Honeymoon, Day 2.

Woke up at 9:15am to a full breakfast set up on our porch. Fruit salad, assortment of French pastries, a plate of brie slices, jams (mango-lime, chocolate-coconut!) and coffee. I could seriously get used to this. Ate outside looking at the ridiculous view of the ocean and trees, completely surreal. After breakfast we went swimming in our private pool. I realized that I love pools as long as they're fresh water and I have a raft to lay on. We swam for what seemed like forever and then realized that it was only 11:00am. Time definitely slows down in the islands. Showered and got ready, picked up our rental car at reception (a Mini Cooper convertible) and made our way to St. Jean. Ok, so the roads on St. Barts are TINY. So narrow. And winding! If I could compare them to anything I'd say that it's like driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, only half the width, more hairpin turns and a lot steeper, with a speed limit of 30 km per hour (18.6 mph) but most people want to go double that. I realized halfway to St. Jean that I must have gotten a lot more sun than I had thought (I put on spf 8 tanning oil, I usually wear no more than spf 4 at home, if anything) because my arms felt like they were on fire with the top down.

Got to St. Jeans, had lunch at Nikki Beach. I ordered the Seaweed Salad and Tuna Tartar, Brian got the Mozzarella, Tomato and Proscuitto Salad and the Lobster and Crab Spring Rolls. Everything was surprisingly good since I thought Nikki Beach was a cool, trendy place but figured the restaurant was subpar. Definitely noteworthy! I ordered the sorbet trio (also figured out on this trip that when it's hot outside, I love sorbet!) and Bri ordered the Caramel Ice Cream with Nutella and Banana...he loved it. Waitress gave us a whole bottle of Sex on the Beach, on her! So nice! Love Nikki Beach!

Something interesting I realized about St. Jean: even though nudity is outlawed in St. Barts, and Saline Beach is supposed to be the only beach where nudity is accepted, the European tourists in St. Jean don't seem to know that. I saw SO MANY BOOBS. Most of which I (as well as probably everyone else there) never want to think about ever again. I don't want to sound like a prude American or anything but really, I don't need to see fat old women topless while I eat my lunch. No thanks.

After lunch we drove around the island (SO SCARY) and made our way back to the hotel. Made dinner reservations at Do Brazil and hung around the hotel looking up fun things to do while here. Mapped out our route to Do Brazil (it is in Gustavia on the opposite side of the island) and left for dinner. This was my first time driving on the island at night. It was absolutely terrifying. I am a New York driver so I'm used to crazy cabs, narrowly avoiding accidents and psychopathic drivers, but NONE of those things prepared me for driving at night on St. Barts. First of all, there are barely any street lights or road signs. There are road closures, street repairs, and ditches everywhere, hardly any guardrails on steep turns. At one point we came around a blind curve and practically ran into a gathering of locals who were hanging on the side of the road, then saw a few of them on scooters coming up on us about a mile down the road. I was convinced they were going to jack us for our rental car but Brian insisted it was a pretty safe island. Still, I didn't take his word for it. Insane. Had a huge panic attack but eventually made it to dinner. Do Brazil is right on Shell Beach and is very pretty. Most dining in St. Barts is outside so we sat on the patio overlooking the beach. We were brought hummus Amuses-Bouche (they love that here!) and drinks, I ordered the Prix Fix menu: an asparagus shooter (which I never received), grilled eggplant and other mixed vegetables, scallops with hazelnut risotta as the entree and grilled pineapple and vanilla bean ice cream (glace) for dessert. Brian ordered the plantain and prawn tempura with spicy chili sauce, and some sort of fish burger that he said was "delicious. It was crazy." He ordered this dessert, oh my god, strawberry ice cream sandwiched in a giant macaron, which he said he ordered with me in mind. Aww. Speaking of macarons, I'm really surprised I haven't had any since arriving. There is plenty of time left...

All dinner I was very anxious about driving back to the hotel...seriously, I can't stress enough how terrifying it is to drive on St. Barts, but we made it home in one piece. Again we were so tired that we went to bed by 11pm.