Wednesday, January 6, ’10 (St. Maarten/St. Martin, Netherland Antilles)

Last night wasn’t terrible, but wasn’t that great either, So, Mom woke us up right at 9 as we’re comin into St. Maarten on the Dutch side. Amanda and I go into our parents’ room to look out right before we leave. It was H-O-T HOT!!! So check this out- The population of St. Maarten (Dutch) is 25,000 people. Boerne’s is an estimate of 29-30,000 people. Boerne is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the SIZE of that part of the island! THAT’S INSANE!!!!! You could probably fit ____ Boerne’s in there! But the Island itself is 37sq. miles. There’s also the French part too. They spell it St. Martin. Once we got here, and off the Gangway, Dad and I stood in line to get our Water Taxi tickets, so we could go into town. Lots of people, but it went super fast! So we took the Water Taxi into town. First part was kinda boring and took a while. We did some exploring/lookin around. What’s cool, and easy to remember where you are, is the part where we came in ONLY HAS 2 streets- Front Street & Back Street. Really NARROW roads, and small cars. But I would guess that’s normal for islands/countries like St. Maarten. Dad actually got a REALLY GOOD BARGAIN on a watch he bought. Originally it was $300 somethin. He got it for $99 EVEN!! No tax, no nothin added on. I almost paid it for him, but he wouldn’t let me. After we looked around, we had lunch at a hotel that we found by walking past it. It had Beach front property, AND FREE internet! So we got to see what’s up with everybody, w/o usin minutes! It was a pretty sweet deal he got. THEN it was BEACH TIME!!!!!!!! The water was CRYSTAL CLEAR, but not as warm as I thought it would be, knowing its Caribbean water. But it felt good once we got in! Amanda, Mom, and I went on just a small walk for a little bit. I think we left around 3:30-3:45 or somewhere around there… So there were 2 HUGE lines for gettin on the Water Taxi back to the cruise ships- Red and Blue (wristbands). Once we saw there’s 2 taxis, then some of us scramble to form a quick line. What was funny was there were some Blues that had gotten mixed in with Red. The captain of the taxi told the people with Blue wristbands to wait till he has ALL THE RED on board, because Red was ________________! Mom and Amanda just HAD to go thru one more shop. So I went on and waited for them on Deck 15 by the big screen TV. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was showin at the time. I ended up fallin asleep for a little bit. Then I went back to the room to take a shower, and rise off. When I went back up to the pool deck, Dad and I just was lookin at the other ship across from us. I made another quick trip to go get my phone, so I could take some pictures as we were leavin St. Maarten/St. Martin. We ended up leavin at 6:15pm. So after we set sail, I went to the room to grab my laptop so I could work on my journal for today. I’ve been up here since then. They’re showin a couple artists’ concert videos on the big screen tonight. They showed Beyonce, Matchbox 20, Tina Turner, and Cirque Du Soleil videos. Cirque Du Soleil was UNBELIEVEABLE!! I had fallen asleep during Tina Turner, and this sweet lady (staff member) came and put a blanket on me. That was VERY nice of her to do that. Then I watched a good 35mins of 17 Again before goin back to the room at 11:40pm.