Riding to the Queen

My day started interestingly enuf, with a 6am wakeup call from my elderly neighbour who - while not entirely all there - seems to concern for me like a father, and was rapping at my window asking if I was OK. Turns out there was a big storm overnight which my beer-soaked brain had calmly slept through (I think I woke to the rain then realised it was a little cooler and I didn't need the fan on - even used the sheet at one point, shock horror!).

I was furious at being woken up early on my day off but resisted the temptation to get out of bed and throttle the poor man. Luckily, since when I spoke to him later that day he said he was concerned that I had been affected by the storm. I gently but firmly told him under no circumstances should I be woken like that again, unless in an emergency, and that if there WAS a problem, I would be up and about, and he'd know about it. I am not a morning person.

Walked down to Seaside in my beach wear, fully intending to go beaching with one of the guides who was also off today after I spoke to my boy on Skype, but after some observation of post-storm sky, thought against it. I have to say, it is the first day in St Maarten I have seen yet that I wouldn't actually go to the beach. Never thought I'd say that.

Next thing I know I'm scouring my suitcase for anything orange, as that's the national colour for Holland and I'm about to go riding to see the Dutch royal family. Hmmm. Random much??

So we saddled up, me in my orange fisherman pants and staff t-shirt, my boss and J carrying each a Dutch and St Maarten flag. My horse was the best one on the bit so I had him looking grand as we rode into town, literally side by side with the cars and at time with a big line of impatient cars behind us. Everyone was staring at us, taking pictures, videoing - we were superstars. And everyone knows I hate being the centre of attention ;)

The police didn't let us go to the Queen so we waited until they passed, and then they did in a small bus (a little undignified for royalty, I thought), we smiled and waved, and then we turned on our heels and took the back way home. What a beautiful way to see the island! On horseback! I swear at some points the traffic was going so slow we had the advantage.

Afterwards, I went with J and a few staff to get pizza, which turned out to be way more stressful than it needed to be. They were arguing about which pizza to get, what drink, what crust.... then the girls sat too close to the restaurant to smoke a joint and the customers complained. So then the guys were annoyed at the girls. Honestly, I was stoned by that stage so I just wanted the friggin pizza.

Back to work for the Friday grind... not usually one of our busier days and I'm working with J, so that should be a little more entertaining than the guide I usually work with. Maybe I'll take a horse for a swim on my lunch break. Then it's movie night yay! Socialising! For once!

Beertastic, sliding snow spastic....

Yesterday I experienced a true local German bottle shop and also what it really meant to drive in a snow storm. At night.

Firstly, me and G went to the shops to get ingredients for the pizza we were cooking last night (and a yummy as hell rumball mmmm), then went to the bottle shop for some beer. Yay!! I was missing the yummy brown stuf :) I walked in - and let me say this wasn´t a particularly large shop - but I was simply staggered at how many different varieties of beer there was! I mean, every colour, flavour, idea imaginable... it was awesome. We just chose some simple pilsner and went on our merry way. But man, give some respect to ze Germans for that lot!

Then, later that day, I was asked by J to drive her to her friend´s place in the next village to get some herbs for her depressed horse. It had been snowing a fair bit all day and when I started driving, the first snowflakes were starting again. Now there are several things alarming about this picture... firstly, I am Australian. I drive on the left side of the road. Secondly, I have never driven in the snow. Thirdly, the car was a piece of shit and did not have snow-worthy tyres on. So I just gripped the woollen-covered steering wheel and smiled pleasantly as I drove carefully through the slippery streets.

After some freshly baked brownie cake, "mystical" herbal tea and a fairly deep conversation with someone I'd just met, we ventured outside to find the weather had pretty much turned into a snowstorm. This shit was currrraaaaazzzzyyy. I could hardly see 2 feet in front of me, the car was slippin' a little and to top it off, it was getting dark.

Then came the hill. A truck had already given up and was slowing traffic in both directions. The truck in front of me also didn't take long to lose steam and as I stopped to let him pull over, I then had the challenge of starting my own car up the hill. It was a bloody hard thing to do! And then when J was out pushing the car, I had to stop again. When 2 German men jumped out of their cars to help, they started shouting through the window at me. Seems this time I neglected to take the handbrake off. I was just laughing as J jumped into the car as it slowly made it up the hill, and the men were shaking their heads saying, "Bloody woman". Or the equivalent in German speak.

So I made it home alive. And then we made pizza. I've gotta say, it wasn't my finest product but they seemed to enjoy it. I was STUFFED, ate so much, and then waddled off to sort out this bloody resume for South America.

Drunken bowling shenanigans

If you knew how drunk we got last Wednesday night and the ensuing teaching week plus hectic weekend in Germany, you would understand why I have not blogged since last Tuesday. Let`s start from the beginning...

Today was pizza day. And my first time at making it with my students. It was probably the most stressful thing I´ve done yet in my short teaching career. I swear I went a little grey before the end of the three periods it took to finally make the damn things. So I was super glad when it was happy fun times at the bowling place that night.

A student and teacher from a previous school came with us (the boss, the other teacher and the boss´ girlfriend) and we firstly played some pool before heading to the bowling lanes. I, as usual, did not wow with my ´skills´ and enjoyed instead getting myself into an increasingly flirty situation with aforementioned teacher. Who also has a gf. Hey, it was allllllllllllllllllll innocent fun.

We had been drinking since school finished at lunch time so by the time we got home it was pretty messy. I finally had my clothes washed by the people who own the apartment we stay in but their version of ´washing´ is just to put the clothes in, turn the machine on and tell us when it had finished. Ha! Fold say what??

Anyway, waking up the next day was a little harder and of course that was the day the kids decided to be total brats. I was over it. Hump day came a bit late for me.