Things I Will Do as a Jungle Princess of St Thomas

•    Become buddies with the chefs at the resort and learn how to cook like a real Caribbean queen
•    Rent a Jeep and drive around with the top down like the Barbie Jeep pro I am
•    Dress up for Carnival
•    Participate in the International Rolex Regatta 2012
•    Snorkel with sea turtles
•    Kiteboard in the British Virgin Islands
•    Surf Hull Bay
•    Take the ferry to as many islands as possible  
•    Swim in the bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico
•    Seat in Drake’s Seat
•    Climb St Peter Mountain
•    Take the ferry to St John’s and go on day long hikes to find secret beaches
•    Have my own Tour de Caribbean with a Bike tour on Water   Island  
•    Unleash my inner Martha Stewart on a Historic Homes Tour
•    Climb the 99 steps
•    Pretend to be a pirate in Blackbeard’s and Bluebeard’s Castles
•    Visit my favorite artist, Pissarro’s childhood home
•    Be super pretentious and accomplish everything listed in the recent New York Times review of 36 hours in St John

I'm a big To-Do list and goal person but this list is solely based on my close, personal relationship with Google, can you think of anything I'm missing?

Free Spirit

I’m not one to bask in compliments: they make me uncomfortable and awkward and get my brain to spit out an insincere compliment back to them (oh, well.. I think your shoes are really pretty too!)


But when I ran into a kindred, free spirit while in Key West and spilled my plans to move to St. Thomas to work at a hotel, including all the gaping holes and incomplete details in my plan, she said, “I’m proud of you.” 
 

Coming from a similar free spirit: a girl I met while in lifeguard training classes 7 years ago; the first person to get me drunk after my high school boyfriend broke my heart; a girl who moved to Key West to work on boats: it felt genuine and inspiring. 

Who hasn't wanted to quit their job, move to a tropical land where it's a constant 72 degrees and your "other" outfit is a bathing suit? Who hasn't daydreamed about leaving their desk jobs to work in sun: where clouds are few and smiles are plenty? I've spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about snorkeling when I should have been updating website content.  But it's the very few that actually peruse those dreams. 

It's the bravehearts, the trailblazers, the individual thinkers who decide they deserve better and move away from a place they once called home. It's an elite club who can say they've lived in a foreign land: a club who is blessed with a number of people who care about them and want to see them succeed. I couldn't have even begin to start thinking about moving abroad without the constant love and support from my mom. 

She figured she was dealt a seriously independent-minded child once I went to school and at 5-years-old told her I no longer needed or wanted to go because "I taught myself how to read" in one day at kindergarten.

I can only hope to continue to make her and every other free spirit who's been brave enough to move abroad, proud. (cue Drake's cheesy yet completely lovable, 'Make Me Proud')  

me circa 5 years old, being sassy per usual.

Take Me Back to the Start

I’m a big believer in signs.  When Coldplay’s “The Scientist” played on my Pandora station while I randomly looked at a friend’s photos of his life in the US Virgin Islands, I gave the big G-o-d a proverbial nod. Someone, somewhere was trying to tell me something. And I’m pretty sure it was “Quit your job, sell your car and move to St Thomas” so I am. 

I’m writing this from a job I will soon quit, a job that I like (mostly because my co-workers are just as inappropriate as I am and I can get away with almost anything in my own office) A job that a lot of people might give their left foot for (I write: I write emails, I write status updates, I write blogs, I write brochures on why our DJs would make your next corporate event a real party) but I’ve had this awesome voice inside my head quietly telling me each time I sat down at my double monitored desk “This isn’t it” Michael Jackson got it wrong. Even after living in Italy for a year and a half, I’m not done, there’s lingering need-for-adventure still coursing through my veins. An urging for the unknown, the uncertain. 

I’m not running from anything: there’s no heart-wrenching break up I’m reeling from, no family drama I’m trying to escape, no lawless activity that would warrant an escape to a tropical island. In fact, I’ve run away from these problems before and found them just hanging out on my new, foreign doorstep once the thrill of moving to a foreign country had faded. But that’s for my book, not this blog.