Follow Me Around the World

The following is why I really hate British Airways

So I am flying back from Amsterdam through Heathrow to JFK. I take easyjet (my first mistake) to london then BA back to JFK. EasyJet is late so when I get to London i miss my flight back to New York. I’m standing online at BA trying to get another flight. Keeping in mind there are other flights, but since I don’t have a cell in london I have to stand in line and wait. The line is pretty long and I wait about 45 minutes to try and get on another flight. Every single person ahead of me gets on another flight, which was leaving pretty shortly. When they get to me they say “sorry there is nothing we can do,” to which I respond “what are you talking about, all these people ahead of me just got on ANY flight leaving today?” They continue to go “sorry sir,” and eventually are like “well we can get you on a flight leaving tomorrow morning early, and put you up at the heathrow hilton for a night plus vouchers for dinner and breakfast. I go fine. The Hilton Heathrow is really nice. I mean it was like over 100+ pounds a night, the dinner was expensive and the breakfast was over 30 USD so I was like fine.

So I wake up at around 5am to get ready and check in for my 830 flight. 3 hours before blah blah, I wasn’t taking any chances. So we board the plane a little late, which was fine but this is when it all went downhill. You know when you first get on the plane the electricity isn’t going, hence no A/C, just maybe a little fan coming through? Well that is what we got for over 5 hours. So after waiting like 45 minutes to an hour, the pilot gets on the loudspeaker and goes “sorry we are having technical problems with the jetway, the electricity has gone out and we can’t detach from it, but don’t worry we have people working on it.” Another hour goes by, the pilot gets on “ok we have detached and we are on our way down the tarmac and getting ready for takeoff.” Good, but nothing happened, we are still sitting on the tarmac. Another half hour, pilot gets on “Sorry about the delay but we are having problems with one of the engines, but don’t worry engineers and technicians are on their way.” Another hour plus goes by, still nothing, sitting there in the hot, no A/C nothing. This is like hour 3 or more of sitting there, people are starting to get restless, and stir comes over the passengers. It has now been like four hours, we are all hot, tired (cause the flight boarded at like 830 and many of us got up real early), and to top it off they haven’t served us an ounce of food, water, snacks, nothing! Even for me, who is patient in times like this, I had a breaking point and it was slowly approaching. So finally they get the engine fixed, and the pilot assures us we are taking off.

Well that didn’t happen either, the pilot once again gets on the loudspeaker and says something I have never heard in my life “Sorry ladies and gentlemen, because there were so many delays (over 5 hours sitting on the plane) I am not allowed to fly the plane, I have run out of hours for the week, so we need to bring in a new pilot to fly, but don’t worry he’ll be here in 45 minutes”. At this point I start to get a little crazy. “Were they kidding me? I thought to myself. Was this really happening. Did the pilot just say “I can’t believe I have to tell you guys this, but I can’t fly?” Many of these questions passed through my head, and at that point I got up out of my seat yet again, paced around the aisles and then when I got towards the front of the plane overheard a few british guys talking about getting off the plane. It was almost like a coup was brewing to get off. The british guys were planning how they would get off this plane, and get on another flight. They were on the phone calling BA about other flights, working travel agents, family friends etc…Eventually one of the guys was like “there is a flight coming up at 430, let’s get on that flight.” At that point I chimed in and told them that I was down to get off and do whatever was necessary. Eventually the new pilot came, it took well over an hour plus and when the new pilot got on this british guys went off. They demanded to be let off the plane, and their were yet again rumblings pouring down the aisles. “Did that guy just ask to get off, well heck I want to get off, this plane is cursed, too many problems” were many of the thoughts and murmurs coming from the crowd. So finally, I get up there with the guys and say to this guy in a purple shirt that I wanted off as well. This guy turned out to be the new pilot, who went back and forth with me for about five minutes, claiming that once he settled in the plane would be off and going in 45 minutes. I said I didn’t care, I had a bad feeling about this plane, too many things going wrong, we haven’t been fed, it is real hot in here so I want out! He gave in to my demands and said that there would be a bus who would take us back to the airport and back to the BA terminal. I said “thank you,” gathered up my stuff and was on my way. When I got off the plane, I got on that next flight, this time demanding to get on and not just letting the BA counter screw me over yet again. I figured out that the reason why I got screwed the first time was because my ticket was bought using some real cheap online discount site and I think they just didn’t want to acknowledge the pay grade of it, because like I said before every single person had gotten on a non-full flight the day before me, and people after me and they didn’t give me an answer as to why.

So now I’m off the plane, waiting for my new flight to leave. I think it was around 130 or 2pm and the flight was leaving like 3pm or something. So this plane arrived pretty much on time, in to JFK and I had found out that the plane that supposedly was going to leave “in only 45 minutes” according to the new pilot left at like 430pm! It took them 9 hours to get that plane off the ground! So I guess all in all I sat on the plane from about 830-130, and that is why I will NEVER fly BA again.

Today was our final full day on the fun ship. We started off the day with our usual quick breakfast in the main dining room, gathered up our stuff and headed off for what would hopefully be a funfilled day.

We got in a shared taxi (which is always a mad rush once we get off the ship) and managed to snap a few of the touristy (welcome to ____).

We decided to head for a beach on the french side of the island AKA St. Martin. For those who didn’t know St. Martin/St. Maarten is one of the only islands that have two countries associated with them (France and Netherlands). The ride to the far side of the island took quite a long time as we had to manuever our way through the mountainous and hilly island. Our driver was pretty funny and was speaking in as many languages to us as he knew. These included Dutch, French, English and a bunch of other ones. It was quite impressive to say the least, it also made our 45 minute journey far more pleasant.

Our first stop was Orient Beach. Orient beach is known for one thing and one thing only…a portion of it is completely NUDE! When you arrive you see a huge sign saying “Welcome to Orient beach” with a picture of naked butts. Also has a sign that says “no cameras” in several languages. I mean it would be almost criminal to not at least take a stroll down the nude side of the beach after traveling this long to get here.

The nude beach was extremely interesting to say the least. The beach seemed to be filled with middle aged Americans, who were yes, completely NUDE. After taking a stroll back and forth we decided to head to the normal, non nude side of the beach and find a place to plop down.

This side was much more entertaining and exciting. Basically the beach was divided up by vendor. Each vendor had a bar/restaurant and a whole host of chairs. Some had umbrellas some didn’t. Some offered free drinks with an umbrella chair combo others didn’t. We walked down until we came to one we liked. This one offered some free drinks with a chair/umbrella combo (of course still insanely priced), but this beach had what I would think would be a very european feel to it. Granted, I have never really been to a beach in Europe (Nice doesn’t count as it was the winter and it is all rocky), but maybe this is how the beaches in St. Tropez are in France.

Anyway, we settled in to our area, got our “free” drinks and just enjoyed the beautiful, sunny, yet extremely hot day in here in lovely St. Martin. The water was crystal clear, blue, very warm, but didn’t have much of a skyline. It wasn’t like some of the other beaches we had been too. It almost had waves like a bay, nothing major but overall a very nice beach with very fine sand. From time to time, people from the nude side would stroll across us, not completely nude, but generally topless, both men and women. It is incredible who will go topless these days!

After a few more drinks, and watching people have fun on the jet skiis, I convinced Nicole to take another run on them. Since the beach was crowded with Cruise tourists, we had to wait about 2 hours to get on them and we rented them for the standard 30 minutes.

When we got on this jet ski, it definitely felt much faster, lighter and shiftier than the one we rode in St. Looocia. I was whipping it around, hair blowing in the wind with Nicole screaming in the back. Unfortunately, this ride wouldn’t end the same way as the last ride. At one point, I slowed down signficantly, almost to a dead-stop. Apparently, that isn’t the best thing to do while riding a jet ski especially after traveling at a fast speed. To make a long story short, our jet ski tipped over and we ended up in the middle of the sea. Nicole was flipping out, I was trying to keep her calm and roll the jet ski back on. Thank G-d we were wearing life vests, because they definitely saved our lives.

Another thing was that we were pretty far out from shore and it was probably hard to see us from the shore, so the guy who ran these jet skiis definitely did not see us tip. Luckily, a guy who had rented one saw us, came over to us, took Nicole back to shore, and got the jet ski dude to come get me. Lets just say this big black guy was NOT happy that we tipped over. He was screaming at me the whole way back to shore. At one point he told me that we should have known how to ride the jet ski (even though it was only our second time) and that he didn’t feel it was his responsibility to teach us how to ride this jet ski, which turned out to be a racing jet ski (which makes sense as to why it was so damn fast). Then, the guy tried to tell me that I broke the Jet ski and/or that I needed to pay him $50 because now he couldn’t rent it out until it was dried or some BS. I gave me a paper I signed which he claimed made me liable for the $50. It obviously did not and he was just trying to muscle me. I told him “this can’t be the first time someone has tipped over a jet ski and I’m sure it doesn’t break them if it does.”

He basic point was that now he couldn’t immediately rent it out, but I told him tough luck. After I left him, Nicole asked me what happened and I quickly said “grab your stuff and lets go, I’ll explain later.” So Nicole and I quickly grabbed our stuff and found a taxi back to Philipsburg which is the capital of the Dutch side, St. Maarten.

Downtown St. Maarten was really nice. There were a strung of restaurants and hotels that lined the Marina. We ended up finding a really great tourist shop tucked away in a corner street. For the first time the chatchkas were relatively affordable and not ung-dly expensive like every other place. The guy who ran the shop was actually from Hong Kong and had been living in St. Maarten for a few years.

