Figgy1
Well-Known Member
Cranberry sauce comes out of a can? You don't make it yourself? When did this start happening?
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The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread
- Thread starter The Mom
- Start date
Figgy1
Well-Known Member
Happy Farm Market Saturday. It's going to be so nice and quiet when I get home, dh is at work, the boys have chores and I'm going to work on a couple of Christmas gifts. The calm before the storm, tomorrow will be a nice short invasion of friends and family for a couple of hours. having them here for a few hours wonderful getting rid of them after dinner heavenly. 
ajrwdwgirl
Premium Member
TRIP REPORT PROGRESS
The starts kinda early this time, as this was one of the "longests" dock times during our cruise. It was time for Sint Maarten.
The day before, We purchased some tickets. Sadly since it was not high season.. there were some stuff that was not available, sold out or simply canceled.
We wanted for example, visit the "Submarine" in the morning and take the island bus tour in the afternoon. But alas. the city tour had only one go for the day we were there. Since we might never visit Sint Maarten again... we decided for the bus to know as much as possible of the Island.
Did I mention you guys that I seriously hated the shopping pushes of Royal Caribbean? They were insane the day before docking, with watches at 70% discount on average. And pushing "linked and recommended vendors" of Phillipsburg (including guides and maps)
There was total mayhem in the Royal Promenade at this moment. The good is that the people were crowding for watches that there were hardly people in line to purchase tours. So we did the whole thing easily.
Anyway, that small island is famous for selling jewelry and clocks for "cheap" (be careful, most of the watches are cheaper online on Amazon. But they are very pushy and savy salesmen. More of this later). The interesting part is how the island is divided in two: dutch and french sides.
Weird part that the Dutch side seemed very peaceful but the French side had quite a bit of armed commandos (full assault gear, submachineguns and Beret with some flags)
The weather was gorgeous, a bit of wind, with a few clouds, very little chance of rain.
As past reports said, we again lucked out, moved right between storms. Sint Maarten had a huge rain the day before according to some locals. Having it completely rain free was a blessing. (Tomorrow another storm row was supposed to happen).
The ship docking is definitively awesome to see.
We ate breakfast in the windjammer as the ship approached. It was cool to see the small houses, boats and buildings. Including passing some military ships (french?)
G
The docking area, by Phillipsburg Sint Maarten (the Netherlands side). Is gorgeous. It has different shades of blue.
That is something that made me very interested of the whole trip.
Most of the sea was of turquoise and transparent green. In the pacific ocean is more blue and more dense (less transparent).
Apologizes for the awful overblown panorama. Turns out I forgot to change my camera settings after taking photos in dark environments and the images looked heavily overblown.
Also a few boats in the harbor made the whole thing more picturesque.
Bonus point for a giant dish installed aiming at the cruise dock with a huge banner "fastest and cheapest internet of Sint Maarten". Probably to cater to the crew members of the cruise ships.
After we were all ready to go, packed all our stuff and we lined up outside the ship to get to our specified tours's waiting areas.
View attachment 167795
We were met with a guy dressed as captain with a very broken suit (very funny). He spoke a bit of fluid spanish and he was making quite a bit of jokes.
Considering the laughing of the rest of the cruisers waiting for the same tour. I suppose he was very well received in his delivery.
Did I tell you guys that the hours are very flexible in this cruise? We waited around 20-30 minutes in the Sun, good thing we had sprayed ourselves to dead by sun block cream lol.
And then we were off. We all were guided towards the bus station where each tour was sent to their destination.
Something that I was not prepared was... our seats.. despite being leather.. were completely soaked like sponges. The staff told us that it had rained very hard and the top cover was no match for the rain. We braced the entire tour with our wet butts (we purchased towels later on lol)
The first parts of the trip were quite boring. Some historic sites (which there arent that many surviving thanks to constant storms)
Or just point where the current leaders lived.
Speaking of leaders.. both sides of the island were completely littered with flags and ads about districts and leaders.
It was election day or close to election day lol!
Our first stop was first getting to the French side.
Which as I said before.. It was heavily defended by French navy (or swat?) officers.
The bus had no problem crossing the border. Even the bus driver joked about how the trip was ending there because the french were currently armed and not surrendering this time (ouch lol).
After crossing the line. We headed towards L'Orient beach.
A gorgeous beach area with a community and attached hotel that catered exclusively to the nudist tourists.
The bus had to pass thru rough terrain, damaged roads (they are almost at sea level, so any storm would send waves that destroy any road anyway). Tons of animals, crabs, birds, some alligators, tons of iguanas and lots of swamps.
The part where we headed to was open for all public and no nudists (thanks god) were nearby at the moment.
