Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Kristal and Andrew go to St. Thomas!

Last night Kristal and I got back from a vacation to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We were there for four days - three full days, and a half-day on either side.

The thing is, I could probably sum up our vacation with one sentence and a picture, like this: Despite the searing pain of sunburns, spending four days on a tropical beach, snorkeling in amazing reef, swimming in crystal-clear ocean, and being spoiled by the Ritz-Carlton gave us one of the greatest vacations ever! I mean, c'mon -


But hold the phones. That wouldn't really do this vacation justice. So in pure Andrew-form, we're going to roll from the top, and I'm going to dive in to excruciating detail about this trip. If, as we proceed, I've made you exceedingly jealous, then my job here is done. :-)

Last Thursday, Sept 25, Kristal and I caught a 4:30am towncar to Newark International Airport for our flight. We connected through Atlanta, and while there, had the opportunity to partake in what can only be described as the South's answer to In-N-Out Burger: Chick-Fil-A. I have never experienced a chicken-and-biscuit sandwich quite like it. Here's breakfast:


I'm Andrew Lance, and I approve this breakfast:


We got on our flight from Atlanta to St. Thomas, and by the end, would have rather listened to Sarah Palin interviews than sit another minute in that plane. Between the guy behind Kristal who kept knocking the back of her seat, and the guy next to me who was the most fidgety dude I have ever been consistently nudged by on an airplane, one could summarily say the plane ride sucked.

All was well, though, because after a pleasant drive in a taxi-van (on the "wrong" side of the road!) through 15 miles of St. Thomas, we landed at the destination that would be our haven for the next four days -- Ritz-Carlton St. Thomas.


Before you ask how many nights I had to sell my services on the streets of New York in order to afford this, understand that it's the down season in St. Thomas now (hurricane season) and we scored an amazing deal on our hotel stay. Additionally, because it was our anniversary, we were upgraded to an ocean-front room for free. So all in all, it was a steal. Not cheap, but a great deal.

As I will explain, "Excellent Customer Service" would be an insult to this place. "Outrageously Amazing Spoil-Me-Rotten Customer Service" is probably an understatement. Maybe it was the time of year so we had more one-on-one time, more attentive staff, less distribution of service, who knows, but EVERYBODY on the resort was exceedingly interested in ensuring we were taken care of.

Anyways, as soon as we stepped out of the taxi-van, our bags were unloaded, and we were greeted by a couple of gentlemen who wanted to know how our flight was, how the taxi ride was, if we had any questions, etc. As we were talking with them, a women brought each of us a cold towel and a rum-punch to enjoy, refreshing in the 85 degree, exhausting humidity heat:


As we sipped our drink, one of the guys gave us a tour of the main resort building, where the shops were, restrooms, and accompanied us to the front desk for check in. He said as soon as we checked in to come out and see him and he would escort us to our room.

Upon checkin, we confirmed that we had indeed got the ocean-front room upgrade, were furnished with some resort information and materials, our room key-cards, and then were asked to follow a young lady who would give us our "gift."

She brought us over to her desk and gave us a great canvas beach bag full of "souvenirs." As if the bag wasn't enough, it was filled with other Ritz schwag like a ball cap, a glass sea-horse that hangs in a window, a bottle of custom-bottled Cruzan rum for the Ritz-Carlton, and some other random stuff. Alrighty then!

We met up with our guy outside, and he loaded us up into a golf cart and took us to our building, escorted us to our room, asked us if there was anything we needed, told us to call him if we thought of anything, and left us to our room.

Two king beds, marble-encased bathroom, huge patio off the room, air-conditioner set to "freeze" cranked up in the room; it was awesome.

Here's Kristal on our patio sporting the cap from the beach bag:


And us from the patio as well:


At that point, we went down to the beach, and hit an ocean-side lunch:


And then took it (nearly) all off for some beach lounging:


At this point I do NOT want to see any comments to this post anywhere to the affect of "Hey Andy, you forgot to take your t-shirt off!". Har Har. :-D

Kristal and I spent the afternoon on the beach, then went to dinner ocean-side. Upon returning to our room, we found that they had come in for turn-down service, left chocolates on the pillow, and a complimentary iced bottle of champaign and personalized card for us wishing us happy 11th anniversary.

Here's the uncorking process -





Cheers!




We brought the anniversary cards the boys had made for us, so along with the RC card, here's our display:



And here's how we spent the rest of the night:


The next morning, we were ready to hit the beach:




Here, Kristal demonstrates what we pretty much did the entire trip:


And here was what we looked out over our books at:


Andrew, rocking my excellent tan along with everybody else in the water:


We also grabbed snorkeling gear and went out several times to the reef surrounding the bay. We saw massive amounts of fish, huge schools of fish in and around the reef, some kind of ray, two sea turtles, crabs, urchins, crazy kinds of coral, and some fish type things I still haven't identified. It was a day in the sun, the water, and we loved it.

Just one slight miscalculation.

By afternoon, it was pretty clear we had been sun burned. That night, however, something much, much worse had happened:


My back. Now, for the record, this isn't just a sunburn. This is years of fury the Sun couldn't pour down on us in Portland because of rain and clouds -- this was vengeance. Kristal had the fine pleasure of listening to me rant and rave about false advertising, for our sunscreen did in fact claim to be water resistant, so I never questioned its effectiveness, until Kristal pointed out that there's a difference between water PROOF and water RESISTANCE.