After leaving the shop, Nicole and I were both really hungry. We strolled around and came to a place that seemed fairly local, with a vibrant and exciting ambiance. We took a table and saw that they had a great menu. It has fresh “pub” style food. We got some nachos and ordered main meals. As it turns out a fairly famous TV show was filming there and was checking out the food. We didn’t know them, but looked them up when we got home and they were on some cable network. We spoke with the owners for a while and profusely complemented them on their delicious food.

We both really enjoyed St. Maarten/St. Martin even after we almost died in the middle of the caribbean sea. It has a nice laid back feel to it, seems more developed then some of the other islands we went too, cleaner and not as shady as say Barbados. There is a nice marina in Philipsburg, with hotels and restaurants, and it is a place we would definitely return back too.

After eating we walked around and did a little more shopping, including a walk through a very affordable duty free shop. We snapped some photos along the Marina (one that came out really well). The last shopping we did was when I stopped at a handmade local cigar shop (with the people actually rolling the cigars. The guy who owned the shop was really cool and was actually preparing to run the NYC marathon. He asked me if where he was staying was safe and I told him no. It was in East Harlem and pretty far up Lexington Avenue. We chatted it up a little, I bought a bunch of handrolled cigars, a t-shirt and was off.

The walk back to the ship was long. It was getting late and we didn’t have much time to get back to the ship. We had to walk probably a mile to get back in the blazing sun. But as most travel guidebooks will recommend, try and be one of the last people on the ship to maximize your day at a port (and by the last few days we certainly were!).

By Day 6 Nicole and I were well versed in how things worked on these islands but that didn’t mean we were able to stop getting ripped off by the taxi drivers and vendors; now all we could do was try to limit the damage. Today, we were off to see the wonderful Saint Kitts. The official name of the country is Saint Kitts & Nevis. Saint Kitts is home to Ross University Caribbean Veterinary School. As usual, the night before I had read about Saint Kitts, focusing mainly on what beaches looked most appealing and which beaches were the most accessible and least touristy. The beach I settled on was located in South Friar’s Bay called Friar’s Beach. Since this stretch of the island was split between the Atlantic Ocean to the north and the Caribbean Sea to the South, the best beaches for swimming and relaxing where located on the Caribbean Sea side of the island. As is the case in most of these islands which are split between the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean side beaches of these islands have incredibly rough waters, rocky beaches, strong undercurrents to the point where even Fodor’s and most guidebooks will say that they are not swimmable (surfing is usually what occurs in the waters off these beaches).

When we got off the cruise ship, we told the taxi stand that we wanted to go to Friar’s Bay. We were immediately told to go to another beach. That this other beach was better. I was well versed in this song and dance. This “other beach” is probably near a major resort, heavily touristy and overrun with annoying vendors. I kindly told the woman that we were interested in Friar’s Bay. She told us to stand “over there” with the others who had obviously not bought what she was selling. After only a little while we were shuffled into a taxi that was full. Some of us were going to Friar’s Bay while others were going to other beaches. The ride to Friar’s Bay seemed longer than 30 minutes. The island was very hilly, roads were often windy and narrow. Also, the island seemed significantly more remote than the other islands we had been too. Unlike the other islands, St. Kitts did not have a lot of development. Later, we learned in the last few years the government had decided to change their economy from sugar cane to tourism. So I can imagine that in the next few years hotels and resorts will be popping up all over the island. The island also I’m sure receives a tremendous amount of money from Ross, not only from the taxes but from the money that is infused into their economy by the students that live there for 2.5-3 years at a time.

When we were close to Friar’s bay we were taken down some dirt roads, lined with trees and shrubbery. It was a little freaky because it looked like we were being taken into the woods to be killed. If this had been nighttime it would have been 100% pitch black, besides the headlights the taxi driver would have had on. Eventually, the road ended up a cul-de-sac and we were there. Since we had been one of the first taxis to leave the port, there were very few people on the beach and not that many taxis lined up. Again, we were greeted by a dude who appeared to be running the show. Due to the fact that Nicole and I were pretty burnt, we opted for lounge chairs with shade. The shade was produced by a 2 x 4 connected to another 2 x 4 with palm tree leaves constructed in a way to make it like a canopy. It was a really cool way to produce shade. The water was blue, clear and had a huge coral reef only meters from the shoreline. Another reason why I chose this beach over others was that it had off-shore snorkeling. While, I was unsure how much it would be rent the gear, I imagined it could not be a lot. Also, Fodor’s had mentioned that the beach had a really cool bar/restaurant. All-in-all this beach sounded like the place to be! After resting for a few minutes, I rented some snorkel gear, got the underwater camera and began exploring the reefs. The way the beach worked was that half the beach was the reef and the other half was for swimming. These reefs were incredibly close to the water and with the water being fairly shallow, lying completely flat on top of the water would be critical in avoiding the coral.

The water in Saint Kitts was the warmest water we had experienced so far in our trip. The water had to be in the 80s and with the weather being in the 90s, it was not much of the reprieve from the blistering sun. Saint Kitts was hot! Nicole also came into the water, but chose not to snorkel. I got some great underwater pictures with the camera. The beach also offered jet skiing. While we were hanging out in the water and on the beach, we noticed a lot of young people with dogs. I wondered to Nicole how they had dogs on the island (did they bring them with them on a trip?) Some of these dogs were pretty big. Nicole went over to pet some of them (the huge dog lover she is) and started chatting it up with some of these younger people. This is when we found out that Ross University’s Veterinary school was located in Saint Kitts. It turned out that these dogs were rescued and were part of Ross’ program that rescues stray dogs, treats them and tries to find them homes (mainly with students). Nicole was gaga over the veterinary students and was telling them all about the famous Jackson Brown aka Hairyman, Hairybaby, Jack, Jackie and Jackson. I could not help say that he may been the world’s biggest Shih Tzu weighing in at a cool 20 lbs. The students got a chuckle out it and so did I. I mean he gets fed boiled chicken, walked at least 3-4 times a day, pampered, cleaned and clipped. Who wouldn’t want to be him? I certainly would. It’s true I’m jealous of a 20 pound 16 month old Shih Tzu. There, I said it (he is also pretty darn cute).

We spent most of the day relaxing in our awesome chairs with great shade, location and as more and more people began to flood this beach (students and tourists), it became a little crowded, but because the beach was fairly long and spread out it wasn’t overly crowded. Another highlight of this beach was the aforementioned bar/restaurant. This bar served up plenty of options for frosty beers and beverages (like pina coladas and the like). I grabbed a few beers throughout the day and got Nicole a frozen beverage.

You know it wouldn’t be a trip without there being an issue at least once a day. Today, the issue came courtesy of a couple that we had come to the beach with in our taxi. The couple was from Queens and we had chatted with them for most of the journey to the beach from the port. They seemed pretty chilled, laid back people just enjoying their vacation. When we got to the beach we had to tell the driver what time to pick us up. They initially had said 3PM. Nicole and I thought that would be too much time at the beach. We eventually agreed on 2PM. By 1PM Nicole and I had agreed that we wanted to stay longer, grab some grub from the bar/restaurant and enjoy the beach a little more (we realized that with today being Good Friday, nothing in Basseterre would be open (this was confirmed by several of the students we spoke with). Therefore, instead of going back and hanging out at the shopping center at the port, we would hang out and enjoy this magnificent beach. I walked over to where this couple was sitting and told them we wanted to stay until 3PM. They said that sounded good and when the driver came I would tell him 3PM. Around this time, Nicole and I were hungry and decided to grab some food at the bar/restaurant. By this time the place was jumping and we were only able to get to bar stools on the side of the bar/restaurant. About thirty minutes later the driver came and I told him that we wanted to leave at 3PM. He said no problem. By this time Nicole and I had put our order in but I quickly realized that it may take some time. Now I understand “island time” and that things naturally take longer but this was pushing even my limits of patience (as well as Nicole’s). The food ended up taking about an hour and a half. The food took so long we just finished by the time the driver came for our 3PM pickup! We had sat down and ordered at about 130PM!

The food was freshly made and really good. It was definitely at tourist prices as the meal came to almost $40 with tip! So when the driver came looking for us, I said I would go find the couple coming back with us (it was important that they came back with since the price of our taxi depended on having more than 6 people). When I went over to them to tell them that the taxi driver was here and ready to go they said “Oh we’re good.” I was like “what does that mean?” “Listen man, we got this other couple that wants to go back at 4, why don’t you just come with us, we’re good here, we’re chillin,” the guy responded. I was like “Na, I think we are all set leaving. I’m tired and we want to do some shopping back at the port since most stores in Basseterre are closed.” He said “alright man.” I walked away pissed realizing that this couple had screwed us and if we didn’t find other people to fill the taxi that we would have to pay a lot more to get back. I was pissed off because we had accommodated this couple by staying longer (twice) and we were really friendly to them and then they pull this shit on us. I’m sure Karma would pay them back (if it hadn’t already). Luckily, as we going to our taxi, we noticed a couple that was looking for a taxi back, I told them that we had room and they quickly shuffled into ours and we were off! If we hadn’t found that couple it would have cost us at least $10 more to get back. This place was real far and unless you had a full taxi, it wasn’t cheap to get to from the port.

Upon being dropped off by the taxi, we began to walk around this makeshift shopping center. All the ports had them and whoever owned the land and the buildings made a fortune off them. Again, the center had clothing, souvenir and a ton of jewelry shops. We started walking around going from store to store. Our first priority was to get our shot glass and picture frame. We found a store where we got all of our stuff in one fell swoop. We also picked up some t-shirts to give as gifts for back home. I also managed to get a patch for my backpack (I had gotten one in Barbados and St. lucia and wanted one for St. Kitts. St. Kitts was country number 48 on my list!).

