Travel Book Reflection ☼

A couple of days ago I finished reading "A Trip to the Beach", the travel book I chose for my final literature paper. The narration is told from the perspective of Melinda and Robert Blanchard, whom were once tourists in the island of Anguilla. They had come for vacation to the island, but they found it so serene, beautiful and relaxing that they decided to move over there permanently. They had not realized they would eventually create an escape from their daily rushed lives into their home. Building a restaurant near the beach, was their main impulse, due to that the last time they spent a perfect day at the beach, except that at the end of the day there was no good place around to eat dinner.

Melinda, the main speaker, narrates the hardships they went through as they tried to build the restaurant; for it is not easy to make business in foreign land! She compares it with her view as when she was a simple tourist enjoying Anguilla’s calm beaches and soothing sun. Though, the feeling that the ocean brings to her is incomparable, as if it were something special for her. Certainly their lives had changed but for good. This, Mel realizes by the time the restaurant was completely built; she and Bob had learn to live on island time (a phrase used to describe the locals’ dull pace). In Anguilla time seemed disregarded, which brought a sense of peacefulness, in contrast to their exhilarating life in Vermont. Mostly, they liked that business was in a way informal, though at that same time strict and costly. 

Successfully, with lots of work they had built the best restaurant in town. The book is thrilling, humorous and informative, having some recipes and aspects of the Anguillan culture. Their restaurant, even after a very bad storm, is still in Meads Bay in Anguilla. After reading this book I would like to visit it, so I looked for information about them and here's their web link, which also includes the staff (the same characters of the narrative) and information about their Anguilla's Children Fund... Blanchards Restaurant