Now off Carribean time...

It's coming right for us!
Originally uploaded by measi.

My computer has been annoying for the past two weeks, so photo uploads are slow. I'm not sure what the problem is, but every time I play World of Warcraft, my computer just shuts OFF suddenly. I can start it right back up, but it'll shut off again if I play WoW. I imagine something's overheating. :(

In any case, Erich and I have now moved my computer downstairs to the living room for the summer (with the AC), and I can actually sit here to write entries and do little projects without sweating to death.


So... the Bahamas... are you ready for an all-in-one recap? Looooong reading ahead.... :)

We had a ton of fun. It was a very expensive week, which now Erich and I are seriously in the hole for until... well... at least October. But we had a blast.

The photos for this, by the way, are not at Flickr. I'll be uploading some of my favorites of the trip to Flickr, but I wanted to make sure I didn't use up my entire month's uploading bandwidth right away. The entire set of all photos (that weren't fuzzy) are uploaded on my website here with captions.

My overall feeling of the Bahamas are that they're definitely working toward being a huge tourist spot, but they're not quite there yet as far as the normal vacation services that most Americans expect. I enjoyed myself, but even being laid back about most things, I found restaurant service to be incredibly slow and most things frighteningly overpriced. There literally were no cheap eats places to go. Prices for food were comparable to Boston and NYC, but quality was spotty.

I see the area as definitely up and coming-- it reminds me a lot of Hilton Head in the mid-80s as it was developing its timeshare communities for vacationers. For now, though, it's a bit rough, a bit confusing, and there's definitely a bit of a culture shock as far as attitudes despite only about 100 miles of distance from Miami. But there's a ton of building going on, and it looks like the number of things for tourists to do are increasing.

Ultimately, this vacation was a destination wedding trip. Our friends Seth and Gina had decided to get married at the Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort, and had invited only family and close friends. The friends contingent is a mix of people I've mentioned over the years in some form in my journal as the Boston-turned-Providence crew. Although a few members of the group have sinced moved to other states, everyone else lives in Providence now and is either an alum of Boston University, or the significant other who was brought into the circle. We've all known each other for at least nine years.

To make life easier, the friends contingent decided to stay at the same hotel- the Nassau Beach Hotel. It was located on Cable Beach on the north central region of New Providence island, named for the first underwater communications cable connecting Nassau to Miami. It's an older hotel, definitely dated in decor (it had a matching shell sink to the one in our house), and definitely worn around the edges. Apparently it used to be the swanky place when it was built in the late 60's, but it hasn't aged well. But for the obnoxiously cheap price, our room was clean and provided what it needed to- a place to sleep and a place to shower.

As the week went on, Nassau Beach was dubbed the Adventure Hotel by most of the members of our group of friends. Everyone had some sort of an issue-- although the one Erich and I had was hotel-wide (a broken hot water main). Between obscene waits for check-in, missing towels, and a few room switches due to absolutely gross conditions, it was... an interesting stay. Not a place I'd recommend, even if the beach was fantastic. From what I've heard, though, the hotel is going to be torn down sometime in the next year along with all of the other hotels in that strip to start work on a new huge multi-hotel resort to compete with Atlantis. (more on that place later...)

Erich and I were the first of the crew to arrive, having decided to do a Friday to Thursday trip. We arrived in Nassau around three, got through customs with no trouble at all, and went straight to the hotel. Because we arrived late enough, we didn't have much trouble checking in (although it took a while for them to find keys). We dropped our bags and immediately sought food, thanks to the stupid airline policies these days where if its a three or less hour flight, they don't provide anything. With only thirty minute connections, we hadn't eaten yet that day.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that we didn't need to exchange our currency. Bahamians use their own currency and U.S. currency interchangeably. One US dollar = one Bahamian dollar. That helped tremendously.

We grabbed conch fritters (a local favorite... they taste like fishy hushpuppies) and burgers, our first alcoholic fruity drinks, and then went back to the room for a nap. In the evening, we went out for a swim in the man-made lagoon, where a small ray came swimming right up to us.

The next morning, we got up fairly early and decided to do a bit of area scoping while we waited for the others to start arriving. Rather than take a taxi, we took the local bus (they call it a jitney) downtown-- the trip only took about 10 minutes, and cost a buck.

Almost immediately, we found a little mom-n-pop style breakfast cafe, which would prove to be our cheapest meals on the island. Erich went traditional with his food. I tried, and loved, one of the local favorites- corned beef and grits. The corned beef was chopped hash style, but mixed with tomatoes and onions, giving it almost a goulash type consistency. The grits were nice and thick with butter for flavor. Despite not growing up in the South, I did grow up with grits for breakfast in the instant Cream of Wheat variety. I'm picky- no soupy grits for me, thanks. Mixed with the corned beef, they were heaven.

After breakfast, we wandered downtown a while, looking at shops, popping into the duty free stores to check prices, grabbing hats and the toiletries I'd noticed we hadn't brought enough of to last the week, etc. By 10:30, it was already scorching hot and too uncomfortable to walk around. We headed back to the hotel to beach bum it the rest fo the day.

The ocean water was heavenly. Low to mid 80's in temperature- bath water. But compared to the sun's heat, it was still wonderfully refreshing. Over the course of the day, people arrived and filtered onto the beach.

