Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Fun wit frens in da Caribbean

About a week ago, Brian and I got home from a trip to the Caribbean! I know, how exotic, right!? It was amazing, a world away from Seattle. My friend Jen from college and her husband Aaron got married in St. John and we stayed in St. Thomas (both in the US Virgin Islands). What a terrible obligation to attend a wedding in such an exotic location! Life is rough. It was truly beautiful. The weather was in the high 80s, maybe hotter. And muggy.

Our hotel/resort had a private beach and pools and spa, etc. It would have been easy to stay there the whole time and never see anything else. But we dragged ourselves away, rented an open air jeep, and cruised around to check out some other parts of the island. Charlotte Amalie is the major town in St. Thomas and was packed with shops, many that sold diamonds, perfume, electronics, etc. Apparently some items are quite a lot cheaper there, if you're into buying expensive diamonds and perfumes, that is. To me, they still seemed expensive. I bought a beautiful rose quartz necklace for $60 which was plenty expensive for me!

They speak English in St. Thomas, but we also heard some Creole! I didn't even realize that was still spoken anywhere. The English sounds pretty Caribbean, too, kind of like Jamaican for those of us who don't hear it very often. Apparently Virgin Islands Creole was formed when African slaves created a new English-based dialect with West African-derived words and sentence structure. It's strictly informal and constantly evolving and not recognized as an official language.

Anyway, the wedding itself was, of course, gorgeous. It was on the beach--but before I go any further, I have to say it was really unfortunate that many of us were literally eaten alive during the ceremony and suffered through more than a week of insufferable itchy bug bites. Mine just went away not too long ago and I still have hundreds of little purple-like scars to prove it. ANYWAY, aside from that, the ceremony was beautiful!! And so was the bride of course. It was a fun time and I am very happy for the newlyweds! This marks the end of a two-year wedding frenzy for us. In the past two years, we have been to nine weddings, including our own. I am looking forward now to hibernating in Seattle and enjoying some down-time.

Without further ado, here are some pictures from our trip!

View from our hotel

Downtown Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas

Beautiful wedding ceremony at Trunk Bay in St. John

Jodi and I getting much needed relief from the insane bugs

Long-time pals from college: Erica, Jen, and me

The boogie line

Oh my gosh, iguanas were EVERYWHERE!

Brian and I enjoying some good Caribbean food

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I must say ... bug spray! And I don't like bug spray! yes congrats to the couple, BUT MORE importantly thank goodness to the end of wedding class of 08. coincidently I was at/in a 2nd wedding on the same day as J&A's big day, Of course they are all fun BUT enough is enough!