The Virgin Island Madness

THIS IS NOT A PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG: Its a personal story from an adventure to the Virgin Islands:

What comes to mind when you think of the Virgin Islands? I see, long powdery white sand beaches with the bluest waters around. Some light island music in the background and an amazing vacation. Well, thats kind-of how it happened for me.

Heres my story:

I was announced on a conference call that the latest sales contest, I WON! I was literally screaming. I was driving out of town to visit my stores in Ocala and kept checking my phone to make sure I was on mute and that the entire call wasnt listening to my celebritory screaming! It was pretty stinkin joyous. Afterall, who gets to win a trip to the virgin islands from work??

I spent the next couple of days trying to come off of the high I was on. I was feeling pretty stellar! A few days traveling in my secondary market out of town, brought me down to earth but I still had a bit of excitement in my blood. Monday morning came, I literally woke right up from my 4:00 am alarm and was ready to go. (if you know me well, you know that i set my alarm an hour in advance because I am not getting up unless snooze is hit 400,000 times. I swear the 5 minutes in-between is forever!)

So, I get my butt to the airport, wait to be boarded, sleep the entire three hour flight, and San Jaun here I come! I get off the plane to the harsh reality that I am going to be sitting in this piping hot airport for a few hours. I was wearing workout pants, long lollypop printed socks, tennis shoes, a tank top, long sleeve shirt, and a black hoodie..Lets just say I was San Juan's newest entertainer. I was ripping off layers as If i was set on fire. So I mosey around the miniture terminal in hopes of finding a quaint place to catch a bite to eat, but unless you are eating a grab and go dominos pizza, there was no luck. So, disappointed, I decide to just throw in the towel at the possibility and head to my gate. Along the way, I find a sports bar, or what San Juan considers one, anyway. I order a philly cheesesteak and fries with a diet coke. Along comes my dry sandwich with literally a slab of the tiniest amount of meat a girl could find. The most over-done fries, and luckily my diet coke was delish. Oh so what I sucked it down like thanksgiving turkey and called it a day. Now, heres where things get good.

Im not exactly sure what the scurry was at the service desk, which happened to be literally right next to our gate, but there was an enormous line to it with every last customer tapping their feet, carrying on among themselves, and ready to eat the guy behind the counter for lunch. To my understanding, and it happens sometimes, a flight departed late,causing a good portion of the passengers to miss their connecting flights. There were several disgruntled passengers but this one guy, he takes the psychotic cake. He was screaming and yelling at them from about 12 passengers back to tell them "something". He also began to insult the airline, calling its employees everything an angry passenger will and got customer care on the phone. He was screaming like an idiot that he was going to get a refund whether they liked it or not and he must have shown them because he told them he was getting a refund and slammed his flip phone shut, throwing it to the ground. I mean, thats exactly how i'd go about getting a refund as Im sure you would do the very same right? So finally he gets up to the counter, he begins to ball his fist and spit at the care agent. The agent walked away and the guy follows, they began screaming at one another about to exchange blows at any second. The guy's wife pulled him away and that waas that...for then. About 20 minutes later, the "gentleman" and his wife walk by as he screams in front of everyone "thanks for giving us separate seats asshole" and flips him the bird. The guy behind the counter screams back " you're welcome, asshole". Now this is very obviously the way that things happen in a foreign country because that guy would own the airline if it happened here. It was amusing though..Thanks for the show dude.

So its literally 5 minutes till boarding and after calling about 10 different times for volunteer to exit this flight for another due to weight and balance restrictions on our puddle jumper plane that sat 4 people per row with no overhead storage. This stirs almost all the passengers up. They begin conversing with one another about who should give up their seats and how we arent all gonna have seats on the plane, blah blah blah. Well another announcement surfaces, this time informing us that we are being moved to another gate. Its a mini terminal as I previously pointed out so it was like 30 steps to the new gate, but again, the passengers became irratic, pushing and shoving each other out of the way before boarding... A spectical.. Thats really all I can describe it as.

