Shopping & Exploring in St. Thomas

On Friday, we took the 10am ferry over to St. Thomas for a day of shopping. We didn't really get to eat breakfast, so the first thing we did after taking a taxi from the port over to Charlotte Amalie, the capital and shopping center, was look for somewhere to eat. The place we decided on (The Green House) didn't open until 11, so we backtracked a bit and went into a cybercafe so Tom could see if one of his NYTimes projects had launched. It hadn't, so then we got on Facebook to look at all the pictures everyone had posted from our wedding. We surfed through those for about 15 minutes (some great pics, some I'll be un-tagging of myself later when I have more time). Tom and I both laughed that we came all the way over to St. Thomas only to surf the net. :-)

We went back to that cool restaurant on the water for lunch (by that time it was closer to noon). We ordered a TON of food: three appetizers (crab rolls, mozzarella sticks, and garlic bread) and two big main dishes (incredible blackened grouper sandwich and Jamaican jerk chicken sandwich). It was all delicious, and Tom almost got a big brownie sundae, too, but he decided to hold off and get ice cream later after we'd done some shopping.

While we were eating, some local guy (who later confessed he was actually from New Jersey when we told that him we were from New York) sat down outside the restaurant and started drawing a picture of us. I was instantly annoyed because I knew he was going to come up to us after he finished and try to make us buy it. We didn't ask him to draw it for us, and I told Tom I wanted to tell him no thanks, but then Tom thought the picture was cool and paid eight bucks for it. I told him I thought it was a waste of money – the guy did it with a ballpoint pen, and it really wasn't that good - but Tom said he thinks the thank you cards I bought down here are a waste of money, so I guess we're even.

After we ate, we wandered around for a few hours looking in all the shops. There was a lot of junk, but there were also more diamond & jewelry stores than we've ever seen in one place. Ever. I thought about trying to find a replacement for my CZ necklace that I lost two years ago, but some places carried only diamonds - no CZs! Ultimately we mainly browsed, but Tom found some cool carved wooden necklaces for his brothers made by a local artist, and we got something for Kerri and Ryan to say thanks for the piano piece they played at our wedding.





While we were browsing the shops, we took note of all the cool colonial architecture and alleyways. Charlotte Amalie is the capital of the Virgin Islands and was a major trading hub hundreds of years ago. It's where all the ships stopped, so there were problems with pirates, too. All around the alleys there are historical plaques telling of trading, hangings, fires and more. At one point, a local guy put a bunch of lettuce in an alleyway to attract iguanas, and we got to get super close to a giant, very cool-looking iguana while he feasted on it.

We had initially planned on staying in St. Thomas through dinner, but after five hours of shopping, there wasn't anything left to do, and it was too early for dinner, so we caught the 4:00 ferry back to St. John. It was super-hot, too, and we were both just ready to be back on our smaller and more familiar (and lush) island.

We got back around 5:00 and decided to go ahead and eat dinner in Cruz Bay where the ferry docked, but first, we looked around a few more shops there that we had missed on Monday. The first store we went in was called VIBE - Virgin Islands Blue Expressions. It was a jewelry store owned by some local artists who used Caribbean petroglyphs and the Caribbean's signature stone, the aqua-colored larimar, in all their jewelry. I found a beautiful hook bracelet there - also a traditional Virgin Islands item. It was a little pricey, but it's quality, authentic, and representative of three things exclusive to this area. It'll be a great reminder of our honeymoon, too!

We went in a few other stores, including Dreams & Dragonflies. For anyone who grew up in Charlotte in the '90s, this name will ring a bell. The lady who owns it moved it up to Charlotte then, but brought it back to St. John in 2000. Minus her dearly departed rabbit, the store was almost the same. What a blast from the past!

After this little bit of shopping, we walked over to a restaurant called Morgan's Mango for dinner. I had seen its authentic Caribbean/seafood menu earlier and told Tom I wanted to go, so when we saw that it looked nice and was close by, we went. All of the food was fantastic, and there was live music, too - a woman singing & playing guitar - and she played our first dance song!! :-) We split an empanada for an appetizer, Tom got a spicy mango mahi entree, and I got a vegetable plate with things like sweet potatoes, plantains, rice & beans, and more. They had great bread, too. We left full & happy - this was one of our better restaurant meals so far (even though other meals were more amazing to me, Tom didn't always agree about his food... and this place did have a nicer overall package). After dinner, we headed back up to Dreeket's Bay & The Retreat and had a pretty low-key evening.