Miscellaneous

St. Lucia: Blog Post #1

By jeremyblachman

I'm interrupting my blog-free honeymoon in St. Lucia because I felt compelled to post about a bizarre soda I just tried called Mauby Fizz.  The label told me it was made from the bark of a tree (along with sugar, vanilla, and spices).  I assumed something root beer-esque.  Which it is, until you swallow it and are left with a strong, bitter, truly bizarrely awful aftertaste, unexpected since the beverage is made by Pepsi in Trinidad so I assumed it would be, if anything, too boring to be worth buying.  (Wikipedia confirms the aftertaste and also, as a bonus, says the drink has a laxative effect.  Fun.)

Besides Mauby, honeymoon is a lot of fun so far.  FIve days still to go.  Internet-enabled computer in the hotel lobby has enabled me to be a lot more connected than my wife (still very new to write that!) was hoping for, but she's been checking e-mail just as much as I have, so she doesn't have too much standing to complain....

Everyone in St. Lucia is on a honeymoon.  Our flight was entirely made up of couples, every guy playing with the wedding band he is still uncomfortable wearing and every girl still wearing her wedding makeup.  They made an announcement apologizing for the layout of the plane (3 seats on each side) forcing them to have to split lots of couples across the aisle.

We have become addicted to plantain chips.  The supermarket bananas are really amazingly good.  And despite insane taxi prices, there is a relatively easy to navigate bus system that we have become frequent users of.  We have not seen any other tourists on the bus, which is unfortunate, since everyone on the bus is friendly, and it costs about 2% of what taxis do.

Lots of birds and lizards and frogs, and also a fair number of stray animals coexisting peacefully among the humans.  Dogs, cats, goats, horses, chickens, and a bunch of what might be small llamas but are more likely just something we don't know the name of.

The beaches are nice.  Paddleboating is fun for about five minutes.  And we visited a volcano that smells like sulfur.  Tomorrow we are going to a chocolate plantation, which should be fun.  (Odd, however, that the local chocolate doesn't seem to be sold anywhere -- it's all Cadbury Dairy Milk in the stores).

More when I get back on Sunday.  Or maybe before then.

Full post as published by Jeremy Blachman's Brand New Weblog on June 01, 2009 (boomark / email).