Searching for THE place

I'd Love to be your personal assistant in St Lucia

khwe5401 — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:50:00 GMT

Its not often people get free trips to other countries at 24 years, especially when one is not still a spoilt brat, married to an old geezer, getting a paid for school trip, on a business trip...but then again..that aint free either

The point is...Im sooo lucky.Imagine my surprise when within two weeks of returning home for the summer from france, I get a call from one of my best friends asking me to accompany her on a trip to St Lucia. Hell to the YES!!! Although she complained to me that my reaction was significantly under what she hoped for...

but I was thrilled

We took Liat from Piarco airport set to spend 4 glorious days in St Lucia.

We were based in this hotel in one of the main tourisy areas which, being St Lucia was quite overpriced for the amenities...but ..hey..I aint complaining..I was just glad to be there. After being in Cold (weather and people) Europe for a whole year, I welcomed any opportunity to drink some rum, wear bikinis, rest on the beach and just talk to random strangers ...not my normal life in Trinidad..but being in the touristy areas...hey why not///lets be all stereotypical!

The place we stayed apparentlywas overrun by British school boys apparently there for some form of sport related school trip. Lets pause and exaimine this for a moment...little boys on a FIELD TRIP from Britain...what??? its not like we are talking about London to Manchester...its London to Rodney Bay st Lucia.

The point of the trip was to look for venues for a football match between a football club based in Trinidad and a couple in St Lucia. So alot of time was spent looking at stadiums and hotels, hotels hotels. Probably the only time I ever set foot in a five star hotel was here as the general managers gave us tours showcasing the best of what each hotel had to offer.

Interesting

But we can skip that...St Lucia is absolutely amazing. We did an overland tour from Rodney bay in the North heading south stopping to get a great view of Castries which is quite beautiful with its Basilica (so promoted after a visit from Jean Paul) and its cruise ships at the docks.

THE JAMAICA EXPERIENCE

khwe5401 — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:06:00 GMT

What can I say? Majestic? Quaint? Bourgeois? Legacy? Can these mere words surmiss the wonder that is Jamaica. I am one of the few Trinidadians who can proudly say that I have lived and flourished there on that island. Ever since I was young, I had a list of four countries that I dared to dream that I simply had to go to: Jamaica, France, Australia and Iceland.Ive since covered 75% of them and lost interest in the latterwhile adding a few more on my list as got older. These countries all captured my imagination in some way. I had wild perceptions in my five year old mind about them. Australia apparently smelt like Aussie shampoo ( my dad brought it home one day for use in the family bathroom and I loved loved the smell, Id think of Koala bears) and had talking kangaroos who could be used as taxis. Jamaicans' vocabulary didnt stray much from 'Yeah, no problem mon' (Yes we in the Caribbean have the same stereotypes of each other). Iceland was just plain cold with ice princesses and nymphs and elves and France ...I always loved all things French, living the language, loving the language, speaking the language and all of its implications.

One of the things that has struck me the most about living in Jamaica is that living there is quite different from how it is perceived or how it may be interpreted from a visit. The culture though seemingly fixated on Rastafarianism, is so diverse and chuck filled with complexities and different social nuances and contradictions.

I arrived Jamaica as a curious college student on the way to study Geology and left completely enamoured with it. So many things that made me fall in love, the audacity of the down town female..and male attitude and fashion though fashion in Ja is an attitude; the fact that for a financially struggling country, the people seem so proud here and while homeless people did exist,it never reached the level of prevalance that other countries who are far better off have; I miss the 'rasta pilgrimages' as I like to call them...going into the hills to Nine Mile for Bob Marley's Birthday celebrations or down in St Elizabeth to check out the annual Rebel Salute.

I will not be so presumptios to even attempt to try to cover all this into one essay. Instead, I will do a series of entries about the different aspects of Jamaican life and how they have struck me and how they have impressed my thoughts. Ill try to relate this to you guys as best as I can.

Gallery: four years in Jamaica

khwe5401 — Mon, 1 Sep 2003 22:39:00 GMT

Trying to surmiss it with pictures..I give myself an F