Meet Billy the Iguana and other Island Adventures

 

A few weeks ago I wrote about the iguanas that live here on the island. I talked about one iguana in particular, whom Justin affectionately named Billy. One afternoon I was able to snap a fairly decent picture of him. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Billy the iguana! This picture was taken from the balcony. He is so big that you can see him from about 50 feet away sitting in his favorite tree each afternoon. Note the dinosaur like physical features. 

Iguanas are so abundant on the island that the USVI Department of Tourism also uses them for friendly PSA reminders around town. This sign reminds all of us who drive on the islands, especially newcomers and tourists, to drive left and to visit your local Diamonds International.

With his stern grimace who would not obey the rules? After all iguanas are known to be aggressive. During our first few weeks on the island our landlord told us that if an iguana got into the apartment to never back them into a corner. Just chase them out the door with a broom he added. We have yet to test this technique, but there is no doubt in my mind he was quite serious.

Speaking of tourism, Justin and I spent this past Saturday checking out some local tourist destinations or traps if you will.We walked along the waterfront and visited Havensight, Yacht Haven Grande and Main Street. All of which lacked diversity. The majority of the stores were jewelery, liquor and perfume stores. Very few contained clothing or something of a unique or original nature, which was all rather disappointing. The most interesting store we stumbled upon was a pirate shop. It had t-shirts with slogans like Polly wants a cocktail on them, and was the only shop that dared to do something different. Pretty sad if you ask me. I can finally understand why locals feel like the downtown area needs a little more excitement.

Along the way I took pictures of funny tourist things to embarrass Justin. He tries to pretend he does not know me when I act like a tourist by sheepishly walking ahead of me, but we all know the truth.

The cheesy name of this boat nearly killed me with laughter. Meet the boat known as Jolly Mon.

Me posing with my cruise ship and yachts.

 This is true. The Danes left a lot of irregular steps and streets bearing the word Gade (meaning street) behind.

 

Justin walking down Dronningens Gade near Main Street. Note his hat. That is his new thing now.

 What the sign says. By the way Mountain Top is where the Banana Daiquiri was invented, but it is a giant tourist trap that was recently rebuilt due to a devastating fire. Mountain Top has a great view of Magens Bay.

A staged mini shipwreck to give you some extra island flavor. As if we are in need of more.

I bet you did not know that I own all of these yachts. Yep, that is right. I own them in my dreams.

Well, I am hungry and it is time for me to eat lunch on the balcony. The water has the prettiest shades of blue today. You can see the bottom from here, which is quite unusual. Normally a strong current prevents us from seeing anything but crashing waves.

Sending all of you a bit of warmth from Fortuna Bay.

Good morning world!

Good morning world!

Learning to drive left

During my first few weeks here I had Justin do all of the driving for two simple reasons.

The first reason I waited to drive is that they drive on the left here. This dates back to the Danish colonial period, but I am fairly certain they were using horses back then. When the US acquired St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas in 1917 they never bothered to change this practice, thus making the USVI the only territory in America that is the exception to driving on the right.

The other reason are the roads here. The roads are so curvy and steep here that it all seems a little scary at first. Sometimes there are no guardrails on the sides of the mountains, which is also a scary prospect to me.While this photograph hardly does the reality of the situation justice, all of the roads look something like this:

You may also visit these videos I found on you tube that will give you a vague idea of how twisty the roads are here:
Driving on St.Thomas I
Driving on St. Thomas II

Otherwise, the roads are really just something you need to see for yourself...

So I took the time to adjust my eyes to driving on the left, the twists and turns, the landmarks and the behaviors of other VI drivers. However, every time I was a passenger in the car I felt quite queasy. I have nearly tossed cookies on more than one occasion since I have been here. On Monday evening Justin began to drive us home from Town. I started to feel queasy and suddenly couldn't handle it anymore. I promptly told Justin to pull the car over and I ended up driving us home. Miraculously I somehow managed not to get queasy or drive on the right side of the road by accident for the duration of the trip. Simply another victory for me!

One more trip to the BMV

I got a new driver's license today, which means I had to go back to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles for another exciting trip. For whatever reason today's visit was not so hectic and bizarre as the first two trips I took two weeks ago. However, as a continental, it was a still a strange experience.

My brand new license from the Virgin Islands is my fourth license from a different state (or territory). In the other states I lived in I always had to take some sort of test in addition to handing in paperwork. In Maryland I had to take an eye test for renewal. North Carolina had me take an eye test, sign test and written test just to transfer my license. In Massachusetts I had to take an eye test. But here in the Virgin Islands? Well, it was nothing. All I had to do was bring my passport, social security card, attested driving record, my (former) current license and pay $45.00 for what looks like a fake ID. There was no eye test. Just a simple smile for the camera, a thumb print and signature, and just a few minutes later my license was ready. The process turned out to be amazingly simple in comparison to the first few nightmare trips I had to the BMV. Outside of the hour long wait of course.

Score one more point for progress! I officially live in the VI now.