After spending ungodly amounts of money on things that should cost a fraction of what we paid, it was off to the jewelry shops. One of the shops was called EFFY. This is apparently a popular jewelry brand back home. Nicole was curious how much the stuff cost, so we went into the first one we saw and began to look around. Eventually, we found that they had men’s bracelets, pulled one out and looked at it. Upon turning it over, we noticed that the bracelet had a marking on it that wasn’t EFFY. It was another name. Nicole then says “what is this?” The guy proceeds to tell us that this is the men’s line of EFFY. Nicole was skeptical, which meant I was extremely skeptical, as Nicole knows her jewelry. I then said “well if this is EFFY where the EFFY stamp is?” The guy then looks at his boss with this bewildered, nervous look and then Nicole and I left. It was clear that either this bracelet was a fake or that it wasn’t EFFY but some other brand being pawned off as EFFY. Either way, this place was shady as hell and wasn’t the place for us. We had seen other shops advertising that they were an EFFY boutique. We went into another and were informed that this brand that the first store was trying to say was EFFY was in fact a completely other brand of jewelry that specialized in men’s titanium bracelets! This made me question whether any of the jewelry we had seen was in fact real. I mean how they could possibly sell this all this brand named jewelry at the prices they do!

Eventually we stumbled into a jewelry store which did not advertise a particular brand. The main dealer in the store was extremely friendly. We began chatting with him and were very pleased with his demeanor and what he was offering. Nicole was looking to buy me a men’s titanium bracelet. We had seen one previously in Barbados and since then she was hooked on getting me one. I was hesitant to let her get me one, but was very flattered at the same time. This guy showed us a bunch and then it came down to haggling. Since Nicole was making the purchase I let her do the bargaining. She ended up getting the guy to lower the original retail tag value 40%. I was ecstatic about the bracelet and really appreciative that Nicole had bought it for me. The bracelet was so nice, titanium, not too flashy and incredibly light. It fit me perfectly, did not need to be sized at all and overall was really moved by the fact that she bought it for me.

By this time, we were tired. The sun really drains you of your energy. We headed back to the ship, got some food, chatted with our Thai friend for a while and then hung out until dinner. Tonight we saw our second show. The show was really good. It was a Mexican juggler/comedian. He reminded of George Lopez because all he was doing was ripping on Mexican’s and Puerto Ricans. I found him to be funny, but since 90% of the crowd didn’t speak English, he wasn’t getting as many laughs as he should. When he really wanted a good laugh from the crowd, he told the joke in both English and Spanish and that worked well. After dinner we did some gambling and then headed up to sleep. Tomorrow was our last stop, Saint Martin/Maarten and we wanted to enjoy every minute of our last island!

Besides being known for their beaches, shopping and great weather, St. Lucia is also known for 2600+ foot Twin Pitons which are part of an active volcano on the island of St. Lucia. These Pitons can be seen from many parts of the island as they tower of mostly everything. Today we happened to get up early than other days and in time to watch the ship cruise into the port in Castries (capital of St. Lucia). It was very nice to sit on our balcony and watch as the land rolled by. We also got a pretty good glance at the twin Pitons. I snapped a few photos and even got a photo of the Captain of the ship (I had to use digital zoom so it’s a bit blurry). The Captains Bridge was located in the front of the ship and offset to the right of the boat and built on an overhang. Not sure why it is designed this way. I just hope he can see the left side of the ship.

My immediate reaction as I stepped outside onto the balcony at 745AM was “boy it is hot out.” After laying in the sun the past three days, sun was not our friend. Sure we wanted to continue building up our amazing tans, but not at the expense of having our skin blister, boil and burn. I think it is fair to say that the best thing I brought along on the trip was the 16 fl.oz. bottle of aloe I got from target. I think we had used half the bottle already. We quickly got ready, packed up my backpack which again weighed 25 pounds (Nicole does NOT pack light), had a quick breakfast (thankfully alone) and we’re off to explore St. Lucia. In reading Fodor’s not many beaches that were accessible to use seemed appealing. Unfortunately, I went with one that was located near resorts and that meant touristy. Again, we were shoved into a taxi and whisked away 30 minutes to the other side of St. Lucia to a beach known as Reduit Beach. St. Lucian Hotel was located here among other small resorts. The beach stretched pretty long out pretty long. When we arrived it was somewhat of a madhouse. There were a million taxis dropping off hundreds of tourists and some guy who appeared to be running the show kept asking if we had a “ticket.” I had no idea what this ticket was, how it would help us, so I grabbed Nicole and walked past them, through the St. Lucian Hotel and onto the beach.

Like beaches of the past, we were greeted by some dude who was running the show for the chairs and umbrellas. We bargained (slightly for a set of chairs (no umbrellas), lotioned up and enjoyed the warm St. Lucian air and pretty spectacular beach (look for my rankings of the beaches we went too in my last blog entry of the trip). The worst part of being at such a touristy beach is the annoying vendors. Now I have been to my share of beaches and man these vendors ranked up there when it came to being annoying. I swear a vendor came up to us every five minutes trying to sell us something or some service (aloe massage, foot massage, back massage, drugs, you name it they’ll sell it to you). I understand that this country lives off of tourism, but seriously guys and girls back the hell off. You are ruining my relaxing vacation by asking me if I need something every 5 minutes. If I need something, I’ll find you! And g-d forbid you insinuate you are even remotely interested, these vendors will stalk you (Nicole learned that the hard way and got the business from me on that one).

When it was time to head into the water we quickly agreed that this was by far the warmest water we had had up to this point. I wouldn’t call it bath water, but it was certainly warm (maybe in the mid to upper 70s). Being from Long Island where the Atlantic Ocean is never warm, this was something that I had only experienced a few times in my life (Fiji the water was like bath water and actually not refreshing at all). Another annoying part of being at a touristy beach is that they offer watersports; i.e. banana boat and tubing rides, jet skiing, parasailing, which equates to me having less area to swim around. Due to all these watersports going on, I was confined to a small swim area. I also found that annoying. I was able to get Nicole into the wear, but only briefly. Nicole was too busy getting the sand off her legs, blanket and lounge chair. Nicole has to consistently clean the sand off everything. She prefers coarser sand to fine sand as it is much easier to clean. This girl just loves to clean and really hates sand. I think she may have spent more time cleaning off her chair and body parts of sand than actually sitting in the sun!

After watching several groups head out on jet skis I asked Nicole if she wanted to give it a try. I had only been on the back on one once in my life, but never had a chance to ride one. I always wanted too and figured what better place to do it than St. Lucia! I spoke to one of the guys offering up their jet ski for rental. He told me that a bunch of groups had already signed up but that we could have it at like 1230 (it was like 11AM at that time). I said no problem and we hung out and waited for our turn. We were given 30 minutes on the jet ski and given some BASIC instructions as how to ride it.

Before we knew it, it was 1230 and our time to jump on the jet ski. It took me a few minutes to get a handle for it. There was no brake, so essentially braking meant taking your hand off the throttle and it was a little sensitive. It was also hard to manage with Nicole saying every 2.5 seconds “Josh, you’re going too fast, slow down Josh, Josh you’re going to kill us, JOSH!” By the end of our ride Nicole was hooting and hollering when I accelerated, hair blowing in the wind, water smacking up in our face. She finally relaxed and enjoyed herself instead of worrying whether or not we were going to die in St. Lucia. If the speedometer was correct we got that bad boy up to 27 MPH which is pretty fast on water.

After returning back from jet skiing we hung out until about 2PM when we got a taxi back to downtown Castries. The driver dropped us off near a major market which ran along the water. The front of the market was lined with tourist crap and the prices reflected that this was the tourist portion. Now, anyone who knows me knows that on trips like this I find the real, local spots. I wander along until I run into something spectacular. Well, whether I’m in Hanoi, Vietnam, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, or Castries, St. Lucia I find the local hotspots. Behind the touristy part of the market was the local market where locals went to buy groceries such as fruit, vegetables, local spices, meats, fishes etc…This part of the market also had local vendors selling local dishes. This area reminded me of Vietnam in that these vendors or mini restaurants was run by a family, had a table outside their restaurant (which was basically a one room kitchen) and made great local cuisine. I could tell from Nicole’s face that she was NOT digging it. The area was a small alleyway, was very tight and we were getting bumped by passersby constantly. With my big backpack on, I was getting nailed left and right and Nicole was getting bumped a lot as well.

I had picked out three bags of spices; one filled with cayenne pepper, one meat and fish spice and one chicken spice. All three smelled amazing. Now I had read in Fodor’s that St. Lucia offered up a great collection of local, fresh spices at an affordable price (significantly lower than what spices sell for back in the USA). The price I had bargained down too was 3 bags for $5. The price seemed high and the lady knew I thought the price was too high. So what did I do? I waited around until a local came up to buy some spices. The lady caught on to what I was doing, smiled and said “you are waiting around to see how much THEY pay aren’t you,” I smiled back and said “you better believe it. I want to make sure I am not getting ripped off.” “LOOK at how much he is paying, see, it is the same as you!” she responded. It said “fair enough” and bought my three huge bags of local, fresh spices for $5 (upon return, I checked in the supermarket and I basically paid 10-20% of what it would cost for the quantity of spice I actually bought, so in hindsight, I was really happy with the purchase). However, this also led to my rip-off of the day brought to you by Castries, St. Lucia.

