A Day on the Town
Last Friday, Kerri and I decided to do the tourist thing and check out some of the cultural stuff that St John’s has to offer. As Dave and Mack were heading into the office for the day, we had them drop us off on the edge of the city and we wandered in on foot. (Being very late Friday night in Australia, there was very little value that could be added by my going to the office.)
Our first port of call was St John’s Cathedral. This is the church which overlooks St John’s (as can be seen in a photo in one of my earlier blogs).
The cathedral that stands today is actually the third church to be built on this site. The original church was a wooden structure, built in 1683, which was considered to be “devoid of beauty and comfort” so was pulled down and replaced in around 1789 by a brick church. Unfortunately, this one was destroyed by an earthquake in 1843, and was rebuilt and reopened in around 1846. It appears that they finally got it right third time around, as the current cathedral is both beautiful and comfortable, and to date has managed to withstand many hurricanes, fires and a significant earthquake!
The photo below is of the church gates. The white statues atop the pillars (which are actually bronze underneath the white paint) are of St John the Baptist and St John the Devine and are believed to have been taken from one of Napoleon's ships. 
When we wandered into the cathedral to have a look at the interior, we happened across a rehearsal for an upcoming girls’ high school graduation ceremony. As their names were called, the girls took turns in walking up to the front, curtseying, shaking their teacher’s hand and pretending to take their certificates. By the cheering of their peers, one would almost have thought it was the actual graduation ceremony! It was actually quite strange for me as it seemed that about every fourth or fifth girl was named Janelle. As usually I often don’t come across many other Janelles this was very peculiar! Antigua – home of the Janelles!
Next stop on our adventure was the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda. “Antigua and Barbuda” is actually the full name of this country which is comprised of these two islands (and actually a few other smaller ones, but who’s counting). The museum is housed in a beautiful big old building. However, once you enter the building it seems rather small and consists of only two rooms of exhibits and a gift shop. Despite the small proportions and obvious layout of the building, a museum volunteer still considered it necessary to explain the layout of the museum and inform us of the best way to see all that it has to hold (“First you walk anticlockwise around this room, then you can have a look through the gift shop, and then you can look through this other room. After that, you can sign the guestbook and make a donation.”). She also delighted in informing us that unlike other museums we could actually take photos inside the building.
The first few exhibits were of different types of rocks, and then there were some pieces of old cooking implements and weapons found through archaeological excavation. These were quite interesting, but unfortunately there was little explanation provided to explain what it was we were looking at. Then we saw a replica of a typical Arawak hut (the Arawaks were one of the first tribes to live on Antigua) which was quite cute.
The most interesting (but disturbing) exhibits were those of the island’s sugar plantation and slavery history. It is absolutely deplorable and difficult to conceive how people could treat other people so very very badly. They have pictures showing how tightly the slaves were squeezed into ships to be brought here from Africa, and of the torture instruments used to discipline them. They also have copies of slave auction posters and of receipts for their sale. At one stage, over 90% of the islands inhabitants were slaves. Although there were a few recorded attempts at rebellion, the slaves were only freed in 1807 when English parliament finally made it illegal for any Briton on the planet to trade in slaves. As you can imagine, the vastly outnumbered plantation owners feared for their lives when the slaves were set free. However, instead of seeking retribution for their years of suffering, the newly freed slaves headed to church to thank God for their freedom. Makes it pretty clear what remarkable people they were.
After leaving the museum, and walking along the hot city streets (taking care not to fall into any of the gutters!), we decided it was time for a drink, and stumbled across Hemmingway’s Caribbean Café. Hemmingway’s is a gorgeous little second-floor café overlooking one of the city’s busy intersections. It was nice being able to watch the goings on in the streets below us without having to deal with the occasional smelly gusts from the streets’ open gutters! In fact, we liked the place so much, we took Dave and Mack back there for dinner that night!
After our drink at Hemmingway’s we ducked into a few shops for a look-see, and then decided it was time to meet up with our other halves for lunch.
The walk back to the office under the Antiguan sun, with the Antiguan humidity (much like Ipswich really) was quite a hike and by the time we got there we were practically drenched! After getting a bite of lunch, we couldn’t wait to get back to the cottages to have a shower and get into some fresh clothes!
Things they left out of the brochure....