So we might as well have had no sunscreen on at all. And while we suffered immensely for the remainder of the trip, we tried not to let it interfere with our plans. We just went ahead with what we intended to do with two minor alterations -- we did it in the shade, and we did it in pain. :-(

Behind me to the right, top level, is a patio with slats on the top instead of solid roof. That was ours. Quite ideal.


A fountain in the courtyard behind our building:

Kristal in front of the main resort building with the lobby, check-in, offices, shopping, etc.



No picture does justice to the agonizing pain of a brutal sunburn, but this is me psyching myself up, mustering my strength, gathering my courage -- to put on a shirt.



Kristal, preparing for another aloe application:


The second day of our burns, with 1.5 days left of the trip, we sauntered through the lobby so I could get a line-item room charge printout. When you can order room service, and drinks and food on the beach as effortlessly as you could at the Ritz, I needed a sanity check. While there, in response to the usual "How is your stay so far Mr. Lance?" I explained that we were having a lovely time, except for the sun burns. She offered to help us with that.

She explained that they grow Aloe on the property. If we'd like, she could have some picked for us, taken to the kitchen, and prepared into a puree. They would then bring it up to the room and put it in our fridge when it was ready. She said it would smell pretty bad, but lather it on, let it sit 30 minutes, and it will do wonders. Simply amazing.

In fact, the aloe mixture DID do wonders for our sunburn, and we were able to apply it several times with the amount they made for us.

That night, Kristal and I went out to our "fancy" anniversary dinner:




The next day we snapped a few random pictures around the resort:







Before leaving, we caught up with the many iguana's on the grounds:





And finally, Kristal and I waiting for our flight in St. Thomas:


All in all, St. Thomas was a wonderful place to visit, but the real take-away for us was the privilege and opportunity to stay at the Ritz-Carlton. The outstanding service and kind people there really made our vacation great experience.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Trip to Pennsylvania

Hi everyone! We made a day trip to Pennsylvania today, hoping to accomplish four things:
  1. Get a refrigerator magnet from Intercourse, PA (you know, I heart Intercourse)
  2. In Philadelphia, see:
    1. The Liberty Bell
    2. The Rocky Balboa statue
    3. Get an authentic cheesesteak sandwich
I'm happy to say: Mission Accomplished!

First stop was to Intercourse. This is in the middle of Amish country, and I had never been there. While for some reason I had assumed they would be living out in the sticks away from civilization, they were right there in town and driving carriages along the road. I found this extremely entertaining!





Watch for carriage crossing! LOL


This is what I call a riding lawnmower!!


A few shots of the gorgeous landscape:








Taking in a few shops in Intercourse:




We then headed out to Philadelphia. I have to say, ahead of time, I was having a hard time getting excited about Philly. I just didn't know what to expect. I was utterly shocked at the energy and vibe the town had! It took me completely by surprise. More on that later, our first stop was the Rocky statue. Both Kristal and I are avid Rocky fans, and this was a must-see. Unfortunately we couldn't find any parking and there was an Indian festival in the park next to the museum so it was a zoo down there. We had to settle for a drive-by:


Next we went to the Historic district (Market St.) in search of the Liberty Bell. Initially, we couldn't find it, and actually stumbled across it on accident! It is housed inside a small building lined with glass. Upon first seeing this historic relic, I uttered a statement that I'm sure millions have before me on seeing the famed Liberty Bell -- "That's it??"

OK so it's smaller than I had anticipated. And we couldn't see the crack. Besides that, it was pretty cool to be in the presence of an icon like this. A few other shots from the historic district:












Even though it's blurry, I thought this was a great shot of Kristal so wanted to post it:


We then walked down to South St. which is the hip, more "bohemian" (as described on Wikipedia) area of town. Betsy encouraged us to visit this area for some good cheesesteaks. This was the area that blew me away. I couldn't believe the edge of this area! Small shops of all sorts, tons of people out, music playing loudly, just a really high-energy area of town. And this, coming from me who has spent my fair share of time in New York City!

We didn't get any pics of this area. We waited in line at Jims Steaks for 20 minutes to get our cheesesteaks, we had the dog which was adding all sorts of stress, and we weren't going to do any shopping anyways, so we grabbed our sandwiches and headed back to the historic area to a park to eat in peace. Here's me with a surprisingly contorted and exhausting look on my face, I must be "evaluating" the sandwich or something..


The disappointment was that Kristal and I didn't actually have cheesesteak sandwiches. See, I took for granted that when you order a cheesesteak sandwich from a cheesesteak place, the "cheese" part of that is a given. So when I ordered Kris and I "Pepper Steaks" and the boys "Steaks with just cheese" I thought I was being clear. No. THEY were being more literal than me -- our Pepper steaks had meat and peppers. The boys had Steak and cheese. Go figure! They were still good, and I snagged a few bites from Miles' that I was satisfied.

On full stomachs we headed back home. Turns out it's only an hour and a half from Hoboken to Philly, and only another 45 minutes to Delaware. As much as we would all love to visit again, especially because it's so close, our weekends are quickly coming to an end, so we'll probably not make it. But we're really glad we were able to make this quick trip anyways.