Wednesday, 4th July 2012

should go down in history as the best day of my
trip so far 🙂

It all started with me having no idea how, where, or with whom to explore the city. I was super nervous because all the alternatives seemed completely overwhelming to me, so I didn’t plan anything at first. At breakfast, my mood got even worse when I saw Christoph’s girlfriend for the first time. She feels completely at home here on the ship, chats easily with everyone (of course she’s French) and is just great – at breakfast she moved over to sit with me and the cadets and I felt even more left out than before.

Our “little” élève Adrian saved the day by asking me if I would go into town with him (THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!). Adrian is really relaxed and although neither his German nor his English is excellent, we somehow manage to get along (besides, we are clearly both the outsiders here). We shared the taxi into town with the cadets, but in Fort-de-France the others rented a car,
while we just strolled through the city.

First, however, we had to take shelter for about 15 minutes because the rainy season suddenly broke out with a really heavy shower. After that, it kept drizzling on and off, but at around 28°C, that’s not so bad 😉 At least the sun wasn’t out very often, which made it a little more bearable.

I felt really comfortable with my “babysitter” and the “old” explorer Katrin came back to life a little. We looked at Fort St. Louis (which shares its name with our ship) from the outside, then the waterfront, the cathedral, the courthouse, and the rest of Fort-de-France. Adrian discovered the internet café that Alex had mentioned, and I was able to check my emails briefly, although, as expected, there was nothing earth-shattering in them. I left greetings on Facebook and my blog and then treated myself to a Canada Dry on the balcony of the internet pizza joint, while Adrian continued (or finished?) writing his letter, watched the hustle and bustle on the street below, and was finally just totally relaxed.

For lunch, we went to „The Crew,“ where Adrian treated himself to a really sumptuous, full French meal (no fixed menu!! but including a rum sour (rum, sugar liqueur, and lime), while I was perfectly happy with water and my grilled entrecôte with Creole sauce. But I was allowed to try his entrée, and these Creole
sausages were so delicious – unbelievable!!!

But my sauce with the meat was also not to be sneezed at.
Afterwards, we walked to a Parc Culturel, which is more of a cultural event center and not a park at all, so we turned right back around, trudged to Parc Savante, and finally settled down right by the water. Adrian, who was super tired, took a nap while I studied the various Martinique guidebooks. After a while, I went (all by myself!!!) to buy a few souvenirs and was even able to communicate reasonably well with the salespeople (with the
first one exclusively in French!!!), which I’m quite proud of :).

From 4 p.m. onwards, I could hardly wait to get back on the ship. We left at around 4:15 p.m. and this time arrived at Fort St. Louis without any surprises, detours or accidents, where Pasquale told us that he and Gaél were going to the supermarket at 5:30 p.m.
and asked if we wanted to come along.
Of course, with two such great guides, I was definitely up for it. Adrian actually wanted to go to sleep, but somehow ended up coming along (Pasquale can obviously be very persuasive, and he is Adrian’s boss, after all 😉 ) when we took the port’s taxi service to the parking lot, where a company car was waiting for us. Until we reached the shopping center, we drove all over the industrial area of Fort-de-France. The mood was great and Gaél sang along to just about every song on the radio. I had somehow assumed we would be buying food for the ship, but the guys needed things
like swimming trunks (Gaél), music (Adrian), alcohol (Pasquale &
Jerôme).

Since I wanted to contribute something to the next BBQ anyway
(as a thank you to the crew), I raced to the supermarket, grabbed two bottles of Argentine wine, a bottle of ginger wine (whatever that is) and a bottle of Bombay Sapphire (you have to be a little selfish 😉 ), and stood in a relatively short line, which still took forever. I made it back to the meeting point just in time, but only
Adrian was waiting there.

I had met Pasquale on the way, he wanted to be back 10 minutes later. In the end, it turned out to be 25 minutes (it was pretty crowded).

I sat alternately with Adrian and Gaél and waited until we were all back together. After our shopping trip, we drove to the city center, where they showed me where the ferry to ?? departs, an island I absolutely must visit, well, maybe next time. After that, we went to a harbor bar where we had our aperitif. While the others drank beer, I had already had two cocktails by the time we went on to dinner and was no longer sober at all. In the meantime, Sandra and Thomas had joined us.

For dinner, we drove to Schoelcher. This time, Gaél drove and proved that there are people who were born with a steering wheel in their hands—he is definitely one of them. Once again, we raided a restaurant, this time right on the beach. Of course, there was meat, fish, and poultry in all possible (Creole) variations, but I just wanted fries, which of course no one could understand (always these Germans 😉 ).

Somehow I have the impression that since then, behind my back, I’ve been called “Des Frites.”

After some persuasion, Gaél let me try his grilled chicken, which (of course) was once again supernaturally good.
The rest of the evening is relatively fuzzy. I talked to Jerôme and then to Gaél, got my fries at some point and ordered – completely
unnecessarily – a pastis.
We had already discussed how the combination of rum and pastis is deadly. Well, I drank it with lots of water and after two hours I was feeling a little better – heading towards sobriety.

But still crazy enough that I brought up the subject of swimming. Gaél was enthusiastic about it, so we marched to the beach shortly before midnight.
And somehow Gaél persuaded me to go swimming in the ocean, at night and under the full moon.

And I didn’t regret it, quite the contrary: it’s an experience that, if
possible, you shouldn’t wait until you’re over 30 to try :).
To understand it, you have to try it yourself ;-).

At some point, the others also arrived at the beach and Pasquale jumped into the waves for a quick dip before we drove back to the harbor in our wet clothes.
But at around 25°C, the risk of catching a cold is fortunately not very high 🙂