Wednesday, December 12

Yesterday was Tuesday, and we went to St. Maarten. Surprisingly, even though we expected a serious lot of traffic, we were pleasantly surprised. We were able to negotiate the trip very easily in our rented car.

The sad thing is that the car rental has increased from $30 to $40/day because of an increase in taxes. Of course that is on the French side, and we know that some time ago, the Euro and the U.S. dollar were roughly equal. Now, we are told that the Euro is devalued so $1.45 or so is what is required to match the dollar. (I hope I have that thought out correctly!!!!)

Regardless, the main point is that the French find it more expensive to shop, and I imagine that is what has happened to the car rental rates on the French side of the island.

We dodged the rain effectively, but there was a fair bit of rain all day -- both in St. Maarten and in Anguilla.

We found the brand new ACE Super Centre -- and we discovered that yesterday was the first day it was open -- so we chose the right day! An excellent place to shop!

It was a good day, and we managed to get everything on our list quite easily. We didn't have everything on our list, unfortunately, but that is not so important! We had a great and successful time.

This is Ralph in the rain in St. Maarten -- Philipsburg - by the welcome sign.


Here he is along the boardwalk where we had an excellent lunch.
And I went along too.