As I said, the place was beautiful. Not so many rocks and the sand was soo fine.
The transparency of the water is what I loved.
Sadly, We only had 30 minutes to check the place, buy water..etc.. before we went our way.
My mother used the time for a quick restroom trip and I to buy one towel and some souvenirs.
The towel was godsend as I looked like I had peed myself. So that towel was used to keep my butt dry on the rest of the trip
Anyway, after leaving L' Orient beach.. we went towards the french "rich" side. Which was littered by millionaires who had purchased land there with view towards the many "bays" in the french side.
There were some nice villas, and a ton of new construction areas ready to be developed.
Apart from that, there wasnt much to see on the french side. But it was nice to see the huge difference in architecture. The Dutch side is very colorful, with the french side more classic with no bright colors.
The villas are also way different. The dutch side favoring Box type buildings and the French side with tons of buildings that are one or two floor sprawling villas like the picture above.
Our next stop was the capital of the French side. Marigot.
The town reminded me of my own town 20 years ago. Small, full of small roads and with a pretty marina onlooking the bay.
They had some buildings that looked like old forts.
Note that we went down from the mountain near where the fort was.
The interesting part was .. the trees along the route going down.. was completely and utterly filled with Iguanas of different colors.
Id say there were at least 5 iguanas per tree, and some had like 10 or 15.
Heres a shot of the Marigot's marina and bay.
There were also several damaged ships, that were stranded or pulled by hurricanes.
They were quite a sight to see.
We had 45 minutes here and my mother wasted no time to find something cheap to buy to remember the area. I, as usual bought a magnet for the fridge. Also some cold water for us.
Continuing in part 2..
I like your pictures of the island. I really like the turquoise of the water in the Caribbean as well. When I went to Ixtapa and Puerta Vallarta I was disappointed in the water color as it didn't have that transparency and turquoise color. They were certainly pretty areas and I had a good time, but I tend to prefer the Riviera Maya because of the water. I was actually a little worried going to Hawaii because I thought it would be that dark Pacific blue color, but I needn't have worried Hawaiis waters had amazing blues, ranging from dark to light. Sometimes something as little as water color can make or break a place.
Too bad about the heavy shopping sells on vacation, I wouldn't like that either. And the tour company really should have put towels on your seats, good thinking to buy one. But you shouldn't have had to, they should have courteous and taken care of you.
ajrwdwgirl
Premium Member
You may want to avoid my house for a bit I put up several jars of sauerkraut yesterday. I think the boys are still mad at me for making them do all the squishing. Seeing they eat almost all of it, it's only fair they help make it
FutureCEO
Well-Known Member
You may want to avoid my house for a bit I put up several jars of sauerkraut yesterday. I think the boys are still mad at me for making them do all the squishing. Seeing they eat almost all of it, it's only fair they help make it
Can I come to your house? I just had sauerkraut and pierogis last week at my sisters town festival.
ajrwdwgirl
Premium Member
Would you mind sharing the recipe (no rush at all). At some point down the road, I'd like to make that for a side dish (I'm trying to limit carbs, but once in a while, I'll indulge. Also, I'm sure I can cut way down the portion size of the recipe. I often do that.) I'll bet it's easy to prepare, too, in a crock pot.
I guess I can't remember exactly how I made them. I just followed @JenniferS description at the time. I know I used a block of cream cheese and some butter to the mashed potatoes. I think I improvised a little too and added some garlic powder along with salt and pepper. And then put it in the crock pot for a couple hours. And there were only three of us so I didn't make 10 pounds worth. I think I just made enough potatoes for 6 people (double so we all could have seconds) and we had some leftovers which heated up well. Maybe when Jennifer has time she could share her recipe again.
ajrwdwgirl
Premium Member
I am leaning towards Whispering Canyon because we did Thanksgiving there before and liked it a lot. They also had good stuffing with nothing strange added to it. I'm pretty picky about what goes in my stuffing. But it also might be nice to try somewhere different for thanksgiving too.
Songbird76
Well-Known Member
I used to get so mad at my brother in college. He'd borrow my car, use all the gas and then when I needed it, I'd have to hope there was enough to get me to the gas station. More than once, I coasted in on fumes.Well, you didn't run out, so it's all good!I remember one time when my sister borrowed my car, I had to drive 5 blocks to the gas station and I ran out of gas just as I was getting into the station. I literally coasted up to the pump!
