Cruisin

Alright so I'm back. And, I think I'm back down to what I weighed when I left. I know I gained 7 lbs from the cruise along with the mom and dad. And haven't been eating that great since we got back. Not really on purpose or anything...mostly its hard to stop eating good food when you didn't have to care about it for a week (even though I said I was going to care about it). That, and I got back and immediately started classes that are completely overwhelming me. I'm already putting stuff off, which is not a good sign. I spent so much time on just one of the class last week, trying to understand it. One class has a 15 page paper due at the end of the session which terrifies me. I have trouble writing 5 page papers, so this is not going to be fun. I also have a 3 page paper due this week for that same class. It took me 4 hours at work last week to read one chapter in my cost mgmt class and this week I have 3 chapters to read. Every time I open up my classes, I get this horrible feeling in my stomach and I quickly turn to something else. I just feel really stupid in these classes for some reason. I don't know if my brain is still muddled from the cruise or what, but I really feel stupid. Anyways...I'm not going to harp on that right now. Let me tell you about my cruise. :)


First of all, I will post some pictures later, but for those of you on facebook, I have them posted there already. The rest of you will have to wait til I get home to my computer.


So, we got up (extremely) early on Sunday to fly to Puerto Rico. I can't say much about PR, because we flew in, drove to the ship, got on, and thats it. We talked about getting back off the ship, but it never happened. Guess we were excited. The one thing about PR is, there are highrises everywhere. I mean, its weird - highrise apts everywhere you turn. For some reason, I just found it odd. And, they all look the same, its strange. And for one more...its eerie...haha!


So, the first night we ate in the other dining room and the service was horrible, but the food was good. Started my first of 7 nights of the warm chocolate melting cake. (See why I gained 7 lbs?).


We left PR at 10 pm which was different as I'm used to sailing away in the afternoon.

First day was St. Thomas.We didn't have anything planned there, so we just got off the ship to shop. For some reason I don't know, going to this port allows you to bring more liquor back per person, so this was a big liquor place. We picked up some booz for Mat, and a shot glass for me. We were on our way to ride the Skyride tram thing up to the mountain, when a lady stopped us and told us we shouldn't because its $20 to go up and see whats right in front of us. For $5 more she would take us on tour around the island. So, after collecting some other people, we said, why not? We went to some vista type spots and it was pretty nice. Back on the ship to get ready for dinner. We were hoping for a private table (at least I was, not a people person myself). Well, we didn't get it. We were at a table for 8, with 2 pairs of ladies. We had an uncomfortable start to the week, that I'll tell you about if you really wanna know - and really only talked to one pair the whole week. The other pair didn't seem to want to talk, nor did one want any pictures of herself. Anyways, food for the week was good, especially the aforementioned (ooh, big word) melting cake, that I did have, yes, every night.

Second day was Dominica, which is my second favorite island. My dad and I went tubing and got much more. We ended up with a whole island tour, and it was a small group, so that made it much better. We didn't go with Carnival and had 7 people, while one of the girl's friends went with Carnival and had like 40, I think. Quite the difference, plus ours was cheaper. Dominica is beautiful - its rainforest, and mountains and just beautiful. We went to this fruit stand, called "Its Nice to be Nice", I've heard it called Mr. Nice's fruit stand. Its free (although you can give tips) for all this really fresh fruit. We had pineapple, banana, mango, coconut, and this fantastic coconut candy that you ate with a roasted cocoa bean - omg, it was fantastic. And the atmostphere was great, because you could tell they just wanted you to feel welcome. The people were all really friendly - really all the islands were that way, but especially here.
The tubing was great, relaxing and fun. We stopped to swim in a spot on the river, jumped in, then continued. We got some rum punch (of course), and then even though they offered to take us to the beach, we all decided it had been a long enough day, so we went back to the ship.

Next - Barbados - It rained most of the day here, or at least misted you know. This island is so flat, compared to the others. We didn't really go on the island here, my dad and I kayaked in the ocean, then swam with the sea turtles which was cool. I'm an idiot though and it took me like 20 minutes to figure out how to use the snorkel thing. I've never snorkeled before and my dad said he could show me. Apparently I wasn't putting the whole thing in my mouth (how was I supposed to know?) I kept getting water in my mouth and then I didn't have my goggles pressed down hard enough cause I kept getting water up my nose. But once I got it figured out, it was pretty fun - although it sounded like I was breathing so hard underwater. Guess I finally did it right? I did get a cool souvenir here from this cool pottery shop. I kinda wish I had gotten a different one, but its ok, I like the one I got too.

Next, St. Lucia. This was my favorite island - very close with Dominica. We went on Cosol's tour and wound up somehow in the party bus. First of all, he gives you food and DRINKS all day, so it doesn't take much. My mom didn't feel well and didn't go with us, and its probably a good thing as she would've hated the group we went with. You know that guy that everybody knows on a cruise ship or anywhere that is? He was sitting right next to me. I remembered him from earlier in the cruise yelling from one of the top decks down to another. And, on the other side of me was a guy he had randomly met who was equally as loud. Near the end of the trip I heard nothing but them. It was mostly fun though. We had the best spread for breakfast - all kinds of food. Coconut cake, fishcakes, johnny cakes (like a not sweet doughnut), flying fish, pineapple, something called a wax apple, and a guinup?(can't find this one), bananas, banana ketchup, and some other stuff I don't remember. They started serving the rum punch, which was strong, and the beer. Actually we got beer earlier - like 11 on the side of the road. This food spread was at someone's house, I believe. This lady made all the food, it was great. Then we went to the stinky "drive-in" volcano. Could've passed on that one. Then to the Pitons, where we swam between the two at the Jalousie Hilton Hotel, where I would go back anytime. It was like heaven there, wonderful. We had some cookies and some homebaked bread and cheese along the way. We also had what they called "island viagra" - it was 160 proof alcohol with a whole bunch of spices and finally - a dead centipede. Of course he told us this after we had it, and it really wasn't that bad, but it did feel warm all the way down, I gotta say. We finally got back to the ship, I think my mom thought we weren't ever coming back - I would have stayed, no problem with me. It does suck because both my favorite islands, I don't have any souvenirs from :)~


Next was Antigua, and we had no plans here either. We went shopping there, but thats it. Don't have much to say about it, but it was really pretty leaving there, and me my Dad found several spots that we could build a house!


Last island was St. Kitts. We had a tour planned with Thenford Grey here. It was a nice tour, but went a little longer than we thought and you could tell everybody was tired from the trip. Several people fell asleep along the tour, and I probably could have slept no problem. We went to Brimstone Hill Fortress where the views were gorgeous. Went to Romney Hill Manor where they make Batik, and walked through the gardens there. Then we went to the other side of the island which is really dry comparatively to Raggae Beach Bar and Grill where we ate and finally went back to the ship. It is important to note that there were 3 Clemson flags there in the bar - so that was awesome.


At night on the cruise, we started the first night going to the comedian - he was pretty funny. The next night there was a show, and then the comedian was supposed to be again at midnight (for a racier set). Well, we went to the show, and I kept thinking how I could be sleeping instead. It was a horrible show, and loud. So, we left halfway through and went to bed..haha. We did end going to the piano bar with Laurie for the last half of the cruise and really enjoyed that. But, mostly I just wanted to go to sleep at night, cause it was a really tiring cruise. Overall it was beautiful islands and tiring trip. But, I wanna go on another one asap.

More later...