Emancipation Day

July 1, 2014 is Emancipation Day! Slavery in St. Maarten unofficially ended back in 1848. The French abolished slavery and once slaves on the Dutch side of the island found out about it, they escaped to that side of the island.  In order to prevent an even larger revolt the slave owners on the Dutch side of the island freely released their slaves and began paying them wages for their work.  On paper, slavery wasn't officially abolished in the Dutch West Indies until 1863.  Learning about slavery in yet another location is just as difficult as learning about it in America.  There are some nice monumental tributes to the contributions of slaves in St. Maarten.   Here's one in the heart of town...

Note: Slaves weren't the only people who worked in the salt ponds but they were a huge part of the labor.  

We had our Emancipation Day celebration after a few hours of studying; because as you probably realize there aren't truly any days off around here.  We had the next session in the Strategic Information Management program that I'm participating in.  I don't even know what the program is really called but it's a series of seminars and exercises to help us hone our critical thinking, data management and focused activity skills.  The goal is to help us enhance our decision making processes and test taking skills by teaching us tools and techniques to learn with intention to systematically process and manage the extreme volume of information we are presented with.  The program has been proven to help high ranking CEO's, politicians, leaders, and top doctors enhance their professional performance.  The goal is to help us become better students in the short term and ultimately better physicians.  I'm willing to do whatever it takes to help me be a better student and physician; even if it means giving up every "day off" to attend another session.  No pain, no gain. 

 
Thankfully, the day wasn't a total wasted day off.  There was some down time involved, yay!  I went with a few friends to see "Think Like a Man Too" in the local theater.  That was one funny movie!  We laughed the entire time.  It was a nice break from the norm.  We also went to my new favorite restaurant, Crave, for appetizers and dessert.  My first time at Crave was Friday for a friends' birthday dinner.  When I say the food was amazing, that's an understatement!!!  Have you ever had food that was so yummy that's all you thought about for a few days?  I'm a foodie so I definitely have.  After the Friday night experience, I came home and searched for some of the recipes so that I could try to reproduce the dishes myself.  I've never made Persian food before but it was just that good that I'm willing to try it out!

I promise this won't turn into a food blog/review site but I really love to eat and appreciate a good dining experience.  That's what I do for fun.  I like to try new restaurants and St. Maarten has something for just about every desire.  So while we're talking about food, there's another restaurant we went to for yet another birthday celebration last week--Bamboo Bernie's.  It's a sushi restaurant that has a few other things on the menu but their specialty is fresh sushi.  Let me say this: I am not a sushi girl.  Never have been.  It's hard for me to get past the idea of eating raw fish.  However, I'm trying to expand my palate so I agreed to go to this place first semester because that's where my friends wanted to go.  I enjoyed my first real Sushi experience.  We had a few different rolls that all contained cooked fish of some sort.  I've been back a few times and on one visit a bartender begged me to try "real sushi"...aka the raw stuff.  It didn't go over so well.  I think it was more of a texture thing than the taste.  Yeah I'm weird like that.  Can't describe it, but I didn't like it.  This last visit I ordered my tried and true Volcano Roll, a Lobster Roll and Veggie Tempura Roll.  YUM!  I didn't know what the new rolls would taste like, but I was pleasantly surprised!  I would definitely order them again.  Jumbo lobster, they couldn't fail with that one and the Veggie Roll was delish as well.  I may have even liked it more than the Volcano Roll that has been my favorite since the first visit.  I'm guessing sushi isn't so bad after all =) 

I'll be sure to bore you guys with some school related stuff next time. 
Hope all is well in your part of the world.  Until next time...