Songbird76
Well-Known Member
Not sure what airlines, but they all had travel insurance. But, insurance doesn't cover every situation. The guy traveling to Turkey, his insurance refused the claim, because all other reservations were still valid. He still COULD have stayed in his hotel, and he would have had a flight back...the fact that he couldn't GET there, didn't matter, because he could have driven or taken a bus, or flown out of somewhere else so he could use those reservations. Since those reservations were not canceled, it did not count. With the choir, I think there was something like...insurance didn't cover weather conditions or something....only things like, if you got sick and couldn't go. Makes me think it couldn't have been very good insurance. What's the point of having insurance in case the trip falls through if it doesn't cover anything? Insurance companies are really good at avoiding claims though. If they can string it out long enough, the statute of limitations invalidates the claim. In 2010, on our way back from Disney, our flight out of Orlando was delayed 7 hours. Instead of flying out at 5, we flew out at Midnight. We had just left Orlando when we were supposed to be landing and we had a short time to catch a connection in Amsterdam. Because we were 7 hours late, we obviously missed that connection. It wasn't our fault and the airline had a responsibility to get us to our final destination, and there were so many people on that same flight with the same connection that we missed, they would have had to set up a completely new flight for all of us, and that was too expensive, so they took us by bus which took 3 times longer. Things took so much longer that they were obligated to feed us because they would not let us stop in Amsterdam for food. They provided sandwiches on the bus, but it took us so long to get our luggage, which they temporarily lost, that they had already given our food to other passengers...so we got nothing. My kids were 2 and 4, starving, exhausted, and cranky. So we had a delayed flight, no food, and lost luggage (we didn't get our car seat back for several days) and a broken suitcase, and the ONLY compensation they gave us was a $15 food voucher for the airport food court in Orlando while we waited for our delayed flight. We put in a claim and it was denied. Legally, they were supposed to compensate us, but somehow they got out of it...they just kept denying appeal after appeal until the time was up and the claim was no longer valid. That's how they make their money. People get tired of chasing after them and give up, or they stall until the time is up.
Songbird76
Well-Known Member
I wonder if that's the one my DD has been talking about that she saw adds for in the buses at Disney. She said it's finally coming here and she can't wait to watch it, but I don't know if that's the one or not.Didnt know that. I only started to notice it being popular on social sites by march of this month.
As usual, shippers are spreading everywhere with their "Marco x Star".
People I tell you!!
Songbird76
Well-Known Member
Oh man, I couldn't do Thanksgiving without green bean casserole. That was always my favorite. My mom used to put it on the other end of the table so that other people had a chance to get some before I ate it all.Sauerkraut with Thanksgiving dinner?Actually, that is my reaction to sauerkraut all the time. I make Uncle Ben's Original wild rice dish in place of green been casserole (unless my sister's family is coming over) then we have both.
Songbird76
Well-Known Member
Mmmm...stuffing. I forgot to pick some up in the US. We don't have it here. Enjoy some extra for me, please!!
Princess Leia
Well-Known Member
I'm starting to work out more (after 9 months of putting off my New Years Resolution), and I would rather be doing the Walt Disney/Universal workout plan, aka, walking nonstop around giant theme parks.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
I especially love the can shaped ripples in it after you get it to slide out of the can, don't you. Come to think of it I like that part way better then the cranberry stuff itself.
Figgy1
Well-Known Member
Supper is at 4:30 tomorrow and yes I'm making pierogis. i found a pretty good gf dough recipe for them
Figgy1
Well-Known Member
Congrats. I like your plan with some yoga added in
My favorite vacation workout!
ajrwdwgirl
Premium Member
Green bean casserole is okay, but there is so much more good stuff to eat. Like stuffing and gravy.
Stuffing is easy to make, just onions, butter, celery, bread, sage, and salt & pepper for my recipe. Homemade is the best, but sometimes a quick serving of Stove Top hits the spot.
Actually, homemade stuffing was something that surprised my husband when he had Thanksgiving with my family for the first time. His family always used Stove Top and he had no idea it could be homemade or taste "like heaven" (his words). At that first Thanksgiving with my family I think that is when he fell in love with my mom! Now that she is gone he still thinks her stuffing is the best and mine comes close but can't quite measure up. And that is fine, I feel the same way.
Interestingly, my husband was also surprised that hot fudge could be homemade too. His mom, nice lady, but she was all about convenience foods and didn't do much cooking or baking.
ajrwdwgirl
Premium Member
Supper is at 4:30 tomorrow and yes I'm making pierogis. i found a pretty good gf dough recipe for them
What fillings are you going to put in them? And how do you get to your house again? I think we can make it by 4:30!
ajrwdwgirl
Premium Member
We just got back from Saturday coffee and doughnuts! We also stopped at the Farmer's Market and we got side tracked by the bread guys, we may have bought too much bread. But with fresh baguettes, pesto foccaica, Hot Chicago foccacia, and huge pretzels it was hard to pass up. I will freeze some up but we got to taste test too and it was all so good.