired, and everything took 10x longer than it needed to. We eventually got ourselves there about 4pm.

At Karakter, there was a big crowd dancing about the beach bar, kids swimming in the now quite big waves, dogs running around.... and us sitting by the lapping water with a bucket of Heinekens at our disposal. N came by with her daughter, but didn't stay long as her daughter didn't want to stay. Which was a shame since I'd just organised that stuf for her, and she'd even gone to the trouble to bake some special crossiants. She left a couple with us to try out. If we must.

I was pretty tired and just wanted to sort myself out before leaving for St Thomas, including doing a last-minute internet check as I wasn't going to take my laptop with me. I knew A would probably wonder why I wasn't online and even more likely not realise that St Thomas is a totally different country, therefore calling code, therefore international call. That's what most people don't realise, I think, that the Caribbean has so many different territories within itself - even going to the French side of St Maarten attracts international call charges!! That is crazy.

E had a minor, sleep-deprivation-induced tanty before we left but straightened herself up and apologised once she realised she just needed bed. Wasn't much of an issue, I was just confused as to why she suddenly got all assy with me! Post-big nights can do that to a person...

Got a bit of the way home from some random people about our age, the driver of which told me before I stepped out (it was a woman), "Can I just say, you are really beautitful." Wow! Uhh, thanks! Then we got offered a lift from an older English man almost to home (most likely no buses on January 1, well we didn't see any!). We stopped by Pineapple Pete's for some internet, and it was then that the crossiant we'd had at the beach started to kick in.

Probably not a good idea to check one's internet with important details like the phone number of the lady we'd be staying with, or the address we'd be staying at... yep. Pretty much can't remember much of what I saw on the net that time. But I did get whatever it was done, so we headed back home to have some SLEEP before St Thomas. Another epic adventure to come...