Nothing like Caribbean colours....

Early morning before rain started pouring....

By looking at this picture I just realised how much vegetation we have in front of our porch!
This morning when I woke looked like another sunny day was going to bring me to work.
By the time I started the car's engine, water started pouring from the sky and I though I was sailing to work! In the picture below you can actully see rain and sunshine mixing up... I should have known better!

Finally we have a place to live....

View from the entrance..... with St Barthes in background

Philipsburg preparing for Christmas

It would have been my first Christmas without snow/almost-snow-other-type-winter-weather. I won't be around to see St. Martin at Christmas, but already observing it dress up for the season was fun. A few images of Philisburg decorated.

fellow sxm bloggers

I discovered last night that we are in good company of many other sxm blogers:)
I don't know why I found this surprising; I guess I should have assumed that with the amount of foreigners who have made St. Martin their new home, other sxm bloggers were bound to exist;)
So as of yesterday I have linked the discovered blogs to our site (below right hand). For all of you who wish to verify our observations against those of other SXM bloggers, feel invited to browse their pages. These blogs are also full of great pictures, often of places we still have not discovered. Plus, they have very many useful links, e.g. the cruise ship schedule in Phillipsburg - handy if you wish to (as the author suggests) avoid the crowd of tourist, or if you need to make a shopping trip to Phillipsburg, you can count on your shop being closed if it's a non cruise day.
And thank you fellow bloggers for the warm welcome:)
ps.
Barbara and Philippe, thanks for your comments. I've updated our blog list with your sites:)

the island is not so bad after all....

Yes. Finally, I had that longed for feeling, of walking on a street of Philipsburg and being content, just for being there:) The feeling, when you realise you are smiling and there is no apparent reason.
I think I am finally beginning to feel at home, and finally ceasing to subconsciously fight against everything I experience, which is different than I'd (subconsciously) expect it to be. Good to at last discover that the adjustment period is entering its less seismic phase.
Also I am beginning to question the powers of this blog, as since I have published it pointing out certain issues I dislike, things have started improving..hmhm

examples:
1. the garbage dumps on the beach, suddenly have been tidied up and the rubbish ended up being collected into garbage bags, although no one has picked these bags up, it looks light years better;
2. our shipment - arrived!:) well, we were only informed of the arrival 5 days later, and only when we ourselves called to enquire, buy hey, at least we know it's not lost at seas;
3. we found an apartment! which means we are finally not homeless! We can at long last give an address, our address, not my or Fili's parents, not last valid in Ams, not temporary ...finally a stable address we can call our own:)

In this post some images of Caribbean rain; it rains very often, at least once daily, otherwise how would everything be so green?:) But, just as the clouds here differ from the Benelux ones, local rain is also a different atmospheric experience.