Hello St. Thomas

I can't believe that we are running out of days, this is our last port of call before disembarkment. Our stop for the day is St. Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands and we had absolutely nothing planned. We relaxed in the morning enjoying our breakfast outside on the ship deck before making our way out to explore.
We decided we'd walk into the town and see what they had to offer. We had been hearing that there was a carnival going on that day and that most things would be closed but we decided to try anyway. We chatted along the way with a nice Texan couple which made the walk seem faster then it was and we split up when we ran into a little out door market selling trinkets and souvenirs.
From there we walked a little farther along some shops and watched as people were readying themselves for a parade. One local shop owner came up to us and looked down at my feet asking "Do you know what Oprah said about those shoes you're wearing?"
I looked down at my old, very well worn sketcher sandals and thought the only thing Oprah could say about these old things is that they need to be replaced. I looked back at the man and told him I had absolutely no idea what Oprah could have to say about my sandals.
"That they would go perfectly with some of my jewellery!" Well, we had a good laugh and the guy got an A+ for effort but we explained we were not in the market for jewellery and he very politely let us on our way.

After a few blocks we found ourselves at the starting point of the parade and were told that today was the Children's Parade and so it would only be about 4 hours long with lots of majorettes (baton twirlers), apparently they specialize in majorettes. I wasn't so sure I could last 4 hours in the heat but that didn't seem so bad after they went on to tell us that tomorrows parade would be 12 hours long! Um, wow. Carnival is quite the reason to parade I guess.

After we watched as much as we could watch we started our walk back towards the ship. We crossed and walked along the water looking out over the water. Suddenly there were all the police cars with their lights flashing stopping traffic. I'm wondering to myself if it's the President or something with all the dramatics going on. No, just a parade float ... a double decker drum float! I was tempted to turn back around and walk back to the parade just to hear the drums and see it filled with all the drummers but we just stopped and stared as it passed us by and traffic resumed.
It was a pretty walk back through the marina. There were a lot of sail boats and yachts anchored. We saw a couple of ladies coming from a sailboat pull up in a little pump boat, tie it down and hop out. Ryan would love to live in a sail boat, he's still working on convincing me. Some of the sailboats reminded me of pirates and I wished Brayden was with us so he could see them.

We ate lunch at a Filipino buffet and took some back for our cruise ship security. They were all Filipino and after seeing Ryan's shirts and learning we lived in the Philippines for 5 years they were so friendly and always recognized us and remembered our names. I LOVE the Filipino people and I love that when they learn we lived there we have instant friends. I guess it makes it half Pinoy.
For the afternoon we took a taxi up the mountain and through the island to a little beach named Magen's Bay. It was really pretty and its claim to fame is that it was in National Geographic. Ryan did a little snorkelling but didn't find all that much and I just layed down and relaxed on the beach for the first time since we started our vacation.