This will be a longer post than normal so hang with me, please.
We knew that Monday was going to be a busy day and first and foremost on the agenda was getting the cats to the vet to satisfy St. Maarten’s requirements for import. During our visit the vet was going on and on about “how healthy they are, how beautiful their coats are, how clean their ears are…”. This, not in a complimentary way, but with a note of true astonishment in her voice. It made me sad, as I know that many of the animals she sees are island strays in ill health, so our spoiled, pampered, never been outside a day in their lives, cats genuinely were an exception for her. I hope to be able to get involved with the organizations working to save these island strays as soon as I am physically able after surgery. It humbled me to realize how much I took having healthy animals for granted. Not anymore.
After dropping the cats off at the apartment we headed back to Philipsburg to arrange insurance and registration for the car. We pulled up at the insurance place and, oh crap, in the hubbub of getting the cats seen about I apparently left the car paperwork back at the apartment 🙄. No problem, we carried on to Telem to get the internet seen about.
As a side note, most everyone knows that St. Maarten is known as the “Friendly Island.” This is evident in the fact that most drivers will let you in when you’re trying to enter traffic. And now, I’ve discovered another reason. When we entered Telem there were a number of people sitting and waiting for customer service. There was a “take a number” machine but it was empty so I asked the nearest person, “How do you know who’s next?” He replied, “You ask who the last person is and you go after them.” Brilliant! So, I inquired and sat down to wait. Speaking of astonishing, I was astonished to see this process work perfectly. Each person going in order, no fighting, no bitching about who was next, it was very refreshing. Since we knew that the wait would be some time, Andy drove back over to the apartment to get the car paperwork. It’s not that far from Philipsburg to Colebay, as long as traffic cooperates. Monday, it did as he was back in about 30 minutes. While waiting, I missed my turn by one person, who I advised to go ahead as I was waiting on my husband to get back. Even with that, the next person in line knew I had offered my place to the gentleman after me, and rather than going ahead, stated, “No, you are next as you were here before me.” It was all exceedingly polite and friendly and I thought, “Man, this never would have played out like this in the US, not even in the ‘polite’ deep south.” This saga about Telem is its own story and I will blog about it soon.
After finishing with Telem we headed back over to the insurance place to continue the process with the car. It goes like this, you get insurance ($300 year on my car, liability only. They will only do liability after a car reaches a certain age), then head to the Vehicle Inspection Center. I previously blogged about the inspection process when buying a car here so details are there. I smiled to myself as I entered the VIC office and numerous people were waiting. I knew the process! I asked who was last and took a seat. I only waited about 10 minutes as that office is very efficient. After getting all the paperwork switched over to my name I was advised I then needed to visit the registrar at the government building. When you enter the government building the registrar is to your far right. This process involved giving her all of my paperwork and I guess she registered the car in the system as showing me as the owner. There was no extra cost for this, it’s just all part of the process. Total time from obtaining insurance to finishing at the government building, about 1 hour.
Now, as an “official” car owner on the island, I felt much better about driving around! The next stop was to the appliance store of a friend to obtain a few items we didn’t bring with us, toaster, coffee maker, etc. The owner of the store asked us where we were living and when we told him he said, “Oh, there is a great Chinese restaurant right next door to you! I eat there a lot, it’s so good!” Oh? Why haven’t we seen this? So once home and unloaded we went on a quest to find this place. Yes, it literally is right next door. But no signs and very nondescript in its appearance. You would never know it was there unless you knew it was there. We decided to give it a try and oh em gee! It was amazing!! It’s called Happy Buddha and yes, we left very happy with yummy food in our tummies 😊. Despite no signs and a benign looking building, the place was very busy with folks coming in for takeaway. Apparently, this one is well known to the locals 👍🏻
After filling our tummies we made the last stop of the night, back over to Cost U Less for a few items we could not find elsewhere. On our way back over the hill we were greeted with a gorgeous sunset over Cole Bay and Simpson Bay (and the lagoon). Our apartment is down there somewhere 😉.
Overall, an enormously productive day affording us a mostly down day today. We think some beach time is in order as a reward 😁
St. Maarten Move 