Welcome to St Maarten!

Oh St Maarten, we have waited so long to meet you!  Though, no amount of expectation or planning would prepare us for this!

As the plane began to ascend, the waters below were glittering in the sunlight and the excitement in the plane was on the rise.  No one could wait to begin their adventure, whether it was a vacation, coming home or beginning medical school.  As we gathered our carry on luggage and began to walk down the stairs onto the asphalt, the swass (that is sweaty ass, thank you Allie) began...instantly.

Going through customs was not an issue, they simply asked how long we were staying and for what purpose.  Not once was the paperwork for Hope and Jasmine requested, but who cares, we were all here!

The girls and the luggage were taken to the curb (picture an island in the middle of a two way street - with absolutely no shade), where they went potty and waited for me to get the rental car, SUV actually, as there was so much stuff...didn't we just have a garage sale and get rid of everything?  Why do we still have so much stuff?  We decided that every time something was brought into the house, something of equal or greater size has to be removed from the house...we are still working on that.  I digress.

Getting the rental car was our first true experience of "Island time", which is like "CP" time, but on a much larger scale.  A shuttle picked myself and two other couples up from the airport, and transported us to Budget car rental...that took about 30 minutes though it is only 3 minutes away...I could have walked there faster!  The shuttle arrived at Budget and I was the last to be helped.  Mind you, everything took a lot longer because they don't use computers.  Everything is hand written.  Very strange.  Anyway, I got the paperwork and walked outside to get the car...45 minutes later I was driving back to the airport.  What should have taken 20 to 30 minutes ended up taking about 2 hours, with Joe, Jasmine and Hope baking in the St Maarten sun.  I felt really bad.  Joe thought something had happened because apparently a cop (the few that they have here) and an ambulance drove by when I was gone.  The relief on his face was apparent.

Joe loaded the car like a boss, he made everything fit.  Hope was on my lap in her crate and Jasmine was in the backseat in her crate.  No amount of air conditioning was cooling them and I was getting nervous.  It didn't help that I took us the wrong direction for about 15 minutes...so much for that innate sense of direction that I thought I had!  Once we passed the second pharmacy and casino (which were the landmarks I was told to watch for because there are no street signs), we turned around.

Finally on the right track we found the pharmacy, turned right and made our way down Amazone Rd.  Terry, the guard, informed us that he didn't have the keys to the condo because we were expected hours ago.  Slight panic started to set in.  Exhausted, smelly, two dogs...what now!  But, he went to the office and was able to locate the key...Thank the Lord!

I let the girls out of their crates and was so excited to see our beautiful new home.  Joe unpacked the luggage while the girls and I went up to to the house...The door opened to a complete disaster!  The floors were disgusting, it reeked like gross boy, all of the dishes had a greasy film, the bedding and towels were dirty, there were nasty stains on the couch, chair and mattress pad, and the bottom of the tubs were covered in black grime.  We were completely horrified.

Moving somewhere is so much different than vacationing or visiting.  When you get to your destination there is no food in the refrigerator, no cleaning supplies, no complimentary soap, no toilet paper, no wifi, no telephone, no consierge to assist...nothing.  We had to leave our scared girls in this new, scary place to get essentials and feed; anytime wifi was needed, we had to walk to the lobby and use the office phone, if necessary.  Thank goodness we came so early.

That night we found some clean bedding to sleep on and opted out of using pillows.  We woke up the next morning and immediately started to work.  I cleaned the kitchen first, as it seemed the least overwhelming, then the chairs, tables, doors and walls that were all covered with fingerprints and dirt.  But, the bathrooms were the absolute pits...The tubs were so awful, the bleach was working reeeaaaallll hard!  While I did that, Joe cleaned ALL the greasy dishes.  I swept, mopped, lit some candles and it began to feel like home.  We also did a million loads of laundry so we had some towels and bedding to use until our tubs of stuff were delivered.

Overall, we felt successful.  What else could go wrong, right?

Hotlanta

I Was truly nervous when we landed in Atlanta because it was a pretty rough landing and I knew that my girls were so scared. As we exited the plane we just wanted to get to them as soon as possible, but it was a huge airport, we literally had to take a train several stops just to get to baggage claim. Once we got there, Joe went to collect our huge pieces of luggage and I went to look for the girls. When I finally found them, Hope was crying so hard it broke my heart. I took them outside to the pet relief area, which was nice because it was like a small dog park. I was able to take them off of their leashes and just let them walk around after they had been in their crates for so long. Once I saw that Jasmine did not pee and Hope did not poop, I knew that there were probably some issues in the crates.

Now was the hard part, which we hadn't thought about. We had to get our four very large suitcases, four carry-ons, a large crate and dog, and a small crate and dog to the airport shuttle. I had the girls on their leashes and Joe was trying to move the luggage piece by piece about 15 feet at a time, so he could see both piles of luggage. He continued doing this until we realized that it was just ridiculous. I finally went inside and got a skycap to help us take all of the luggage to the airport shuttle. We dished out a lot of tips on this trip, that's for sure.

Once we got all of the luggage and the girls to the airport shuttle it started raining. So much for Hotlanta! The shuttle got there and the driver freaked out about Jasmine, they said she needed to be in her crate while they transported her. Well, that was not going to happen. Her crate didn't even fit with the luggage in the back, so we filled two seats just with her crate and she had to sit on the floor of the bus. It was really funny because the passengers had to step over her and she didn't move. When they finally dropped us off at the hotel the passengers were saying how good our dogs are...we couldn't help but laugh at that point.

Once we got to the hotel we unloaded all our baggage, well Joe did, while I took the girls and checked in. Moving the luggage again was a huge ordeal. We could not even fit it all on the flatbed.

I found the room and straightaway the girls jumped on the bed and fell asleep. Once We got the crates and all the luggage in the room, I looked in the crates and found poop in Hope's and pee in Jasmine's. I took them potty outside and immediately took their blankets to the laundry room.

At this point it was dinner time, so I fed them but they didn't eat much. Jasmine laid down after only eating half her meal and she growled at Hope for getting close to it. That's totally unlike her. So I knew they were pretty stressed out. Joe and I ate some snacks and we all passed out.

We woke up the next morning in enough time to have the free hot breakfast…big ups to Drury for that. Once we got back up to the room we all fell asleep again until noon. We took the girls for a little walk, they went potty, and we really just hung out for the rest of the day. That night starting at 5:30 PM Drury also provided a kickback service. That's like free dinner. Salad, pasta, pizza, nachos… It was awesome.

We woke up the next morning at 5 AM to catch the airport shuttle. At this point we realized that the airport shuttle only went to the domestic terminal...we obviously needed to go to the international terminal. So we loaded the shuttle with our eight bags, large and small crate, and the dogs. We went to the domestic terminal and then unloaded our eight bags, two crates and two dogs, and had to walk over to the international terminal with all of our belongings. Drama.

At the international terminal a really great skycap helped us unload everything, put it on a flatbed and helped us with the girls. We got to the counter with no issue, everything went very smoothly. The skycap helped us take Jasmine and Hope over to TSA where they would be looked over and sent to the plane. She waited there to be tipped, which is totally fine, she most definitely deserved it. But once we gave her what I thought was a great tip, she looked at it, scoffed and walked away. It was so ridiculous we couldn't do anything but laugh.

All in all, we really loved Atlanta. The people were sweet, the hotel was awesome. and we just had a great experience.

We ate breakfast at the airport, loaded the plane, and were now on our way to our final destination...St. Maarten.

To be continued…