Adventure of the month

Waiting for the Marriott crew ( with JR in the background) Caribelle Batik Shop at Romney Manor (closed on Sundays) Lily, Israel, Shawn, Martha and Betty at Romney Manor Brimstone Hill Fortress Mami and Maggie at Brimstone Rawlins Plantation Black Rocks My mother and her ass . Final day in St. Kitts, we decided we may as well see St. Kitts. We had explored the more upscale sister island, Nevis, we had gone deep into the rain forest, we had hit every bar along the Frigate Bay strip, some of them twice, but we had not actually driven around the island we were staying on. Due to the previous evening's van-related fiasco, the driving would now actually be done by JR aka Robert, a cab driver we had met the first day on the island and my brother would follow with the Marriott crew in his rental car. After some initial difficulties in meeting up, due mainly to the fact that my mother was given the actual meeting time, as opposed to a fictitious much earlier start tim...

Saturday was to be our exploration day on St. Kitts. My friends Betty and Martha were keen on a volcano hike that was pretty heavily advertised online. I took one look at all the euphemisms for "hard as shit" scattered throughout the text, words such as "challenging" and "exhilarating" and "strenous" and knew that this wasn't for me. Another option presented, a train ride around the island was deemed too sedentary, too expensive, too touristy and "just sucky" by the group, in general. Our perfect middle ground came in the form of a man named Oliver Spencer. We had gotten his name and number from a friend in Miami and knew that he was the president of the St. Kitts Horticultural Society from a brochure we had received. My friend's reviews of his tour services were glowing and his prices were very reasonable, so it was decided that we would have Oliver take us on a "gentle" walk of the rain forest. After t...

Leaving St. Kitts Remnants of an abandoned sugar mill Sunshine's Bar and Grill The world (or at least our table) through Shawn's eyes The birthplace of Alexander Hamilton Satanica demonstrates why it is a bad idea to fall asleep on the St Kitts/ Nevis ferry Frigate Bay (back in St. Kitts) As readers of this blog may have noticed, through a combination of my work and the abundant time off that it allows me, I get to often indulge my gypsy spirit and visit locations both near and far. The downside of this lifestyle is that all that traveling keeps me from spending a lot of time with my family and friends. So this makes my last adventure extra sweet, in that it allowed me to have my cake, eat it and chase it down with a Carib beer. On the weekend of Sept. 18th-20th, I got to visit the serenely beautiful islands of St. Kitts and Nevis along with (deep breath..) my man, Shawn; my mother, Mami and her friend and fun loving ex-New Yorker Maggie; my brothe...

Monday, after hitting all the highlights in Sofia, I found myself with some more free time, so I decided to book a tour to the Rila Monastery. I did not know much about the Monastery’s history or its significance, but I had seen enough eye-catching postcard pictures of it to convince me that it was somewhere I wanted to go. Now having returned from my tour, not much has changed. I can definitely vouch for the very picturesque nature of the Monastery and I still have no earthly clue what its story may be. The chief problem was that our very affable guide spoke very limited English, and what he did speak was enough to convey that he knew even less about Rila Monastery. When asked how old the building was, he shrugged and said “Old, very old.” While inside the church, one of the monks signaled for me to come up to the altar where he removed a white sheet from a coffin-like box. Inside the box, there was something that looked like a small piece of brown slate co...