Until I get my pile shoveled down to a reasonable height, I won't have much time to post, but here's the trip in a nutshell (click here for some pictures):
13 May
Flew down to Miami a day early so that we could spend an evening with my old college pal, The Buckethead. Got to know the desk clerks at the hotel and had an odd but not-unusual (for me) discussion about why many native Spanish speakers are reluctant to say the words "South Beach", instead tending to just say "South..." and then waving a hand as if to pantomime the ellipsis.Coincidentally, it hadn't been more than half an hour since a conversation Turtle and I had over lunch, during which I related how my Cuban-born high school Spanish teacher wouldn't say "beach" in front of the class. I assume her reasons were similar to the desk clerk's.
14 May
Hit the continental breakfast and learned the truth of recent news articles about Chinese rudeness. Caught the airport shuttle back to the airport where we caught the cruise line shuttle to the ship. We arrived in plenty of time to embark, check out our spacious balcony stateroom, and find where the 24-hour pizza window was before our friends the M&Ms arrived. Later, the ship set sail and the reggae music began. After dinner, we and the M&Ms went to check out the karaoke show and were underwhelmed with the emcee.15 May
Up bright and early (daily habits die hard) for breakfast and to pick up my rented tux (we have pictures; be patient). Began noticing that- My fears that I might not be classy enough or well-dressed enough for a cruise were entirely unfounded.
- The bulk of Americans sure are fat. (No pun intended)
- The ocean really is an incredible, deep shade of blue.
16 May
First stop: San Juan, Puerto Rico. We didn't get into port until evening, so this was a quick one, but we did get to visit old San Juan and explore the old fort for a bit. With the M&Ms, we grabbed dinner in San Juan at the (infamous) Señor Frog's. Later, went for karaoke again and found the emcee drunk and unprofessional. She proudly proclaimed that she'd spent the last five hours at Señor Frog's, so no wonder. We didn't see her there, but she was probably on the floor giving body shots.17 May
Up early for breakfast. Spent some time planning the next day's excursion and then debarked to Phillipsburg for our day on St. Maarten/St. Martin. Had a great tour guide—a shorter, slightly more Caribbean brother to Jamie Fox, named Dennis—and really enjoyed seeing the sights. Did a bit of shopping but only bought a couple small souvenirs.18 May
Up early for breakfast because we had to clear immigration before debarking for our day on St. Thomas. I was disappointed that I didn't get a stamp for my shiny almost-new passport.
Compared with St. Maarten, St. Thomas looked very American, what with all the U.S. automobiles and fast food chains. Unlike St. Maarten, however, all those American cars were driving on the left side of the road, which felt really weird for the first 15 minutes or so. Was humbled by the thought of bicycling on the island, with its very hilly, curvy, narrow roads. Did some serious jewelry shopping this time out and came away with a new diamond-encrusted wedding band for Turtle.
Found a wristwatch styled like the one I've been seeing in my mind's eye, but it had an 18k gold case and cost $4500. None for me, thanks; I just recently dropped a couple grand on a recumbent bike.
19 May
A day at sea. Turtle and the M&Ms wanted to bake in the sun, so I took the opportunity to find a shady spot on a deck along the side of the ship, where I plopped my butt down in a lounge chair to sip iced tea, read my novel, and nap while looking out over the ocean. Greatness.20 May
Another day at sea. Up early for breakfast and to return my tux. Bummed around the ship all day, then at dinner said our goodbyes to Claudia and Carlos, our waiters for the week. They called us their family, and we tipped them.Karaoke again, this time with a sparse crowd. Guess the word got around about the emcee (or perhaps the fact that I'd be singing). Sang three times because... well, hardly anyone else was signing up.
21 May
Up early to grab some breakfast and prepare for debarkation. Caught the shuttle to the airport, checked the bags, and then enjoyed some good hearty Miami airport TSA attitude and just short of a cavity search—which would have been fruitless, since I had bacon and eggs for breakfast.Everyone knows that it's against the law to bring fruit into the U.S. from out of country.