Along with the 3 bags of spices, and one bag of fresh nutmeg I bought (they gave me whole nutmegs which you grate to get the spice, so cool), I bought a bottle of banana ketchup. On our trip down to the Caribbean, a guy had told us to get a bottle of banana ketchup, that it was amazing and something not to be missed. So, me the schmuck, thinking that only local vendors would sell a sealed bottle of mass produced banana ketchup, I bought a small 5 oz bottle of it from the lady for $4. Later on, Nicole and I went into a supermarket and found the same stupid bottle for about 20% of the price. I think the bottle in the store was the equivalent of $1-2 USD. And that is my rip-off of the day brought to you by the woman in the local market in Castries, St. Lucia.

After buying the spices and banana ketchup, I was hungry and decided to get some food from one of these small, family run restaurants selling amazing local cuisine and for $5 what could be better! I threw back a bottle of beer and got a delicious cup of freshly squeezed passion fruit juice to go. Nicole got an order of fried plantains. From there we walked back through the market. In walking back through the market we stopped at a vendor in the touristy part selling all the crap we were collecting. We ended up bargaining pretty well and got all the stuff we wanted including some t-shirts, shot glass, picture frame and some other things. Anyway, after we bought some tourist crap, we decided to walk deeper into downtown Castries to see what they had to offer. I can honestly say that outside this huge market, it didn’t have much to offer. I ended up buying some stamps from the post office and we went to a local supermarket (where I found that small bottle of banana ketchup for really cheap). In the supermarket, we bought some ice cream pops and some other nosh foods, jumped in a taxi and headed back to the ship.

Once back on the ship, we got some food, talked with some of the crew members from Thailand (especially our one friend who worked in the same spot on the 9th deck buffet area). We really took a liking to her. She gave us a really good inside look into how the crew members are treated and what kind of hours they work. It is really a tough job. They don’t get paid a lot (and possibly paid in their local currency which blows) and work upwards of 16 hours a day (and on their feet). But like I told Nicole time and time again, for the vast majority, I’d say 98% or more of them, this job is better than any job they would have in their home country. The wages are higher for sure, they get treated pretty well (from what our Thai friend said), they get to leave the ship for a few hours twice every week) and get to live on a cruise ship! However, Nicole did wonder if the crew members were able to drive to work every day, instead of living on the ship (Oh Nicole!).

Dinner was typical, after dinner Nicole and I gambled then went to sleep pretty early. Tomorrow we were off to St. Kitts!

After being stuck at sea all day yesterday, I think Nicole and I were extremely eager to get off the boat and do some exploring on our next island. I was unsure what to expect of Bridgetown and the surrounding areas of Barbados. After reading what Fodor’s had to offer on the island it sounded like an interesting place to say the least and I don’t think we were disappointed one bit. Every night our Steward left the schedule for the next day’s events, including what the time the ship would be docking at the port and what time it would be leaving. The informational packet also included guidelines or tips regarding the port. Barbados had a few interesting ones all based on the same premise; you are not allowed to wear anything camouflage while on the island of Barbados; this includes t-shirts, shorts, pants, skirts, backpacks, bags, bandanas and anything else you can imagine. Apparently, this government or “regime” has set this as a strict law that is enforced by the local authorities. While, Nicole and I did not plan on wearing our camo shorts or shirts, this was a little alarming to me. The first thing I thought about when I read this was that either the government has been or is oppressive, there was some sort of military coup in the past, or there has been issues with rebels or something like that. I have no idea if any of that is true regarding the politics and past history of Barbados, those are what I immediately began to think about.

For breakfast, we headed down to the Pacific Dining Room and this time opted to sit by ourselves for breakfast. This was Nicole’s initial suggestion the day before, but I thought after sitting at dinner alone we would try and sit with others and be social. I should have listened to her because it was painstakingly awful (Yes, I said I should have listened to her and it’s in print…good thing I have the ability to edit previous posts in case this becomes a trend in the future).

In terms of our itinerary for the day, after reading Fodor’s I decided that we would try a beach that seemed local, hidden and secluded from where others on the cruise ship would venture or where tourists would spend their days in Barbados. The beach was called Accra beach (it had another name but this is the one I remember from the book). When we got off the ship, it was the same song and dance as in St. Thomas; a million taxis all spitting out the same rates based on how many people we had in their taxis. When we mentioned we wanted to go to Accra beach we were shuffled like a herd of cattle to a taxi driver named Jenny. After waiting about 15 minutes, a couple sitting behind us became extremely agitated that we had waited so long to leave (apparently they had waited for about 15 minutes before we got into the cab, so roughly 30 minutes and there was minimal aircon running in the taxi so it was hot. I can understand the frustration, but these people were being real pains in the ass and just flat out rude to our driver Jenny. It seemed apparent that they had not traveled very often, if at all outside of the USA. People, who have, understand that island time is just a bit slower than life in the USA, plus our fare may be the only one this driver gets for the whole day. Her goal is to drop us off and hopefully pick us up from wherever we go to make a nice roundtrip fare. If everyone is paying $8-10 for a drop-off and a pickup and there are 8 people or more in a taxi that’s a good days work for someone like Jenny. Clearly this couple didn’t know that and more importantly didn’t care. It really took a lot for me to not just simply blast this couple for how ridiculous and inappropriate they were being. I would have loved to bitch slap them.

My only issue was how Nicole and I were seated. We were in the front seat with the driver. I had a middle seat (which had some sort of seatbelt, aka the suicide seat) and Nicole had what was a proper front seat for a passenger, except sitting on the right (because it was formerly a British colony, they drive on the left. One last thing about this couple, you could tell that they hadn’t gone anywhere because they were dropped off at some fancy Hilton resort for the day (schmucks), nothing says tourist like being dropped off from a cruise ship to a resort hotel. Could you experience any less culture? Come on. That’s certainly not how I roll and how Nicole was starting to roll.

The ride to Accra beach was roughly 20 minutes or so from the cruise terminal to the beach. Maybe 30 minutes. It seemed like every beach we went too took 30 minutes on our trip. Anyway, Jenny was a middle-aged, formerly in the military, vibrant, enthusiastic, rambunctious tour guide/taxi driver. During our ride to Accra beach which included dropping off 6 other people at other beaches we learned a plethora of information. She was pointing out landmarks, giving us the history of Bridgetown and the island in general. We loved her and she was so friendly. When we were dropped off at Accra she called for a local who was working in conjunction with the bar that was also on the beach to get us set up with some chairs and whatever we needed. We told her to come get us at around 1PM. This would give us enough time to soak up the sun, walk around a little and do some shopping at a makeshift market which ran parallel to the beaches.

This beach was pretty nice. It wasn’t 100% sunny, which I enjoyed since I was burnt from St. Thomas and yesterday, however, because the sun was poking through from time to time, it didn’t really show the true beauty of the beach. The water didn’t look as aqua blue and as crystal clear and it should have, however, it was certainly a unique beach. The beach had a reef which started on land and went into the water. Contained within this reef were crabs. These crabs ranged in size from very small to fairly large. The amazing thing about the crabs was that their shells blended in perfectly with the colors of the rocks and coral that made up this reef. We also saw some hermit crabs and some very small fish swimming in pools of water brought in by the waves but trapped by the rocks. This seemed like a spot to potentially go snorkeling but after my experience in St. Thomas, I think my back needed a break from the sun.

So the deal with this beach was that renting two chairs got you 2 drinks at the bar equivalent to what you paid in Bajan dollars. I believe the chairs were 10 USD for the pair, giving us 20 Bajan dollars to spend at the bar. This bar was pretty cool. It has all sorts of drinks, both alcoholic and non, it served food and had an open-aired, roofed seating area. It was also right on the beach and very convenient to where we were seated. I decided to head up with my receipt to see what drinks they had to and to inquire about possibly renting snorkeling gear. I really didn’t want the gear but I was curious to see how much they charged for the mask and breathing tube (which come strapped together). I approached the local, who appeared to be the barback/server/helper. The bar appeared to be owned and operated by white, female sisters. When I walked up to the dude, I asked “how much to rent a snorkel?” He looked around, looked at me, made an awkward facial expression and said “Uh $20 dollars.” I immediately said “20 Bajan dollars?” “No” he replied, “$20 USD.” I returned the awkward facial expression, except mine should have been interpreted that I was saying “get the hell out of here, do I look like an idiot?” It had become apparent to me as I walked back to my lounge chair that the dude had simply made up a price. Either they didn’t rent them, or he didn’t know how much they rented them for and was just going to charge me whatever he thought I may bite at and pocket the difference or pocket the entire amount.

Again, I felt like reaching across the bar and bitch slapping this guy. I mean I understand I’m a tourist and every local assumes in these sorts of countries that we are rich, stupid, white tourists and that will just accept whatever price is given to us because we do not know any better or are just so happy to see crystal blue water and some dudes with dread-locks playing Bob Marley that we will be suckered. Now, I am not saying I have not been suckered in the past. Anyone who has read my entries from previous trips knows that in every country there is a local price and a traveler/tourist price and everyone knows that I can easily recognize when I am getting ripped off and that I try to minimize how much I get ripped off per day. If I had accepted his offer of $20 USD or 40 Bajan dollars to rent a snorkel mask and attached breathing tube, this would have been the rip-off of rip-offs. Even more then the time I fell for the old “I ran your credit card a few times and it doesn’t seem to be working, can you just pay me cash instead,”(June, 2007 Bangkok) because this would have been such a blatant rip-off. Part of me wishes I had said “ok” and just seen how the guy would have reacted; would he have smiled and walked back to get me a snorkel set? Would he have said “hold on a sec let me check,” and found out the real price, or would he have been a real pro, been stone-faced taken my money and given me the snorkel set? I’ll never know, but next time I’m in a similar situation, maybe I’ll press the issue and see what happens.

