Tuesday, January 17, 2012

How Is This Real Life?

It was meant to be an innocent night. How could a night that started watching Virgin Island middle schoolers performing 'Godspell' turn into naked hot tubbing? This, I can tell you.

I met Loren three years ago in Italy. He had a trucker hat emblazoned in pink lettering, "I <3 Cats" and taught me how to order a cafe macchiatto, "Una cafe macchiatto, per favore!" Needless to say, we became quick friends. But as friendships made abroad tend to do, we limited ourselves to occasional Facebook messages and chats. Luckily, his photos of the USVI came up on my newsfeed while I was listening to Coldplay and inspired my move to St Thomas. (see first post for clarification)

Now, Loren was staying in St John, just a 20 minute ferry ride from where I was living in St Thomas (it should be noted that for islands named after saints, they are a haven for sinners) The ferry leaves conveniently on the hour, every hour so when I finished at work at 5, I hopped on the 6 o'clock ferry and was seated, watching the opening number of island kids, dressed as clowns by 7.

Since it seems everything runs on island time here, including children's productions, it wasn't until 10 that Loren and I were headed to the bar to grab a quick drink before the last ferry left at 11.

As we were playing one of my favorite games, Two Truths and a Lie, to help pick up where we left off three years ago, "I backpacked in SE Asia without a cell phone or guide book." Of course that was Loren's truth, I had to reach back into my adventurous Italian days and tell him about getting in cars with strangers. And just like my writing now, we lost track of time and direction and then it was 11:10 pm. The ship had sailed and there was now a Caribbean straight between me and a decent bedtime.

There might be lack of electricity, money, morals and water at times on the islands, but there is never a lack of booze. In the small area of Cruz Bay there are at least 10 bars open until 4 am that are happy to "island" pour you Painkillers and Bushwackers until you're certain that any place that could hold this much alcohol must be the right place for you. Loren and I flitted between a Spanish bar that I'm certain was in someone's garage and doubled as a stripper's joint during the day and a literal shack above someone else's house that served only Red Stripe and 40 different flavors of Cruzan rum. We shut down the place at 4 am and bumped into a fellow teacher on the island who gave us a ride back to Loren's place.

Now, I try to drink responsibly, if the days in my sorority taught me anything, it's that I'm useless hungover and large glasses of water between drinks are my saving grace. So when we got back to Loren's, I was more sleepy and almost anxious at the fact that I had to be a fully functioning Activities Director at 9 am, than drunk. But not Loren and his gaggle of fellow drama teachers.

They were as naked as the day they were born within 5 minutes of walking in the door and into the hot tub. I've been around nude people before, I used to be on the high school swim team, I've even been known to get nude in public before, but that was after large amounts of alcohol and running were involved. So a dilemma presented itself, do I get naked, jump in the hot tub and join this random drunk Americans in the USVI party or do I demurely sit on the side, dangle my legs in the water and advert my eyes as much as possible from the nipples and peens peaking out of the hot tub and highlighted by the full moon. Don't worry mom, I chose the latter.

I sat until I literally couldn't keep my eyes open, then found an empty palm tree patterned couch and fell asleep for three hours until I caught the first ferry back to my "real life," playing Bingo with guests at a 4 star resort.

That is how a middle school production of 'Godspell' had me hanging out with naked people in a hot tub at 4 am. God bless the USVI.

How Snorkeling Can Save You

It started as one of the most annoying mornings of my life: the girl who lives in the room attached to mine, barged in, shouted Spanish and failed her arms all about. Since it seemed to have developed into a regular occurrence, me, my ear plugs and sleeping mask bolted out of bed and said, "I am sleeping." Which in my sleepy state I still noted was a contradictory statement. The girl left the room but not without letting me see her eyeballs roll around her head. Little did I know, I was the one being rude.

My roommate, Jaz, is one of the sweetest little Peruvian girls I ever met. Not that I've met many Peruvians but still, she's a world-class kind of sweet. She says universally nice things like, "Have sweet dreams," and "Hope you have a wonderful day!" This kindness didn't go unnoticed by one of the chefs at the resort we work at and quickly Jaz and Jon became an item.

Although Jon is 30 and Jaz 23, they were a hard partying couple, complete with an almost totaled car crash on New Years Eve and lots of close calls when buying drugs. But they liked eachother, a lot. So when Jaz decided to take an all-girls weekend trip to Puerto Rico, Jon was livid. It would be time away from him, he said, "Time that might be spent meeting another guy!" But in Jaz's mind, she loved Jon and no Don Juan from Puerto Rico could change her mind about that.

Jaz spent three blissful, drunk days frolicking about PR, celebrating San Sebastian with all the happy and also drunk boriquas. And then Jon picked her up at the airport in St Thomas.

In an unfounded and jealous rage, he threw all of Jaz's clothes, make up and cell phone out his balcony and into the waiting Caribbean sea.

Jaz was petrified that she was next to be thrown over and ran the 2 hillacious miles back to Sugar Bay and our room. Out of breath and commanding only 70% of the English language, Jaz retold the last 12 hours.

Through both of our tears and constant hugs, I told her I had befriended the owners of a chartered catamaran and we could go out of a whole day of snorkeling. Her eyes lit up. Hopefully this sea adventure will be a lot less traumatic than that of her and Jon's possessions.