In my previous posts, I have shown much of what is beautiful about Antigua, and it is true, it is really a beautiful island. However, it would be misleading of me to let you think that this is all that Antigua has to offer. When you drive around Antigua, you see many things that seemed to have been overlooked when they were putting the travel brochures together. Antigua certainly is made up of some startling contrasts.One example, is the sad condition of many of the suburbs such as Gray's Farm which, as you can see in the picture below, is one of the poorer areas. This suburb is right on the edge of St John's.
The house below is typical of the homes you see in many of the suburbs (well, to tell the truth, this one was actually in the city of St John's itself, but you get the idea). There are plenty of houses that are better (including much much better) than this, but unfortunately there are also many that are worse. Often these tiny houses contain rather large families. I can't imagine what it must be like sharing a house like this - especially with the heat!
"Here Chicky Chicky...." We spotted this little family on a neighbourhood street corner. Aren't they cute?!
And here is the local Chinese restaurant... Forever Thriving? I like their optimistic outlook, but I'm not completely convinced. It's not quite the Flower Drum! (or even Deng's Diner for that matter!)
Driving around, you also see quite a few places like the one below. Places that should have (but haven't) been pulled down. At least this one is still serving a useful purpose - as a billboard for Antigua's Cavallier Rum!
As I mentioned, Antigua is a place of startling contrasts. Just up the hill from Gray's Farm, someone with a whole lot of money is building themselves a mansion (see below), and trust me the view from here of St John's and the Caribbean Sea is spectacular. In fact, most of the hills around the island are dotted with large fancy houses. You do have to wonder, though, what the people in the nearby houses think of this kind of place, and what difference the money that has gone into this single home could do to the entire suburb below.
My First Visit to St John's
Here are a few pics from my first trip into St John's (the capital "city" of Antigua). The streets in St John's are mainly one way and are generally rather congested with angle parking down either side, so it takes a little while to drive in and find a park. The deep gutters also make parking an exciting adventure. The gutter in the picture below is probably one of the better ones!
As luck would have it, there was a cruise ship in town! As you can see in the photos below, the city is right on the harbour with any docked ships looking like another (albeit rather more modern!) city building. Having a ship in town means that all the really nice shops in Redcliffe Quay and Heritage Quay are open. However, it also means we have to share the city with lots and lots of other tourists.
After having a little look around and a quick lunch, we stopped by for an Australian Ice Cream! Mmmm... Belgian Chocolate ice cream.... Yum!
Mack then took us on a bit of a drive to an area just south of St John's to see what we could see. From Gray's Farm (an area I'll tell you a little more about later), I managed to get this photo of the city from across the water. You can see St John's Cathedral on the right and the shops of Redcliffe Quay and Heritage Quay in the foreground.
Antiguan Sightseeing
Last weekend, Dave took me for a wee tour of the island (or should I say - a tour of the wee island!).
Jolly Harbour: Our first stop was at Jolly Harbour, which is on the west coast, south of St John's. This is a very tourist-centric area with a resort, shops, a casino, and a marina as you can see in this picture.
Darkwood Beach: This beach is on the south side of the island and we had to stop and take photos. As you can see the colours in the water are just stunning. This is probably the most beautiful beach I have seen here so far.
Nelson's Dockyard: We stopped in and had a look through Nelson's Dockyard. This was Horatio Nelson's base in the Caribbean. There are some amazing old buildings and some beautiful boats in the harbour.
(I have attempted to add some photos of Nelson's Dockyard about 6 times with no luck. Will try again later.)
Shirley Heights: We then drove up to Shirley Heights to check out the amazing view of English Harbour and Falmouth Harbour. How beautiful is this view?!
Here are some of the locals on the road up to the lookout...
"The Beach"
One of our favourite places to eat here is "The Beach" which is this great little restaurant which is located just a few minutes from our cottage and (yes, you guessed it) on the beach! They do great pizzas and I hear their pasta and seafood is good (haven't yet tried it), but I must warn... if you happen to ever find yourself in Antigua and visit The Beach, do not, under any circumstances, try the Chicken Satay. I'm not sure what they do differently, but it tastes very wrong in a disgusting, can't get that taste out of my mouth, kind of way!
Anyway, despite the dreadful satay, The Beach is a fantastic restaurant only a few metres from the water.
As you can see below, being on the western coast of Antigua, it is the perfect place to watch the sun set. 