The water in Barbados was a lot warmer than St. Thomas. This was expected as we had traveled considerably south of St. Thomas. This beach was also really nice because you could literally walk 250 feet or more off-shore and still be waste high. At a certain point the water level dropped dramatically and then out in the distance there appeared to be a sandbar. I didn’t swim out to it for obvious reasons (I’m a crappy swimmer). After Nicole had a few sips of her drink, a few beers for me, we took some pictures, and I actually got Nicole into the water. Getting her in the water is not easy. It’s almost like I have to dangle something in front of her to lead her in and as soon as the water hits her ankles and there is a hint of wave again I started to hear rumblings of what was becoming one of many Nicoleisms; “the water is too rough and too dirty, I have gone far enough.” “But Nicole the water is only at your ankles,” I replied, “that’s okay; I’m in far enough thanks.” At that point, I refused to hear it and demanded she grab my hand and we started to walk out into the water. I mean you are in Barbados, at a pretty amazing beach, suck it up and enjoy it! At one point, I pulled one of my oldest tricks (one that Jenny is very familiar with), and set her up for the take down. There are two strategies for the take down, either start to incessantly compliment or go for the “hey look over there” approach and boom go for the take down. I realized that going with the “hey look over there” approach probably wouldn’t go over well. Instead, I went with old reliable and started to incessantly compliment Nicole to the point where she was unaware of her surrounding and them boom! The take down! I made sure we were in deep enough water where neither of us would get hurt. The plan had worked! She was still ruminating over all the compliments that she didn’t care that I had just taken her down (yes her head actually went below the water). We spent some more time swimming around and enjoying the amazingly warm and crystal clear, blue water and then it was time to head out and move on from Accra beach. However, before we could go I had to fill up a bottle with sand (I used one of the beer bottles I had drank and filled it with lovely Bajan sand from the beach – I was trying to get sand from each beach we went too at the request of Momma Epstein).

Our first stop was this makeshift market. Nicole was interested in getting one of those multi-purpose and colorful sarongs that girls wear in the summertime. We went to one shop and the woman didn’t have very many but said that her friend might have some. So she brought us 5 feet to the next shop. Low and behold the woman had exactly what Nicole was looking for. Initially, I thought that the price seemed incredibly high for what she wanted. I mean the fabric definitely felt like cotton and was softer than that cheap fabric you often see these sorts of things made out of (it often feels like plastic). She definitely overpaid, but based on how much things seemed to cost at the other islands we would visit, it wasn’t too bad. My theory is simple, if you want it get it because otherwise you will go home with nothing and regret not buying the things you really wanted (unless what you want outrageously expensive and out of your budget. Budget, what the hell is a budget ).

After picking up a few other trinkets, we decided to head to I guess the equivalent of McDonalds in Barbados (And yes, Barbados does NOT have a McDonalds), called Chefette. It was the cleanest fast food joint I had ever been too. We had heard the food was really good, lots of locals go there and that it was something we had to try in Barbados. We ended up getting some chicken sandwiches (Nicole got a wrap, I got a chicken sandwich), fries and drinks. While Chefette had the look and feel of a fast food joint, it was anything but fast. The food seemed to take forever to come and there were barely any patrons! If this didn’t scream “island time”, I’m not sure what would. I figured that if any place would have fast service it would be Chefette. I mean even when I was at the McDonald’s in Fiji, where a simple pizza took an hour and a half to get, the food came fast. Anyway, I would recommend Chefette to any travelers/tourists looking for decent, unhealthy meal that wasn’t that cheap for fast food (about 15 bucks for both of us).

After our lovely, delicious meal at Chefette, it was time to walk back to Accra Beach and look for Jenny. As I expected Jenny was waiting for us. Nicole took a picture with Jenny and we piled back into the taxi and Jenny started to make her rounds picking up everyone EXCEPT that annoyingly, nasty couple from earlier. Good riddens to them! We told Jenny that we wanted to be dropped off at the famous Synagogue in Bridgetown. I had read in Fodor’s about an old Temple that was built in the mid 1600’s and was considered one of the oldest Jewish temples in the Western Hemisphere. This was a must-see and Nicole was excited as well to take a look. Jenny dropped us off around the corner and gave us some good directions to get to the temple and how to get back to the main strip of Bridgetown. We were dropped off in a fairly seedy looking area. Low concrete buildings, not much commercial business around and I could tell Nicole did not like Bridgetown very much. Unlike Charlotte Amalie (capital of St. Thomas), Bridgetown was more indicative and resembling of a third world country capital city. While this was nothing new for me, and to be perfectly honest not a bad looking city, I can imagine that the small alley ways and narrow streets and lack of street lights probably makes this area of Bridgetown, as well as others tough at night.

We found the Synagogue and it was fascinating. It was clear that it had been destroyed and it appeared that the area was in the process of being restored. There were a few structures on the plot of land including an extremely old Jewish cemetery. Cemeteries freak Nicole out so I didn’t walk down into the cemetery to take a look at the tombstones. They probably wouldn’t have told me very much considering I can only read Hebrew, but have no idea what the words mean (typical Jewish Reform education, sigh). I was hoping that the Rabbi would be around, but alas he wasn’t Nicole and I went into the rebuilt temple, took some photos and then it was off to explore the rest of downtown Bridgetown. To be honest, it wasn’t that great. We went into a few shops, walked around a small mall (mainly to cool off and to find some Tchotchkes). Nicole and I had decided to collect a shot glass and picture frame from every place we went too. I was also on a mission to get some Cuban cigars for the rest of the cruise. I enjoy a nice cigar from time to time and do not pass up opportunities to get REAL Cuban cigars. We ended up finding a shop that sold all the Tchotchkes we were looking for as well a cigar shop a few shops away. This took care of the purchasing portion of the day. Also, we found a guy selling freshly made snow cones in a cup and of course I had to get one. I love ice, I love colored, sugary fruit flavoring and therefore I love snow cones! Man, it hit the spot considering how hot it was out. Also, it looked like rain clouds were rolling in and I hoped it wouldn’t start to downpour right on us before we had a chance to get back onto the boat.

After we got our snow cone and our trinkets, we decided to try and use the phone card that Nicole bought for our trip. This was a small point of contention between us leading up to the trip. I didn’t think a phone card was really necessary but Nicole wanted the ability to call her parents when we were on the islands. This was our first and really only squabble of the trip. After repeated attempts to get the phone card to work which included me having to speak with ATT customer service in America and an operator in Barbados, I became really frustrated and blurted out “Man you really must love your mother and need to talk to her”; Immediately after saying that I had realized that it probably wasn’t the best choice of words. For those that know of the movie “A Christmas Story” shown every Christmas eve for 24 hours on TBS, I had a Ralphie moment here. In the movie, Ralphie is asked by his mother what he wants for Christmas. He immediately blurts out that he wants this red rider gun and then you hear the voice in his head go “ohhhh” because he knew that his mother would never get it for him and she proceeded to say “you’ll shoot your eye out Ralphie.” That is how I felt after I blurted those words out; (Also the part where he says the F-word after he knocks over the lugnuts from the tire when his dad is changing it on the side of the road). I should have been more considerate to Nicole’s feelings realizing that she hadn’t traveled as much as I have and wanted to speak to her mom. After, I got the look of death from her and the guilt trip (“Don’t worry Josh you don’t have to keep trying I’ll call her tomorrow,”), I got it to work and she was able to speak to her mother. I figured I would call my parents (and got the same treatment from her when she said “I guess you really love your dad,”) after I spoke to him on the phone. I said “touché” we said sorry and moved on. We can’t really fight, it’s too hard because we get along too well!

The rain clouds were becoming increasingly ominous and it was time to head back to the ship. We had been harassed for like 15 minutes by the same taxi driver who kept saying “Taxi! Need a ride back to the ship, ok do you need a ride now, ok how about now,” and finally when we were ready to head back we jumped in his cab, negotiated the price down slightly and got back onto the ship and not a moment too soon. As soon as we got back on it started to pour. This was the only time it rained during our entire time. We chilled out, got some food, hung out on the 9th deck until it stopped raining, then we sat outside as the ship sailed off to the next destination, St. Lucia (Loooosha). It had become a ritual to get food after a long day out and either sit inside on the 9th deck, on our balcony or outside as the ship sailed away. It was peaceful and a nice.

Dinner was uneventful as it was most nights. We conversed with Judy and Joe and mainly ignored the other couple. After dinner we did some gambling and walked around the ship. We headed up early in order to be rested for our day in St. Lucia.

After going to bed fairly late the night before and knowing good well we had nothing to do today, I decided to sleep in. I think that it was a little later than Nicole had expected me to sleep and she was probably getting concerned with the fact that by 10AM I was still sleeping. While some people considering sleeping late to be 1, 2PM, for us, 10AM is really late. I’m up at 8AM every morning and Nicole is up at 610AM so getting up anytime between 730 and 830AM is considered sleeping in. 10AM for us is unheard-of. Be that as it may, I woke up groggy to Nicole stirring around like a dog that needed to be walked. She was probably hungry and wanting some breakfast. Unfortunately by 10AM we had missed the call to get breakfast in the main dining hall. Lucky for me, the buffet on the 9th deck was offering a breakfast for “late-risers” such as me. I thought this was perfect. Stroll out of bed, head to a nice buffet and enjoy the sunny day at sea.