Wishing you a pleasant evening! I am off to finish watching this sunset from the balcony:

Please don't feed the iguanas

We are surrounded by iguanas. Hundreds of them live in the jungle around our house. One is sun bathing as I write this on a tree outside the window. The iguanas around our place have the same daily routine. They favor the same places for sunbathing and eating, which has caused us to have a favorite iguana that Justin named Billy. Billy is so big that he looks like a little dinosaur. We look forward to seeing him when he comes out for the day. We don't mind these creatures at all. Iguanas are like the island equivalent of squirrels, but please do not feed them.

During my first week here I wandered down to a cruise ship dock known as Crown Bay Marina. I wanted to see what it was like for the tourists that come in everyday on cruise ships to shop at Crown Bay Marina. I also went down there to people watch, because tourists tend do the most interesting things. Hey let's face it, we have all done and said weird things as tourists. My instincts were correct. I did observe some interesting scenes that afternoon.

The sun was shining brightly down on the harbor that day, which means that the iguanas were out sunning themselves on the rocks. Many of the tourists, returning from their day of shopping, eating and swimming on St. Thomas, headed back to their absolutely massive Princess Cruise ship. All of them inevitably saw the iguanas sunning themselves. Some women screamed in horror at the sight of them, a few took pictures of them and others FED THEM.

I am a firm believer in not feeding wild animals. You shouldn't feed the bears at Yellowstone National Park, you shouldn't feed the squirrels on the Boston Common, and you don't feed the seagulls on the beach.Why would you feed an iguana? But they did. They fed the iguanas whatever they had in hand. Bananas, lettuce, etc. The tourists made videos of feeding the iguanas. The tourists also made goofy comments while feeding them like "Oh my gosh. He is eating from my hand! Wow!" That kind of thing. I was sort of disgusted by their actions. It seemed to me that these people felt entitled to feed the iguanas. As if the poor animals were starving and they were going to be the ones that save them. Horribly unaware of the environmental impact this has on the animals.

Tourism is the biggest thing that drives the economy here in the Virgin Islands, so please don't misunderstand this as an I hate tourists rant. The only thing I want to say here is: Please do not feed the iguanas. They have their own diet out in the wild and they do not need to turn into the seagulls of the Caribbean. The last thing I want to run into in town is an aggressive iguana that expects to be fed, because so many tourists have fed him before.

So if you ever find yourself on a cruise ship docking in St. Thomas, all of us thank you in advance for not feeding the iguanas blissfully sunning themselves on the rocks in the harbor.

The Big Move: Adventures in Bureaucracy

I think that it goes without saying that moving across an ocean is difficult. Getting yourself to the new destination is the easy part. Simply travel to the airport, board a plane and relax until you reach your new home. Getting your things there is the more complicated part that involves a moving truck, a container ship and a long day of paperwork once your things arrive. This is where things get interesting.


Some people that move here choose to leave their things in storage on the mainland, while others opt to bring what they have. We wanted to bring our things with us, because we want to make the VI our permanent home. Before the big move we received several outrageous quotes from moving companies to move our things down here. We knew there had to be a cheaper way of doing things, so Justin took it upon himself to take out the moving company and find us a freight company. This saved us over half of the costs the moving companies quoted to us. WIN!


The only downside is that we had to do all of the work ourselves. We wrapped all of the furniture, dishes, packed all of the boxes, etc. Then on January 7th a truck came to our apartment in Watertown with a 40 foot container in tow. At 5:00 am a trucker awoke us out of a deep sleep with a phone call to say that he had arrived with the truck. Justin, drunk with sleep, told him to wait until 7:30 when help would arrive to load up the truck. I happily went off to my last day at work. I was sad to be having a last day at the GISB, but I sure was happy to not have to deal with the truck. All of our things went on the container. Including our car!

A few weeks later in the USVI our things arrived in tact. Surprisingly the car had not crashed into our things as I had repeatedly envisioned in my mind:

Once our things had shown up at the container yard, we had to jump through about a billion bureaucratic hoops to reclaim what was ours. Justin had to take time away from work, so that we could run around town to get our things back. Our hectic day was memorable. I finally had the chance to know why everyone complains about bureaucracy here.


First we had to go to the container yard, where we met a woman that told us exactly what we needed to do. She handed us a piece of paper with steps and directions of what we needed to do. The list looked like this:


1. Obtain Bill of Lading, vehicle and property insurance (This had been completed already)
2. Go to the IRS office located next to the former cinema building next to the high school
3. Go to Customs located in the former SBA building behind Frenchtown
4. Go to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to obtain a moving permit
5. Go to Crowley, present all documents and pick up your car
6. Get vehicle inspection at BMV and register your car


When I glanced over the list, I realized that I was thankful Justin had been here for awhile and knew where all of this was. There were no real directions or addresses for all of the places listed above. Just general areas you are expected to know how to get to as a local. That is how they give the directions here. Landmarks.


So off we went with our list. The IRS office visit was no problem, the people in customs had a 20 minute friendly conversation with us and let us on our merry way. Everything went well until we got to the BMV. All of us loathe any visit to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Regardless of the state you live in. No problem. I thought...