This is our waiter who just happened to be in the right spot at the right time for a great photo....
Our Home Away from Home
Unfortunately, it has been a while since my initial blog entries. This has been due to difficulty getting internet access and needing to share what access there is with Dave. So even when I've had time to do this, I haven't had the connection!
Thought it might be nice to give you an idea of our accommodation. We are staying at Dickenson Bay Cottages which are these cute little townhouses, with a living/kitchen downstairs and a loft bedroom and bathroom. Mack and Kerri are staying in the cottage 2 up from ours. Here are a few pics....
Our cottage....
The view from our cottage patio.....
The view of Dickenson Bay from the cottages....
And here is a cute little cat that seems to live here at the cottages, and often stops by for a visit. Dave has nicknamed him Bruce, so hopefully it's a boy!
There are also lots and lots of little lizards around the gardens (Bruce likes to chase them!). They range between a couple inches long and about 7 inches or so (from what I've seen anyway). They are really cute and have the chameleon like ability to change their colour to blend in their environment. I'll try to post a pic of one sometime.
The Lone Traveller
Well, I have finally arrived in Antigua (pronounced Anteega if you're not sure!). Before I tell you about Antigua itself, I'm going to tell you a little about the trials and tribulations of getting here. Yes, I know from the length of this entry it looks like I'm going to tell you rather a lot about my trials and tribulations, but we are talking about 6 flights and 7 airports over about a 65 hour period!First of all, before leaving Australia, I needed to take care of my little Chloe and take her to stay with my family in Ipswich. So, there we have flight number 1 - Melbourne to Brisbane. Leaving Chloe behind was a rather heartbreaking experience. When I was repacking my stuff before heading off to Brisbane Airport, Chloe twigged as to what I was up to and insisted on jumping into my suitcase on top of all of my things. Poor little thing. And then when it was time to leave, she kept trying to climb up my legs and even refused to eat a treat (the first time that Chloe has ever refused food). Anyway, after the trauma of the morning, it was time to wave goodbye to Mum and Dad and board flight number 2 - Brisbane to Sydney. As we flew into Sydney I was able to see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House from the plane. This was the first time I've seen Sydney since 1996 when Dave and I were on our honeymoon, and the first time ever from the air. After a bumpy landing, it was time to disembark, hop into a shuttle bus to the international terminal, check into the next flight, purchase some US Dollars, and then rush for the boarding gate.Flight number 3 - Sydney to San Francisco. Well, 13 hours and 20 minutes on a plane, what I say... I was seated between an older American lady with a cold and a younger American lady with a taste for Chardonnay. I was feeling quite sleepy so I hoped that I would be able to sleep through the flight - well at least a large chunk of it. No such luck. I did manage to get about 3 hour's sleep though and I was grateful for that! After hours and hours of trying to fall back into sleep it was time for breakfast, which leads me to a rather important tip: never accept the offer of scrambled eggs on a plane! I did, and managed to ingest about a mouthful of something which seemed like some sort of floury omelette. Very strange stuff, and no amount of salt and pepper was able to improve the situation! On the landing into San Francisco I was lucky enough to catch a few seconds glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge! Then it was time for the joys of Immigration, Customs and Baggage Collection. I was quite lucky in getting to the Immigration and Customs queue rather quickly. When I got there, there were about 8 queues with about 3 people in each, so I picked one and waited. It took about 15 minutes to get to the counter, which I thought was quite a wait until I glanced around behind me to see a couple hundred people queued up behind me!! Heaven knows how long they had to wait! The guy at the counter studied my passport, took my prints, and photo, and then glanced at my completed Customs form. Being the conscientious soul that I am, I had declared that I was carrying food with me. After explaining to the officer that I was carrying some Vegemite with me, he crossed out this detail on my form - I guess Vegemite isn't actually food after all! Then it was on to baggage collection. Again I was lucky with timing, and as I was arriving at the carousel, my bag was just passing by. I grabbed it and headed off to find out where I had to check it back in for the next flight. Once that was sorted, I had about 2 hours to kill in San Francisco International Airport. I grabbed a few small souvenirs, which I wasn't sure I was actually entitled to as I hadn't actually visited the city! This was also when I realised that the global roaming feature on my mobile had not yet kicked in. Knowing that Dave would be worried if I didn't call and knowing he wouldn't be able to call me, I purchased a $20 USD phonecard, which entitled me to a