So we get on and off our puddle jumping plane before we know it to land on what a typical person believes is heaven on earth or "paradise" as so many passengers were calling it. We gave to walk off our plane, grab our luggage from the luggage cart and heel-toe it towards their even more mini airport. Inside, lol well, what they consider inside, consisted of two baggage claim belts, three rental car booths and a bar. Im trying to keep up my spirits, so I bop over to the Avis counter where im sure I have a top-notch car awaiting me. Just as suspected, Im given the keys to a chevy cobalt, and am pointed across the street and up three flights of outdoor steps to the chainlink , barbed-wire fenced in area where my car is to be retrieved.  Upon retrieving my rental, I inform the agent that I will need a GPS. She immediately informs me back that there are no GPS units for rent as they dont use them, as she hands me a map of the island and tells me "oh you CANT get lost here." I shake my head and head to my car. Im merely run over by two passing cars and make my way to the car that looked as if it was rear ended and side-swiped and thought to myself...oh boy here goes nothing. Please keep in mind that no one during this entire endevor has managed to inform me that here in "paradise" they drive on the opposite side of the street, so as you can imagine, as Im leaving the oh so secure car area, im almost smashed into due to looking the wrong way. THIS, is going to be interesting.

So, im driving...and driving...and driving...and driving to my resort. Assuring myself that "i cant get lost here" I continue doing at this point what I do best, drive. I stop after about an hour and 15 minutes of driving for directions. The local informs me that Im really not in the best part of time, go figure, and points me in the right direction. Furiously, I gas it out of the parking lot, managing to swing a u-y, smashing into the drain drudge that some parking lots have. I seriously thought right there, was the front end to my rolls royce, in a strange country, all alone. At this point, Im ready to kill someone... any takers?

I do, manage to get to my resort, and into the room and find that its falling apart. I went down to the pool to try to relax but all I could think about was the nasty , falling apart room, they have placed me in, so I get up, approach the registration desk for my new keys to my room. This room is better, but still not what Id expected. So, i decide i want to shower, the shower knob falls into the tub making the most god-awful thud known to mankind, nakedly, i bend over and try to screw it back on the at least make it through my shower. I manage. Phew. After the shower of my life and 3 excederine later, I decide I'd better order dinner. Based on the horror of a day i've experienced already, I decide room service is the way to go. I order my food, wait an hour for it, and to my surprise its YUMMY. Relieved, I scarf it down as if I was a rabid lion trying to eat before another came along. At 8 pm, my head hit the bed, I was OUT. I awoke at 10:00 pm to my hubby calling, So I skype with him, the worst thing I could have ever done. I then get the bright idea to switch my flight and book ASAP tomorrow!! I call the airline, no luck, they inform me that the flight that will work best for my schedule departs at 4:00pm and I can not switch to a confirmed flight change until 12 hours prior to departure. So, determind, I set my alarm, awake and make the switch. The best $50 I ever spent!

8 am came around, I get up, get packed, and begin to "try" to make my day better than before. I successfully find all of my stores, met the cutest, most friendly, happy people ever. I so badly wanted to change them for the employees in some of my stores!!!! Needless to say, I get done at about 12:30, leaving a large gap between then and my departure time. So, feeling all proud of myself, now that im not completely lost in this country, I head back to the hotel. Im driving, listening to the island music on the radio and all the sudden I THINK I see something out of the corner of my "ba-boom" I look in my rear view, I hit a damn Iguana!!! The thing was the size of a small dog!!! It was squriming around and flopping like crazy. I had the most shocked, suprised, WTF face and bolted!!! You can get fined for hitting one of those things there! I wasnt sticking around to get fined for hitting the damned thing! I still, right this minute chuckle because I cant believe I HIT AN IGUANA?!?!!! The car coming the other way stopped for it, began tending to it and I got outta dodge. So, Still in shock, I pull into the hotel, where I layout for an hour and a half. I jump in the shower, head to the airport, Catch my flight and await the last leg of my trip in the Miami Airport, where Im writing this now. I go into the bathroom, and look in the mirror to see the newest member of the Tomato family looking back at me in the mirror. Yea forgot the sunscreen. DOH!!!

I hope you enjoyed my story...I still cant believe I hit an iguana..WHO hits an iguana? They were all over the place!! So, Im at my gate, Its 8:42, I will be boarding in 45 minutes.

Smiles to you and yours:) Thanks for reading. Keep your eyes peeled for a few new blogs, 4 more coming soon!

blessings,
Carly