Sat at the gate with the M&Ms until time for our flight. Got home and "endured" much rubbing and snuggling from our furry dependants.
It was a great trip, and we're already trying to figure out when we can afford to go again!
14 comments:
I'm waiting for pics AND I want pics of the souveniers and that daimond ring thingy. Forget about the pile of work and think about us for a change.
Now please.
The pictures are all at home, so you'll be waiting until at least this evening. We'll see what comes after that.
I've created a Flickr.com account, figuring to use that for posting some pictures, but I may have to get some pointers from Emma about how to hook it up to the blog.
Ok... I had no idea you guys were going on vacation. I thought something was wrong! I was picturing emergency hospital visits.
But nooooo. You guys were living it up on a cruise ship. I'm too relieved to be jealous.
Although I DO want pictures.
Anne: Sorry, but no souvenir pics yet. I managed to post up some of the scenery shots and so forth, but Flickr seems to have misplaced them sometime between 10pm last night and this morning.
I'll try to get some more pics, right after I catch up on the volunteer web nightmare and debug the new router I had to buy because the old one died while we had it unplugged in our absence.
Tink: Sorry to alarm you. And here I thought the test pattern was a good way to let you guys know I was offline and not just dead.
Eric: Sorry about the raised expectations, but Turtle had it coming. She's been bringing up the you-know-what in conversations with friends almost as long as we've been married, so I figured I'd better get this sorted. Preferably before everyone got it set in their brains that I'm a selfish bastard who refuses to provide my bride her creature comforts.
Maybe I should make up an image like the ones they stick on profane rap CDs to notify viewers of postings with objectionable content about the purchase of flowers or jewelry.
I can't answer the question about how many cycling miles it will take to recover from the cruise. So far, I've been trying to dig myself out from under all the to-do items that accumulated in my absence and haven't had time to even think about getting on a bike. (That's a lie; I thought about it just now.) My ride log is currently displaying the programmed message, "Bless me Lance, for I have slacked. It has been 17 days since my last ride."
I am patiently waiting. I really want to see that diamond thingy so I can submit requests to The Hubbs.
Welcome back! Like Tink, I thought you had fallen in a well. Oh, sure, the test pattern was some indication that it might have been intentional, but still. And like the other females in the audience, I'd welcome any photos of the thing-which-shall-not-be-mentioned to show my hubby. Thanks!
Gee, Susie, you should have left us a note or something.
Was my pleasure spending time with you two, when you were down. Sorry we didn't get to sing. Another day. At least we got to cruise the mall and have some grub and catch up some. And I got to meet your wife, finally.
And I checked out all the cruise photos. Beautiful stuff. Keep in touch. And I really mean that, as opposed to how it's usually used as the generic parting phrase.
And can I add you to my list or something? I know LiveJournal, but not really familiar with how this one works, too much.
Steven Even: I'm not terribly familiar with MySpace, but I gather that it's set up as kind of a community or a network, like Yahoo! 360. Blogspot is really just a blog service and doesn't provide the sort of "add me to your list of friend" functionality that I think you have on MySpace.
You'd probably have to just add a link to the blog, if you have a place for links on YourSpace.
Oh, and did you see the posting about the karaoke kab? You need a rig like that for your car.
Yeah, LiveJournal has the ability to add people whose blogs you read on a regular basis. MySpace is another story, where blogging is only a tiny portion of what's there.
So "Steve" makes your hair stand on end, eh? Not sure how I missed that one...
Here is LJ, if you've never seen it.
http://ste7en.livejournal.com/
And I stopped going by Steve years ago. And it's okay if old friends still call me that. It's just when I introduce myself as Steven and people immediately say "Hey Steve", that it irks me.
But then, so many thing irk me, amazing they don't call me Irkel.
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