My plan was immediately foiled once we stepped foot onto the 9th deck as the line for the buffet was down the block and around the corner. I guess I was not the only person out of the 3700 plus passengers to envision such a day as I had in mind. With Nicole’s hunger ever increasing and my frustration of standing in line waiting for food boiling over, I decided to get out of line and find another place serving breakfast. Nicole ended up finding the omelet station and I found a better buffet on the other end of the deck serving virtually the same food. Of course, just as we got our food and fought off others for seats, the line subsided and people were able to just stroll up and get food as they pleased.

After breakfast, we went back to the room to change, got our bathing suits on and decided to lay out. Unfortunately, after yesterday’s snorkeling and laying out all day at Coki Beach, Nicole and I were burnt. My back was absolutely roasted and she was pretty burnt on her shoulders, and her legs. It looked like she was wearing pink socks! I guess when she was applying her sun tan lotion throughout the day in her very cute, yet spastic ways she missed her ankles. My back was burnt from snorkeling and not putting enough lotion on my back. Man was the sun in St. Thomas strong and as we were now cruising several hundred miles south, I could only assume that the sun would get stronger and today was no exception.

Even though we were at sea and everyone was on the boat, the decks remained uncrowded. Maybe others were burnt as well or enjoying the cool air-conditioned areas inside the ship. One thing I can say for sure is that Carnival does not cheap out on the air-con. Man that casino was absolutely freezing last night and not just because I was burnt. At points throughout the night I was actually shivering it was so cold. I guess they want you awake and gambling!

Well anyway, Nicole and I found two nice lounges near the pools, lotioned up and enjoyed the warm sun in the Caribbean. A couple of frosty beverages and a drink of the day served in the shape of the Carnival Fin, it was time for some lunch. We opted to get lunch around the decks via the buffets and small eateries like the deli and grill shop. We had just ate and weren’t that hungry.

At around 4PM we had enough with the sun and decided to go back to the room and chill out. I changed and headed down to the casino while Nicole rested up in the room. After some misfortune the past two nights gambling it was time to turn my luck around. This time I decided to turn my luck to Roulette and it paid off. By the time Nicole came down to see how I was doing I was up enough to cover the last two nights of losses and then some. I was on a heater and there was no stopping me now. Eventually, I walked away up overall over the three days which was great considering the fact I was down quite a bit before.

I’d say the only other eventful part of the day was dinner. We arrived at dinner about 15 minutes early so we could speak to the Maître D in hopes of having our table switched to a table with 6 people, preferably two other couples. The Maître D obliged and granted our request and we were put at a table right next to the table we were at the night before. The table featured two couples; Judy and Joe, and the other couple (whose names I can’t remember). Judy and Joe were from Houston and the other couple currently lived in Connecticut but both of them individually had lived all over. The guy was a very mysterious dude. Often he would sit, twirling his moustache looking out in the distance, and then out of nowhere chime into the conversation with something completely ridiculous and/or unrelated. I mean we were talking about where we were all from and out of nowhere the guy goes “I was raised in France, came over here on a boat, I lived in Alaska for a while, Delaware, Texas, and now Connecticut.” The only thing French about him was the huge molely mole on his huge forehead. To be honest I’m not even sure what the guy did for a living. It was so hard to decipher what he was saying half the time and often it made no sense.

After dinner, it was back for a little more gambling and then to sleep. Tomorrow we were off to the beautiful island of Barbados!

The alarm went off at 730AM as Nicole and I had decided to get up early to try and maximize our day. We were both excited like little school children. I had never been to any of the USVIs, so it was a first for me as well. This trip would have a lot of firsts for the both of us. First cruise for Nicole, first time in the Southern Caribbean (maybe Caribbean in general) and first time for me stepping foot on any of the islands we were scheduled to stop at (which was the main reason I picked this cruise, also for the diversity in islands we were scheduled to visit).

Today, as my mom vehemently suggested, we ordered an early breakfast via room service so we could nosh a little before heading down to the main dining room for breakfast just in case we wouldn’t be given enough food. Well ordering room service was more for show than anything. I don’t think we touched any of the things we ordered, but it was cool to know this service existed and that it came fairly promptly to the time we had put on the slip we left outside the door the night before (basically you hang a slip on your door the night before informing the service what you want and what time you want it delivered. Note: This was a continental style breakfast with a limited selection and the portions were very small).

After we packed up my backpack (which felt like it weighed a ton) we headed down to the Pacific dining room in hopes of getting some breakfast. Instead of sitting alone, we asked to be placed at a table with other people. We were put at a table of six, with two other older couples; one from Canada, one from Puerto Rico. The couple from Canada was a mixed couple, the man was from Canadia, the woman most likely from England; they were very annoying. The guy acted like he was the cruising legend, the know-it-all, done-it-all and nobody likes that guy, especially us. The other couple was a very pleasant couple from Puerto Rico who also had been on a ton of cruises (9 maybe) but didn’t really come off like the other couple did. Breakfast was decent, but the portions were very small, which seemed to be the theme within the main dining rooms. I should have figured as much because after I ordered the waiter looked at me and said “that’s it?” At that point I should have realized I was going to get a kids sized meal and not a man meal. I didn’t remember the portions being so darn small. I guess that isn’t such a bad thing considering how much food is available on the ship.

After breakfast, we quickly gathered our stuff, said goodbye to the couple at our table and headed down to the gangway to get off the ship. I had read in my Fodor’s Caribbean 2011 that St. Thomas had some amazing beaches, but the best beach to do off-the-beach snorkeling was Coki beach. I had read about some other beaches which sounded uber commercial and Coki beach just sounded like what I was looking for. We got a taxi near the cruise ship. We really did have the opportunity to negotiate a price as the price seemed fixed by the “government.” We rode in an open-aired truck with railings on the sides similar to that of a cattle car. Also reminded me briefly of the truck I rode in Botswana on our way to the Okavango Delta, except this time we weren’t facing sideways and weren’t freezing and/or as hung over as I was that dreadful morning.

The ride seemed to take about thirty minutes as we made our way across the island and to the Caribbean side of the island. We were also in a truck with a bunch of Puerto Ricans who were often loud and rowdy as we passed other trucks and taxis. An expression that is often used in sports immediately came to mind “act as if you have been there before,” which clearly they hadn’t and neither had been Nicole, and you didn’t see her screaming every time we passed something of note. Instead her eyes were glued to the outside scenery and all things passing by as this was the first time she had experienced a place like St. Thomas; a place where poverty was right in front of your face and unavoidable. I think everyone needs to experience this at least once in their life, if not more. For me, this was nothing. I had seen things most people only read about in books, magazines, exposes and the like. For her, this was her first taste and I think St. Thomas was a good precursor as to what could come in the islands we would visit in the coming days.

When we arrived at Coki beach, we were immediately greeted by a Jamaican, Rastafarian, expat, Bruce. Bruce had a shop on the beach and said he would take care of anything we needed. He had chairs, umbrellas, snorkeling gear, and a lady who could braid our hair and/or bring us drinks. I had a good read on him and figured he was someone we could trust so we said sure lets go and he brought us to his spot. I immediately became entranced by the crystal clear blue water, powdery white sand, and the tranquility that Coki beach immediately brought me. It is not often I get time to sit back relax and enjoy myself, and this was certainly the start of a week where that is all I was going to do. After getting some chairs, snorkel gear for Nicole and I, it was time to lotion up and chill. Well, after some time relaxing, the sun was beating down on us and I had to get into this water. What better to do so then with some snorkeling? I love snorkeling. I have snorkeled in some amazing places; Great Barrier Reef (three times in 2004), Fiji, some places in the USA and now St. Thomas, often heralded as the best island to snorkel at, at one of the best beaches for off-the-beach snorkeling. Well this beach did not disappoint. The reefs were abundant with small fish and some larger parrot, tang and other types of fish.

I think the best part of snorkeling was watching Nicole attempt to get into the water. The smallest ripple in the water would lead to her immediately saying “It’s too rough, the water looks dirty, I don’t want to go in.” It was so cute and I just kept pushing her to go further and further in. I mean the water was so shallow that you could walk pretty far out before the water would even reach your chest. After getting the snorkel mask on Nicole and explained to her how it works, I got mine on and started to explore what the world under the water had to offer. It was fantastic. The visibility for off-the-beach snorkeling was unmatched anywhere I had been. It was crystal clear down to the coral. Heck, I could see 10, 15, 20 feet down without a problem. Nicole wasn’t exploring as far as I was and it was hilarious watching her try to snorkel. She would dip her head down under the water, flop around for a few seconds like rush up like she was running out of air. It is almost like she didn’t trust that the breathing tube would work. She claimed that water was getting into her mouth and I tried to tell her that she had to keep herself flat over the water and let the tube stand out of the water. If she stood up and tried to look down under the water of course the tube would fill up with water. Hey, I give her credit for trying and I did manage to get her under the water for a few minutes here and there and she did try and she did see some cool fish including the fish she called “the rainbow looking fish,” which we all heard about for at least a day (“we” being anyone who would listen). The underwater camera was also a big success. I had used these Kodak underwater cameras going all the way back to 2004 during my time in Australia. It hadn’t worked that well then and were very expensive (about 35$ AUD in 2004, now they are roughly $5-12 depending on if you buy online or in stores).

When I was taking pictures of the fish and coral reefs, I had a good feeling they were going to come out well based on the visibility, how much sunlight was shining down and how clear the water was in general. We also tried to take some photos of each other snorkeling and hoped that they came out well. Trying to take a picture of Nicole was also hilarious. Again she would go down and it looked like she was trying to hold her breath, but hey at least she tried.

