After spending some time at Pandy, which I am proud to say Rissa might love as much as I do, we headed to Downtown St. George's. We accidentally ended up souvenir shopping. I know it was only Rissa's first full day here, but we had to take advantage of things being open and the sunny skies.
We walked along the Carenage to avoid downtown traffic.
We headed first to a shop called Tikal, which has nice (maybe overpriced) gifts that aren't your run-of-the-mill crummy key chains and shot glasses. Then we walked across the street to the Yellow Poui Art Gallery. I have been here before with the incredibly beautiful Natalia, and we thought it was pretty cool. I knew Marissa would love it!
The gallery is just up those stairs. Rissa loves art, so she bought these cool paintings that were done on little chunks of wood. She is thinking she will do a shadow box display with some shells so that it isn't just flat on the wall like some of her other artwork.
Ross found me this fun little spot with colored bottles. I love colored glass (like this church in El Salvador).
We showed Rissa the market square... which is totally new. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Before it was a mini labyrinth of slapped together stalls with corrugated tin, or tarp roofs. It had a lot of character. Now, just adjacent to it, are brand new, cookie cutter, fresh painted stalls. It looks pretty boring, but I am guessing with all the construction they have slowly been doing there, they want to appeal to all those blasted (boring) Westerners who come in on cruise ships.
In the market square, and maintaing the integrity of his original stall, is my best friend Peanut Man. He doesn't know we are best friends, but ever since my friend Patty told me about him, he is a mandatory stop. He makes these awesome "honey roasted peanuts," which taste nothing like what Americans call honey roasted peanuts. He literally roasted the peanuts in a honey sugar syrup so they taste like toffee/party peanuts. He sells them in little bags and they are like $1.50 EC, which is about 50 US cents. We all got a little bag and happily munched away.
Downtown was an absolute zoo! But being the day before Christmas Eve, it makes total sense. Here things actually close for the holidays, so everyone was just getting their shopping and errands done. But it made for a crazy experience. Don't even get me started on the mob in Foodland.
Anytime (and every time) Ross goes downtown with me, the first thing he asks is "Where is the snowcone guy?!" EVERY. TIME. I don't blog a lot, but the snowcone guy already has two separate posts, here and here. Luckily, he happened to be in town today, I'm sure business was good.
You can actually feel the excitement on Ross's face in this picture.
Rissa found her boyfriend, the Colombian Emeralds guy, in the mall.
And we all found this wreath on the ceiling. ... ?
It was getting late and traffic looked horrendous, so we started to wander down to the Carenage in hopes of catching a bus there. Outside of the Esplande Mall we saw these fun guys dancing on stilts, with live music on the saxophone and steel pan.
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