St. Lucia!

An absolute perk* to being a teacher is that, along with summers, we get random break weeks throughout the school year. I hear accountants don't get a "Spring Break" week every year and it is just another reason why I am confused that people choose to be accountants. This week was my school's Fall Break and I was determined to go somewhere, even when it seemed unlikely.

My first trip-planning snafu came from my passport. I was running out of pages so I had sent it off at the end of July to be renewed.** At the end of August I received an email that it was on its way and would be to me in three short days. Great! Three short days later, USPS tracking implied it was lost in the mail. One week later, this became even more evident. Two weeks later, it was a problem. When I called on the third week, the passport people*** agreed that this was exceptionally strange and helped me set up an appointment to go in person and have one printed later in the week. My passport, suddenly sensing it was truly wanted, showed up the next day.

Now that I had a passport, I could continue my trip plans to Turks and Caicos. But, oh. Hurricanes, y'all. Watching what Harvey did to Houston had me intensely watching Irma. When the projected path of Irma had it going right over Turks and Caicos, I changed my trip to a more southern Caribbean location, St. Lucia. Fortunately, the airlines**** were super accommodating and one woman I spoke to even learned where Turks and Caicos is located!

Once St. Lucia was booked, I neurotically watched Hurricane Maria. St. Lucia ended up having only a tropical storm warning for a day and no hurricane damage. On that note, many other islands were not as fortunate and they need all the help we can provide.******

But enough with how I almost didn't go anywhere. I got here!

Naturally, I went from the airport to the beach as quickly as possible. That did involve an hour and a half car ride over some mountains in the middle, but it was worth the wait!

I have definitely spent some days just sitting on the beach reading all the books.******* However, I did want to get out and see more of the island than the stretch of beach outside my hotel. To that end, I rented a car for a day and hit the streets!

...the incredibly-mountainous, not-entirely-paved, hairpin-turn streets!

St. Lucia was originally settled by the British and they carry on many British traditions to this day. One of them is that the queen is on their money! Fun! Another is that they drive on the left. PANIC!

This was my first time driving on the left and it was shockingly easier than I expected. I thought I would need to constantly chant, "Stay left, Kelly, stay left" as I drove but it was easy enough to adapt. The real thing that threw me off was the mirror-imaged car! Sitting on the right doesn't seem like it will be a big deal but did you know the blinker and windshield wiper are also switched?!?!? I managed to turn without turning on the windshield wipers maybe three times. Sometimes I even mentally prepared myself to signal with the other hand and then it came time to turn and habit won out. If it had actually rained, I am confident I would have been the old guy driving with their blinker on for miles and miles down a one-lane road with no turn-offs.

Though driving on the left was no big deal, the mountain roads did not mess around. Fortunately, the return was huge. After an hour and a half-ish of mountainy roads, I ended up here:

Not bad, right? This is the black sand beach of Anse Chastenet. It is located on the western coast just north of the Pitons- two volcanic mountains that define the shoreline.

After some beach time, I headed for the nearest waterfall.******** I had some waterfall options, but went for the one that lets you swim underneath it. It was way cool.

I have no pictures of me actually swimming under it, but I assure you I did. I also specifically took the above picture to feature the photo SUPERSTAR in yellow shorts who was posing for her family's photos. Little did I know that a few minutes later, she would see me posing for a photo and then crash it. She insisted we pose "Lucian Style" and described that as "Butts out. Tongues out." When in St. Lucia, apparently...

I capped off the day with one more beach visit. This time the stop was Sugar Beach, heavily plugged by the locals as "where Matt Damon renewed his vows." I like to live my life with the philosophy that if something is good enough for Matt Damon, it is good enough for me. This beach definitely was.

I snuck in one last Piton before beginning the return trip.

On the journey home I challenged myself to drive slightly faster than the old lady speed with which I drove out. The end result was I reached the speed limit at least twice on a flat stretch. The speed limit was 60 km/hour. It was terrifying.

I will definitely need to sit on a beach all day to recover. Whew, the stress.
-KT

*And when I say "perk," I mean "back off, we earned this" but with at least two expletives that I won't include here because it is the internet.

**"I was running out of pages" is possibly my favorite traveler humblebrag. I was actually heartbroken to trade in my passport for a new one. I had finally this summer achieved my life goal with 3 different immigration officers where they flipped through my passport looking for a place to stamp and then commented about how many places I had been. "Yes, I have been to a lot of places, Madame Immigration Officer. Please tell me more about how glamorous my life is."

***Who picked up after I was on hold for maybe 20 seconds, by the way. Get it, US Government!

****Shout out to American Airlines who are in no way endorsed by this blog but were lovely on the phone with, again, practically no wait time.*****

*****I do not enjoy calling people on the phone so any time an experience is even halfway bearable, I feel relieved.

******Pick your pleasure. I donated to Hispanic Federation but there are many excellent ways to support the incredible amount of work that needs to be done, specifically in Puerto Rico.  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/can-help-hurricane-victims-puerto-rico/

*******I have, of course, also walked along it. I do love long walks on the beach. And I'm a libra, thanks for asking.

********Likeyado.

Bermuda

I like to travel to new places for country points.* This is my third trip to Bermuda. That's how much I like Bermuda. I half-jokingly talk about buying a summer home here.**

The reasons why Bermuda is one of the world's finest islands include:

• The entire island is surrounded by coral reefs making the water more shallow, calm, and turquoise than the rest of the Atlantic Ocean surrounding it. You can dive, snorkel, or simply look at it. 

• Currency? US dollars. Language? English. Friendly people in Bermuda shorts? Everywhere. What's not to heart?

• The island itself is basically one large botanical garden. 

• The beaches have pink sand that is both impossibly soft on your feet and never gets hot.***

• The Bermuda Triangle you've heard about is possibly giant craters in the sea***** causing explosions and is definitely not going to abduct you and cause you to miss your return flight. 

• Speaking of the return flight, it's only two and a half hours from Atlanta. I dare you to get anywhere better in that time. (If you do, let me know ASAP.)

• No iguanas.******

• You clear US customs in the Bermuda airport so when you fly home you walk straight out of the airport like it's a domestic flight.*******

If you, like I, are constantly searching for the perfect island, come to Bermuda and try it out. Even if it's not your dream island, you will have a Bermudaful time. 

-KT

*And to explore the world, obvs. 

**This is the alternate lifestyle fantasy where I pull a mid-life crisis à la Diane Lane in "Under the Tuscan Sun" but move to Bermuda with no language barrier and spend virtually no time or effort on house renovation. There are several friends/readers out there that I would accept as my Sandra Oh. Feel free to submit applications for this sure-to-be-coveted position. 

***I have not found any research**** to support my claim that pink sand doesn't absorb heat and scald your feet like white sand, but you can read this thing about why the sand is pink. My explanation is simply: science. http://mobile.royalgazette.com/article/20120301/FEATURES02/703019903

****Er, Google searches

*****Again, science. http://interestingengineering.com/mystery-of-the-bermuda-triangle-has-finally-been-solved/

******This is a special contribution from Mom. She hates iguanas, y'all. They essentially ruin the entire Caribbean for her. 

*******If this doesn't sound like a big deal to you, YOU DON'T KNOW MY LIFE. 

Bonus photo for those that read foot notes to the end. I took a picture for a family and they also took mine...and coached me through a variety of poses.