Throughout the morning we were approached by only a few vendors and as the day went by more and more people made their way to this fabulous beach. When we arrived we were one of the first to get there and got a prime spot. Anyway, throughout the morning women offering cocktails, beers, sodas, smoothies came by every 15 minutes or so as well as women offering massages and hair braiding. Nicole decided to get two braids in her hair (one braid first and then a second afterwards). She immediately regretted getting her second braid and wanted to take it out. I insisted that she at least keep it in for a little while and I managed to get her to keep them in. They looked cute and she was able to tie them back across her hair. We were also approached by a woman allegedly named Sasha. Sasha said she originally was from the Bronx and that she moved to St. Thomas years back. She was going to be our drink lady for the day. Unreliable at times, she made some amazing frosty beverages. I initially got a Corona and Nicole got a frozen mango drink with some smooth rum. Sasha offered three ways for her alcohol to be served, “sitting up, leaning back and stretched out.” She also had some very funny one-liners and was quite entertaining. And again she made some amazing frosty beverages which we enjoyed throughout the day.

I think one of the many highlights of the day had to be meeting the family who was sitting next to us on the beach. It was a relatively young husband and wife (early 40s) with two young girls (12 and 6 or 7 maybe). Immediately the woman, whose named we found out hours later to be Marie Claire, approached us and started chatting to us. She was basically giving us her life story. She was very vibrant, enthusiastic and we found out why pretty quickly. For the past year and a half or so, she had lived along with her husband and kids in Caracas, Venezuela. Her husband is a fairly big honcho for Chevron and he has been stationed there to develop oil programs for Chevron. From what she was telling me it was a little hard living there. They had to have security follow them everywhere they go, had a driver take them anywhere, and could not just go out on their own pretty much ever. I guess the risk of kidnappings of foreigners, especially people working for the oil companies was a major risk. I mean for those who don’t know Caracas was recently voted a top 5 most dangerous city in the world. Anyway, she was so excited to speak to Americans and people who spoke English it’s almost like she vomited her entire life to us. Well, it was entertaining to the say the least. Their stories were fascinating and really made me want to live abroad, if only for a year or two, even more so than I had wanted to previously. We shared some drinks, some stories, Nicole and she had girl time and I spoke with the husband about things. It was a lot of fun and the kind of experiences that makes traveling fun.

At around 1-130PM Nicole and I were toasty and ready to leave. We decided to get a cab with Marie Claire and her family back to town. They were heading to the downtown area of Charlotte Amalie (the capital of St. Thomas). We found the driver that had brought them to the beach. All of us hopped in another open-aired cattle car and headed back to town. The breeze was lovely and the weather was perfect. Half way down the mountain we stopped for a picturesque scenic view, snapped a few photos, ignored the overpriced market selling crap and told the driver to continue on our way.

Once we got to town, it was flooded with cruise shippers. St. Thomas had two big ships in, ours and Princess, the ship that the family was on. Man was that a big ship and looked brand spanking new. Anyway, we said our goodbyes and decided to look around. For days leading up to the cruise, Nicole had “heard” and had “read” that St. Thomas was the place to buy jewelry. I had to make sure she had ample time to explore the jewelry shops of St. Thomas. We had like three hours to possibly grab a bite to eat and check out the plethora of jewelry stores in downtown Charlotte Amalie. Ironically enough one of our first stops was a Belgian Chocolate shop that immediately grabbed my eye. I love Belgian Chocolate. I picked out a nice 8 piece box to stuff our faces with later and Nicole found a hidden gem in their refrigerator; Chocolate covered Banana. I had never really had one and if I had, I don’t remember it being the caliber of this one. It was amazing. The chocolate was hard and the banana was cold yet smooth and soft. It was delightful and in the blazing heat was like a gift from the heavens.

After the first two streets which ran parallel to the water near where the cruise ships were docked, the rest of downtown appeared to be residential, food and some monuments and places of interest, I wouldn’t know because we didn’t get past the jewelry shops. Nicole was like a kid in a candy store. She walked from store to store consisted repeating “I don’t even know what I am looking for, but I have to look and see what they have.” I kept telling her I didn’t mind looking in each store. First of all they were air-conditioned and secondly, it got me out of the sun. Let me tell you folks, if you want get some diamonds, watches or fancy jewelry St. Thomas is the place to go. Hop on a plane, boat whatever, get to St. Thomas and bring your checkbook, credit card or cold hard greenbacks. This place offers deep discounts on jewelry, the ability to haggle down the price immensely and all duty and tax free! We must have gone into 20 stores. After the first ten or so, I noticed that Nicole really wanted something. So, I decided to buy her a pair of diamond earrings. After going into one place, we haggled the price down, but left because Nicole became frustrated that the lady did not have matching backs for the earrings. We then went to another store, then a third store where they actually brought us down an alley, up to another branch of their store hidden above, but both the second and third stores didn’t have the same type of earring that Nicole liked from the first store. So, we dragged ourselves back to the first store (for the 3rd time), inquired about the earrings, found matching backings and I bought her a pair of very nice diamond earrings (details are unnecessary and yes they are real!).

After that, we walked around to several more stores, took a little look around the downtown and then decided that we were going to collect a shot glass and a little bottle of sand from every place we visit. Well I had taken care of the sand at Coki beach and we found a shop that sold shot glasses among other things. After shopping we headed back to the ship via taxi, got back on board and relaxed. Tomorrow was the day at sea so we didn’t have to wake up early and this gave us time to relax. Since our dining time was 815PM we had plenty of time to relax, put on aloe, lay out on the deck of the ship to soak up some more sun, have some drinks and the like all of which happened after our wonderful day in St. Thomas. Dinner was the only other real interesting thing of note that happened. We were put at a table that normally sits 4, but we were alone. It was awkward, not because Nicole and I were sitting alone, but because the rest of the table was empty. After we left dinner we made sure that wouldn’t happen again and decided to say something the next night and get ourselves to a table with some English speaking individuals.

We also did some gambling in the casino as it was a good thing to kill some time, have some fun and enjoy each other’s company. They didn’t have baccarat which Nicole loves if only to be able to scream “Monkey!” when a picture card a 10 is needed to win. Also, at dinner we were introduced to our main waiter, Nimesh, from India and our drink waiter, Pat (a much longer Thai name). Nicole immediately became interested in learning Thai. We asked Pat how to say a few things in Pat, and every time we saw another crew member who was from Thailand, Nicole would take her shot at saying hello, goodbye (have great memories) or the difficult “Thank you.” As I said, tomorrow was our day at sea and I was looking forward to just relaxing and not having to wake up early. After Nicole went to sleep, I really couldn’t sleep. I decided to head up to the 9th deck and watch the late night movie which Carnival shows every night. Since this is an older ship, it doesn’t have an inside movie theater like some of their newer ships have. They do have a movie screen outside on the 9th deck. I grabbed some froyo and a comfy lounge chair and watched about an hour of Iron Man 2. It was so pleasant; the warm breeze, stars, moon shining down, quiet, no kids running around. The perfect end to a perfect day.

My alarm clock went off at 5:30AM, in preparation of our flights which would eventually land us in Puerto Rico hopefully around the 4PM hour. The cruise is scheduled to leave tonight at 10PM, giving us plenty of time to arrive in San Juan and make our way to the cruise terminal and on to the ship. Once I was up, I quickly went into the shower, and gathered up the last minute belongings that I left out and had to remember to make sure to pack. Now as everyone knows, that isn’t always the case and usually I leave things behind (i.e. iPhone charger going to Asia in 07). This time, it appears that everything made it into their appropriate spots in the appropriate bags. I was actually proud of myself this time managing to only take one suitcase and my blue and black Northface backpack on this trip. The trip consisted of a 7 night cruise on Carnival’s Victory Fun Ship, leaving from San Juan, Puerto Rico and visiting several magnificent islands of the Southern Caribbean.

Mom had been nice enough to take Nicole and I to the airport and we thanked her for that. This also enabled me to stop along the way for some breakfast and lunch to take along on our journey to the Caribbean. So, naturally we stopped at Best Bagels in Great Neck, NY. The name says it all as they easily have the best bagels I have ever had. I picked up some sandwiches for Nicole and I and we were on our way to grab Nicole. When we got to Nicole’s she came down with her ginormous tote carry-on bag that she was so adamant in wanting to take with her. When I grabbed it to put it in the trunk, I exclaimed “damn this thing is heavy,” she smiled and made a small hand gesture signaling for me to just put the bag in the car and shut up; while this carry-on was big and heavy my main concern all along with the size of her suitcase. For fear that she would be bringing all her belongings on this trip, I suggested that she drop it off the night before, allowing me to weigh in and measure it to make sure it was in compliance with AirTran baggage policies. Her bag weighed in at a cool 47-48 pounds, a mere 2-3 pounds under the 50 pound limit. Mine had weighed in at 42 pounds, which included my toiletry bag weighing an ung-dly 5 pounds! I also attempted to measure her suitcase using the dimensions according to AirTran, but I wasn’t quite sure if I had done it correct.