WRONG. The BMV was the WORST experience of the day and the WORST experience I ever had visiting a motor vehicle department out of all of the places I have lived in. When we walked in there were no signs directing us as to which window to visit regarding our situation. There were also no numbers to take so you could wait in an orderly manner until your number is called. Instead the BMV was a giant free for all! In the first line we went to, the lady went to lunch without warning, shut her window and sent everyone to the line next to us. She really did not give a damn about it either. Everyone in that line and everyone in our line argued with each other about who was next, furiously exclaiming at the top of their lungs, "Can you believe that? She just closed the window and sent us over here. What are we going to do? Can I get in front of you? THIS IS CRAZY!"


I assumed a position in line, while Justin went to stand in another line. We decided that the first one to make it to a window was the winner. Meanwhile, a line on another side of the building also closed without warning and the same pandemonium ensued. These people were sent to the line I was in. A woman in front of me told me, "Be careful. Watch your back. They will try to get in front of you." That was when I pulled out my German style waiting in line tactics, which worked to my advantage because no one made it in front of me. Finally, after 30 minutes or more of mayhem, I made it to the window. We had gotten the permit to move our car, but I left with great sadness knowing I would have to return again to register the car later that day.


By that time we were ravenously hungry, so we ate lunch and resumed the bureaucratic activities shortly thereafter. We got our car inspected. That went something like this:


Inspector: Read your VIN number
Justin: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Inspector: Mileage on the car?
Justin: 90, 060 miles
Inspector: Okay. You are free to go.
Me in the car thinking: What? That was it????


So on I went to the BMV, where I fought the same amount of ridiculousness that played out earlier that day. Justin managed to meet with a moving company in order avoid another trip inside the BMV. I got the car registered, tagged and titled though, thus ending the process of all that needed to get done that day.


The rest went off without a hitch. A local moving company moved our things up to our side of the mountains the following day and I began to make our apartment feel like home. Pictures will follow at later time, but until then I still have some unpacking to do.

In Pursuit of the Caribbean

The idea to live in the United States Virgin Islands came about in 2007 when we were living in Germany on Fulbright Scholarships. Our stay in Germany was about to end, our visas were about to expire and our monthly stipend was about to end. Both of us tried hard to secure other forms of employment in Germany, but our efforts were to no avail since we are not EU citizens. Having planned a wedding for July 28th in the US anyway, we reluctantly returned to the other side of the Atlantic.


Before our reluctant return, we contemplated our future together quite often. We asked ourselves many questions such as:
Where do we want to live? DC, Boston, Asheville, Charleston, Charlotte, Annapolis, the United States Virgin Islands?
What do we want to do? Teacher, businessman, government worker?
That sort of thing...


We came up with plenty of ideas and plans, and decided to go after all of them and follow through with whatever came first. Shortly after we got married a job offer in Boston came up for Justin. An offer we thought was too good to refuse at the time, so off we went to the heart of New England.


Our time in the Boston area started off optimistically. Justin had a job at what seemed to be a rapidly growing small company, and a few months later I found a job working at a small private school. We made wonderful friends, enjoyed seeing new things in New England, and even looked forward to a New England winter. Things were going great. At least we thought they were...


After almost two years in Boston Justin lost his job due to bad economic times. He desperately searched for jobs in the middle of a nasty recession, and luckily he found one a few months later at another small organization in the area. That job did not go so well either, and a year later he found himself looking for jobs again.


While all of this was going on an onset of family drama (ailing family members, etc) also occurred, and I was feeling confused about my own career path. We could not help feeling as if Boston was some kind of bad luck charm in our lives. During this this three year period of little ups and a lot of downs, we kept revisiting a discussion we had shortly before leaving Germany about living in the United States Virgin Islands.


I remember the discussion quite well. We were sitting in Justin's place at the time discussing our future at great length when Justin mentioned he wanted to live in the US Virgin Islands. I thought he was not serious at first.  I reminded him that he hates sand and does not like hot weather, and I brushed it off as some idea that would never come to fruition. However, this idea never went away in the 3 years we lived in Boston. Justin applied to several jobs in the USVI during that time, but without any success. Mainly because he could not convince the people that he was serious about working and living there. This is something I will discuss in a later blog entry, but unfortunately that is how it works.


After several attempts to obtain a job here in the USVI, Justin seemed to stumble upon hope in February 2010. He found a job, which would be an excellent career move for him, so he applied to it. He also contacted the person in charge of the organization. Within minutes he received a promising phone call that got the ball rolling and began a 10 month job application process.


While all of this was going on we did a lot of research about the Virgin Islands. We purchased and read the Settler's Handbook, religiously followed the St. Thomas Blog, read local newspapers online, tracked the weather and delved into the VI Moving Center website. Then in late November 2010, Justin received word that he had finally been offered a position in St. Thomas, which prompted Justin to go on a one week pre- move visit. (Pre-move visits will also be discussed at a later point in time.)


After all of these efforts a decision was made and we snatched the opportunity to move to St. Thomas. This blog will chronicle our own unique experiences in living in STT, not only to amuse our family and friends, but to also provide critical insight on what it is really like to live in paradise for those who may be considering a move to the USVI.


Welcome to our little corner in the Virgin Islands!