For those of you who may not know this, I was born on the small Caribbean island of Antigua, and I moved to New York City when I was three years old. Antigua currently has a population of about 87,000 people. It's only about 108 square miles meaning that if it's taking you more than 40 minutes to get anyway, you're either lost or something must be very, very wrong. Antigua is also a former British colony, which means I am sad that I did not grow up bilingual; but I have a major appreciation of most English things except for certain types of tea and cricket (the American part of me clings to baseball). There's a local saying that Antigua has 365 beaches, one for every day of the year.
A basic map to show you where Antigua is relative to other Caribbean islands. Antigua hosted the Cricket World Cup a few years ago hence to the reference to the stadium.
Starting in college I started to go back to Antigua less. I started to travel to more far-flung places and wanted a bit of seeing the world that was vastly different from what I had seen going there as a child to visit family. I also know that if there are any little children that come into my life, Husband J and I will be going there quite often so that our kids can understand this part of their heritage. Most of my family on my mother's side still lives there, and they are really the family I am closest to. Besides it's a 3 1/2 hour direct flight from New York City. At that point in my life, Antigua will serve as a home base for some hopefully fun family vacations (I can only imagine what it's like traveling with children...oy!).
Anyway, that's just an intro to Antigua so at least you have some background. There are many hard things about being an immigrant in terms of feeling connected to culture both in the one you live in and the one you moved away from. I think I will eventually address those as well as some of the ways I've had to think critically about tourism, travel and the Caribbean.
Rambling. Done.
While at our hotel, Cocos Resort (more on there another time), I had my first extended stay ever in a hotel in Antigua, a whopping four days. Husband J (who wasn't even close to Fiance J at the time) and I made friends with the beach bartender, Acari. He was a really accommodating, fun guy and even made me some local drinks that most tourists would not ask for.
One morning, Acari whispered that some of his friends were going to be bringing him some fresh lobster. Sign me up! I'd never had lobster in Antigua, just fresh caught fish primarily. I was totally up for a lunch of freshly made lobster right on the beach.
Our table steps from the sand.
We had a few glasses of rose wine, and Acari added some flowers to the table. A nice touch! Yes, the water was that close by.
Husband J and I each got a lobster about this size. I'm not going to claim being a lobster expert by any stretch of the imagination, but according to Husband J, these lobsters were humungous. Caribbean lobster seems to have much more meat in their legs and bodies than their cousins in New England.
Meat from one of the lobster legs
Acari did a great job of cooking the lobster so that they were juicy, tender and had a layer of butter sauce in them. Absolutely delicious! There was some rice and veggies on the side too, but they're not as fun to admire.
After cleaning out the lobsters, we sat back and enjoyed the view.
I'm glad that I wrote this. I think I feel warmer already. :)
2 comments:
that looks wonderful. we both must have lobster on the brain. and i like hearing about your connection to antigua, so it's not rambling!
looks like the perfect meal! antigua is a beautiful place!
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