Upon arriving at New York’s LaGuardia airport, easily the most disgustingly looking airport I’ve ever seen, we were able to use the self check-in feature since we had checked in the night before, purchased our bags and gotten our boarding passes. It was going smooth until the girl checking us in thought out loud and said “I wonder if the bag is 62 inches.” I looked at Nicole and she knew this wasn’t going to be good. I had measured the bag last night but once the woman broke out her tape measure, I knew this wouldn’t be good. After adding up the dimensions she kind of hinted that it was a tad over, but made it seem like she would let it go. Then she got smart and said “let me have someone double check it.” I then said to her “it looks fine, you said its under, just let it through.” She said “I can’t we get audited and if they find out it was me who let it go I’ll get in trouble.” At this point I was getting annoyed. It appeared this woman was on her high horse and taking advantage of the small amount of power she bestowed over us. It was like she was the bag g-d holding Nicole’s in bag purgatory. As it turned out Nicole’s bag was 1 – 1.5 inches over AirTran baggage limits, costing us $49 in oversized baggage fees. As a note to people wondering how strict AirTran is. It appears they are sticklers for weight and size limits of your bags. They have expensive overage fees so be careful when packing. Make sure your bags are in full compliance and with some weight and room to spare.

After forking out the $49 dollars and wondering why the woman was being such a biatch, we proceeded to security and to the gate. Man, LaGuardia just flat out sucks. Not only is in aesthically unpleasing for both the inside and outside, but the shops are terrible, it is dirty, the gate areas are old and unpleasant and the people working there are equally unpleasant. Plain and simple, this airport sucks and it’s a shame that it is a major New York Area airport.

The highlight of this part of the day might have been right before boarding. Apparently, like many budget, low-fare airlines as well as some of the bigger ones, the flight was oversold. This means that AirTran actually sold more seats on the flight then the plane has. They gamble is simple; people will either miss the flight, not show up or rearrange their plans leaving enough seats on the plane. Well in this case AirTran lost. Not only was the plane oversold, but everyone and their mother showed up for the flight. The flight was sold oversold that the gate attendant working for AirTran had to offer one of the best compensation packages I had seen traveling. At first the guy started at $300 worth of AirTran flights. Nobody flinched. Then he went to $400 and a business class upgrade (not big whoopee). Then the guy went up to $500, a business class upgrade on the next flight and a business class flight on your rescheduled flight to Atlanta. Upon that offer, some dude jumped up and said I’ll take it! This was the third and final person AirTran needed to get bumped in order to have the flight go. I’m pretty sure they would have upped the offer more if no one budged because they had a few hundred people waiting to leave.

Once on the plane, Nicole and I grabbed our seats, two on the left side, near the front of plane. There was a good amount of leg space and foot space and our carry-ons fit nicely in the overhead compartments. One thing I didn’t know is that AirTran eliminates rows 4-9 on most of their planes so by being in row 14, we were pretty close to the front which is always nice for deplaning. This flight was scheduled to take about 2.15 hours and we managed to leave on time and arrive on time. Our second flight was scheduled to depart at 1215, giving us about an hour to get from one gate to another. Since Atlanta is a huge finger airport (meaning terminals are like fingers and getting from one to another can take time (even with the train running between them), I was a little nervous about how much time we would really have. Well, we didn’t have all that much because after being sent to the wrong gate/terminal by the AirTran employee directing people to connections, we were then shuffled to another one and only waited 10 minutes or so before the flight to Puerto Rico boarded. The plane on this flight was larger as it had three across for both rows. The last one was 2 and 3 and we were lucky enough to have the row with the 2s. This time we had aisle, middle with a random for the window. We were hoping, like most times that non-fat and smelly person was sitting in our row. As it turns out we got lucky, the woman sitting in the window seat was non-smelly and non-fat and did not say a word, nor did she get up for the entire flight. She did speak to us briefly after the flight was over to give us some tips in San Juan, none of which appeared to be true (mainly that the airport was 30 minutes from the cruise terminal, it actually took about 15 no traffic).

Our entire trip rode of these flights being on time from take off to landing. While we had given ourselves about a 7 hour window, even the slightest delay would cause me unnecessary odgeda (anxiety) and a rise in blood pressure. Today was no different from any other day of traveling where time is of the essence and problems happen. When we landed in San Juan the pilot got on the horn and informed us that there was a problem with the plane at our gate, there were no other gates available and that it could be “a while” before we could deplane. At that moment my heart began to race, blood pressure began to rise and my anxiety soared through the roof. The only thought on my mind was the thought of missing the cruise ship and our trip being ruined. Nicole knew it and opted wisely to get let me rant, rave and stew in my own anxiety. Luckily, the problem wasn’t mechanical or electrical like the time I was stuck in London for hours when the jetway lost power and they couldn’t detach the plane. Apparently, this time the flight crew was stuck in traffic and couldn’t get to the airport in time. They were waiting for the crew to arrive and to board the aircraft. Upon the arrival, boarding of the passengers would take place and we could get off this plane. Luckily the total delay was about 30 minutes, giving us plenty of time to get to the ship. Disaster averted.

After we got our bags, found the carnival team to transfer us to the cruise terminal and tagged our checked luggage, we were on our way to the cruise terminal. Now a note about the transfers. I think it is absolutely worth it to buy the transfer to and from the airport that the cruise offers. I think it was $25 round trip for both of us. We were greeted at baggage, taken directly to the ship in a nice airconditioned bus, no fuss, no mess no haggling with taxi drivers. It was fast, easy and efficient. While I am unsure how much a taxi is from San Juan Airport to the cruise terminal near old san juan I can imagine that it could end up being more than $25 each way, especially if there is traffic (which San Juan is known for), plus you have to find a taxi, and not get ripped off.

Once we were dropped off at the terminal it looked like mayhem. Thousands of people were lined up down the block from the ship just waiting to get into the cruise terminal. We got on line, threw our sun glasses on and stared at the Carnival Victory, a fun ship, snapped some photos and just couldn’t wait to get onboard. It was a line to a line to a line to a line to a line to a line to a line and about 12 hours until we stepped foot on the ship from when I picked up Nicole. Even on the ship there were lines and we decided to walk up the stairs to our room on the 7th floor, middle – back of the ship. Upon entry, we were both extremely happy with our room. King-sized bed, nice sized bathroom and shower, beautiful balcony with chairs, couch and ample closest and draw space. Yes this was my fourth cruise and besides the room my family had on our first one to Alaska this was by far the best yet. We did the tour, started unpacking our carry-on stuff, enjoyed the scenes from the balcony and I tried to calm Nicole down from worrying about when our luggage would be arriving. After relaxing for a bit we were both hungry. We weren’t sure if the dining room was open or what the deal was, so we decided to hit up the 9th floor buffet which ran alongside the ship near the pools.

We also picked up the unlimited soda package (which is highly worth it if you are a soda drinker. $42 each plus 15% gratuity and we drank our soda faces off during this trip). We got some food from the buffet, which turned out to be really good, some desert (froyo in a delicious sugar cone) and walked around the ship. We had a drink (or 2), and waited for the ship to leave the port. The ship ended up leaving the port a little late due to a major traffic jam which prevented some passengers from getting to the ship. Apparently what took us only 15 minutes, took some people over 2 hours to get from the airport to the cruise terminal. The cruise ship was nice enough to wait for these people. Even though we would be leaving late, they told us we weren’t going to arrive that late off the scheduled time to St. Thomas (USVI) our first stop on the cruise. After enjoying the warm breeze of the ship moving through the Caribbean sea and a little gambling at the casino (which wasn’t that small, had about 15 tables, one online poker table, 2 roulette, 2 craps, and ample slots), it was time to call it a night. We wanted to get up early and make sure we took advantage of our day in wonderful St. Thomas! As usual I had a great night sleep. Cruises and overnight trains rock me to sleep like a baby and this was no exception.

In light of this being my 200th post, I would like to take a few moments to reflect on what has been a great ride so far. I started this blog in late 2006 with bathroom humor and random daily thoughts as I tried to survive what was year one of law school. Fast forward almost four years and my blog is still going strong. Yes it is true I haven’t made a post regarding a trip or something about a bowl movement, people continue to read about my trips from 2007-2009 which is very exciting to see.

For those devoted readers out there, I do plan on writing some entries regarding my February/March getaway to Bogota, Colombia. Normally I pass on short trips, but as this was my first trip to South America, I feel like I owe it to my readers. On another note, I am also considering writing more blog entries. Content is still to be decided, but if I decide on to do this a change in the title of my blog may be in order. I think my desire to write more entries has been spawned by all the people I follow on twitter. The more entries I read, the more I realize that I can certainly compete with this writers. Sure, I am no english major, have no idea what proper grammar is, my spelling often sucks (even with spell check), and I like to write really long run on sentences; all of this adds to the charm that is my blog. A calling card perhaps. People who want to read will read, people who don’t wont. I am just concerned that if I start to write about other travel related topics that the main purpose of my blog initially will be lost: blogging about trips. I don’t want posts to bury the true essence of my blog. Sure there is an archives section, but if a random person on bootsnall.com or facebook accesses my blog and sees random entries about travel and isn’t able to find the posts on past trips, I will be disappointed.

This will be a challenge for me. I will have to play around with the wordpress interface bootsnall uses in running their blogs. I am sure there will be a way for me to feature certain posts while keeping my past entries easily accessible. Only time will tell. Another issue I have is that every time I publish an entry, facebook seems to flood the news feed with every entry I have posted. This annoyed many of my friends of facebook and led to several comments on my wall. I am working to figure out how the heck I turned such a feature on and then turn it off. I vaguely remember that one day I was able to link my blog to facebook, but have no idea how I did it. Maybe a reader will help me and post a comment as to how I can keep my blog from sending a syndication feed to facebook.

So that is my “State of the Blog” address. Tune in for more entries in the near future. They come once a day, once a week, once a month, but they will come oh yes they will come.

Recently I came across this great website called The Great Circle Mapper.  I decided to spend a few minutes to try and think about all the flights I had taken since 2004 when I started to really travel extensively around the world.  I am sure I have missed a few flights but this is the result:<table border="