whole 5 minutes of talk time. Ouch!Anyway, time for flight number 4 - San Francisco to Orlando. Despite lack of sleep, I was feeling not-too-bad and settled in for the 5 and a half hour flight. This time I got an aisle seat alongside a couple of Californian's with rather a lot to say for themselves. After another futile attempt to get some sleep, I put on the ipod and hoped for the best. Listening to Missy Higgins, Darren Hanlon and some Hamish and Andy podcasts, I felt like I had created my own little Aussie bubble amongst the flight full of Americans. This flight went by rather quickly - although I think I had lost all sense of perspective about time at this point. It was about this time that I came to the resolution that my throat was not just sore due to the dry airplane air and that I actually did have a cold/flu. Finally I landed in Orlando, and after a short ride on the the shuttle train to the baggage claim area, I was finally reunited with Dave!!! We waited about 5 years (well perhaps not quite!) for my suitcase, and then headed off to the airport hotel to get some food and some sleep. At least that was the plan. The food turned out to be a pizza with cheese about an inch thick on top of it! and other than about an hour an a half, sleep once again eluded me! By this point, I was totally over travelling. In my sleep deprived state, I remember thinking to myself "I just want to go home", until I realised that that would involve going through the very experience I had just been through and so discovered that maybe I didn't really want to go home right then after all!! Thank heavens I was with Dave from this point on and could stumble through the next few flights with him to lead me in the right direction. Early next morning, it was time to head back downstairs to the airport proper to check-in, get some breakfast and make our way through security and to our next boarding gate. Check-in only took about 20 minutes and we went and grabbed some brekky. Then it was time to line up to get though security. After lining up for about 40 minutes, we finally made it to the metal detectors. Once again, it was time for shoes off, laptops out, and stepping through the metal detector. Once through the detector, Dave and I were just delighted to be told to "Please step over to this side please sir/ma'am". What now?! Well, that's when we both received our first (and hopefully last) frisking! Then it was time for shoes on, laptops back in bags and off for the gate. We made it there just in time for boarding flight number 5 - Orlando to San Juan (Puerto Rico), which is when we discovered that we were seated about 12 rows apart! D'oh!The two and a half hour flight to San Juan was rather uneventful. I got an aisle seat alongside a Christian man who was working on his church website (so figured that I'd be safe there!), and was able to see the back of Dave's head from my seat! We arrived in San Juan, and Dave was keen to find out how Australia had fared in their first World Cup match against Japan. Fortunately, his questions were answered when he received some excited SMS messages from some friends who had stayed up late to watch the match! We headed off to find the machine to officially declare our departure from US soil, and then I ducked into the ladies and managed to lose my comb down a toilet!Ah, finally, time for flight number 6 - San Juan to St John's, Antigua!!! This was the shortest of all six flights and took less an hour. Dave and I managed to get seats together for this flight. This flight was great. Not only was it short, it was scenic! We could see several other small Carribean islands on the way over. Finally, we landed in Antigua. Just one more Immigration, Customs and Baggage Collection to get through! Mack and Kerri were there to collect us, and it was off to our villa at Dickensen Bay Cottages (pictures to come) to drop off our stuff, and then time for a quick bite of lunch at The Beach restaurant (also pictures to come). By 4pm, we were back at "home" and I proceeded to sleep for the next 15 hours straight! I think having caught a cold actually helped me get through the jet lag as it probably helped me to sleep more soundly.Congratulations and thank you if you made it all the way through this blog entry. Hopefully it wasn't too dreadfully long and boring and tedious, but even if it was, trust me, it is not a patch on how long and boring and tedious actually partaking in the above trip was! I promise that future blogs will not be this wordy!
Welcome to my blog!
For those who don't know about blogs (and I know for a fact that some of you don't!), this is simply a web page where I can post stories and pictures about my adventures. Instead of emailing pics to everyone, I can just put them up here and you can pop in and check them whenever and if-ever you like.
So, for all our sakes, let's just hope I have some interesting experiences to share! :o)
Last Friday, Kerri and I decided to do the tourist thing and check out some of the cultural stuff that St John’s has to offer. As Dave and Mack were heading into the office for the day, we had them drop us off on the edge of the city and we wandered in on foot. (Being very late Friday night in Australia, there was very little value that could be added by my going to the office.)
