Practically French

Bonjour, Bonswah, Merci, these are but a few of the many French words that can be heard floating through the warm air every Tuesday night in the small town of Grand Case on the island of St. Martin. But they are hard to pick out because of all of the other sounds, smells and sights vying for your attention in the midst of a weekly version of the oh so famous Carnival.

            After our washing-machine-strapped-into-a-wooden-rollercoaster ride over from the British Virgin Islands on Sunday night and a day of R&R on Monday we decided it was time to party. And me being my I-like-to-party self, thought it was a great idea. So Tuesday night we called a cab and made a friend with “Big Willy” who drove us to Grand Case for a weekly street fair that the town has during tourist season. It also happened to be Fat Tuesday which was a plus (depending on how much you like to party). So on the way there Big Willy tells us that his wife works at a lolo called Scoobys and we should go check it out and tell her he sent us. Now I’m assuming that most of you don’t know what a lolo is (I didn’t before today) and even though it looks like someone mistyped lol it has nothing to do with “laughing out loud” although you will hear quite a lot of lolzing if you ever visit one. A lolo is a small, roadside restaurant that specializes in grilling and frying meats and seafood’s. They are usually just tables and chairs set up around a main building with some big open tents surrounding them all crammed into one little area beside the main street. But the cooks at these places know what they’re doing and they do it VERY well. We took the advice of our new found friend, Big Willy, and stopped by Scooby’s to begin, what my family likes to call a night like that, eating our way through the night. We began with ribs, curried shrimp, grilled snapper and ox tail stew. All of this was served on plastic plates with plastic utensils wrapped in your typical paper napkin. On a side note the napkins there and everywhere else are better than the ones we have on the boat. We bought a pack of like 500 napkins for about 5 bucks and they are the worst napkins in the entire world.  I like to describe them as “the epitome of suck”. But back to what really important in life, food.

The food there was absolutely amazing, it was fantastic, marvelous, stupendous out of this world good, and it was from a street vendor. Now I’m assuming that most of you have had great ribs and shrimp. Some of you have had grilled snapper (maybe not served to you whole with eye balls and all but grilled snapper at least). But I would be willing to bet that the majority of you have never had ox tail stew. I must say that it was absolutely delicious but if you’re trying to watch your weight stay away from it. It’s one of the fattiest meats I have ever had in my life.

After our first dinner we wandered down the main drag and tried to admire all of the street vendors but there are so many crammed into one little space that you would have to walk up and down the street about four times before getting the full experience. There were people selling painting, sculptures, trinkets, jewelry, clothing, food and I even saw a guy selling plastic light up swords. All the while there is constant noise coming from the hundreds of people and the live bands scattered up and down the street. There are so many different things to see that it makes you want to stay for hours and just talk to everyone and find out what they’re selling. Although to speak with everyone you would probably have to speak three or four different languages and I don’t even know how many dialects. The majority of the people were French or American but there were many people from all over Europe, Asia and I even heard a distinct Canadian accent complete with the “eh” at the end of each sentence. We eventually ended up in a great little pizzeria called Castillo de Diablo that looked like it was straight out of France. So of course the food was, again, absolutely wonderful. Even better was the parade that the locals put on for everyone. About 30 people all dress up in typical festive Mardi Gras costumes of bright colors, feathers, beads and lots of sparkly objects. They would tap out a beat on homemade drums and play a simple tune on homemade whistles but because there were so many of them in such a tight space the noise for deafening. But in a good way if that is at all possible. They rambled on down the street and after a while people began milling about like they had for hours. We sat at our little back table in that wonderful pizzeria for nearly 2 hours just eating and chatting and having loads of fun, especially when one American couple made their way in and sat down. Now I am a people watcher so I find it entertaining to look for people who are totally out of their comfort zone and see how they react to certain situations, this was one of those times. The husband was about 6’3, 250 pounds and rockin the cut off, ball cap and bright red lobster look. He also must have completely missed the fact that this was a pizzeria because when the waitress came to take their order he loudly asked for a burger about 10 times before he finally realized they didn’t have any, so he got a pizza.

After a great dinner we headed back to where we were meeting our taxi driver when we came across a booth selling crepes. I had heard of a crepe before but never actually had one. That ones in the Top 10 biggest mistakes of my life. I would describe a crepe as the French version of a pancake but 100 times better. It is thin, light, and rich like a lot of French foods but at this stand you could pick different ingredients that could be spread over it such as lemon and strawberry jelly, caramel or, my sibling’s personal favorite and my least, Nutella. The Nutella was gross, at least to me but many people would disagree, but the lemon was sooooooooo good. I could have eaten that stuff all day long until I exploded. Our cab driver arrived and we finished our crepes in the car and talked about how much fun we had. I had an amazing time and would love to do it again. If your ever in St. Martin I would highly encourage you to drop by this Tuesday night party and enjoy the many sights, sounds and tastes that the locals jam into half a mile of road.If your experience is anything like ours even after a couple of hours of being immersed in the culture you will feel like you are practically French.