As a group, we decided to spend the evening at the Junkanoo festival, which was a mini version of Carnival, just down the road from us. The parade was fantastic- just a moving blur of sound, dance, and color. Unfortunately, we found THE wrong place to get food-- it took forever (I think some people waited more than an hour after they'd ordered). But the company was good, and we kept drinking throughout the evening.

Sunday was the day of the Bachelor/-ette parties. We divided off early in the morning. The guys took a speedboat out to an island that apparently had a pack of wild boars on it (discussions of Lord of the Flies and the guys' survival abilities ensued later among the women), and the girls headed off to a more family-style excursion to Rose Island, where we spent the day beaching, swimming, and snorkeling.

My one regret on this trip is not having bought an underwater camera-- the snorkeling blew me away. Rose Island had a reef that was perhaps 50 feet from shore. The water was crystal clear, and the fish were amazing. I saw fish easily a foot across in colors that I couldn't believe existed in nature. At times, I was surrounded by schools of fish. I saw eels and jellyfish. One of the girls in our group saw a small shark. Rose Island was definitely a highlight of the trip. And I'm now hooked on snorkeling. Next vacation to somewhere warm? I'm buying my own to bring along.

That night, the festivities continued, but as time went on, many of us started dropping out from suntime exhaustion. By the end of the night, some of the girls had gone dancing. The guys had ended up in the casino near the hotel, teaching Erich to play blackjack at the ten dollar tables.

Monday was the day of the rehearsal dinner. In the morning, Seth and Gina had to attend to the legal paperwork for their marriage, so we were all on our own until dinner at 6. We all headed back downtown to go shopping at the Straw Market for souvies and such.

The Straw Market was fun. It's been around since after WWII, with numerous tight corridors packed high with just about everything. It reminded me of all of the middle eastern bazaars I always see on TV-- vendors sitting on chairs in front of their wares, trying to entice tourists to buy. Haggling is encouraged. Much of it is actually straw items-- hats, bags, fans, etc. But you can also find knockoff Coach and Kate Spade purses, t-shirts, sarongs, little wooden figurines, jewelry, and even Cuban cigars in there. I did get a bit claustrophobic-- with the exception of one, the rows were tighter than the average supermarket with walls that were ten feet high-- the vendors used poles to get higher stuff down. I walked away with a cute straw hat, two pretty batik sarongs for the beach, and a little Bahama style happy cat figurine for a total cost of $40.

After another ocean dip that day, we headed over to the rehearsal dinner at one of the all-inclusive resorts, Breezes. The food was very good-- a big family-style Italian meal (what IS it with Italian food for rehearsal dinners?). Afterwards some people headed back to the hotel. I stayed with a few of the others, managed to get myself extremely hammered, and had a blast on the dance floor until about 2 a.m., ignoring the fact that other than Gina's aunt, I was probably the oldest person out there. Since the legal age for drinking is 18 in the Bahamas, the nightclub was FULL of recent high school grads. One extremely drunk kid tried to pick me up, and his expression was priceless as I gave him a sarcastically sweet mile and tapped my engagement ring in time with the music.

Heh. It sent him running. Quick.

Anyway... I stumbled home with a couple others around 2. Erich was highly amused. In my now slightly sobering state, I realized that the girls had planned to head over to Sandals the next morning around 10 a.m., per Gina's request. I quickly wrote a note to one of the other girls and walked up to slide it under her door to let them know not to be concerned if I wasn't up on time.

But somehow, I was up-- and sans hangover - with plenty of time to spare the next morning. Some amusement at "who the hell is DrunkenMe(!)? was commented on-- my L wasn't clear at the end of my signature, apparently. In one big pack, we headed over to Sandals.

Now, Sandals is one of those super-exclusive, all-inclusive resorts. If you're not staying there, you can't go in. But as part of their wedding arrangement package, they added day passes for all of us to be able to enjoy the resort for the day (so that we didn't have to just come an hour before the wedding, and leave an hour after the reception ended). Once we were on the resort, purses and wallets went away-- all food, all drinks... everything was included.

And everyone took full advantage of that. :) Particularly with drinks. The drinks started flowing around 11 a.m. as everyone - except Gina, who was getting a massage on the dock - plunked into the pool and made full use of the bar-- that was in the pool (with underwater barstools).

Throughout the early afternoon, all of the girls filtered over to the resort spa for appointments that Gina had helped make. I got my first pedicure (which I loved and now will budget for each month). Afterward, we rushed to one of the empty rooms that Sandals ahd been kind enough to allow us to use to dress in. I was the last one in the shower, and wound up being THAT ONE who was late to the wedding.

As in-- Gina was already standing at the end of the aisle when I arrived with Toni and Jen. For the next several minutes, I was fighting back tears of anger and embarrassment. I'm one of those people who HATES to be late. And to a wedding? Yeah... *sigh* Add to that the fact that my hair was still sopping wet and I just felt completely disheveled and ugly... my mood was NOT good.

Thankfully, the ceremony started nearly immediately, and it helped me calm down for the most part. It was a lovely, simple ceremony, followed by a rip-roaring party. Everyone was dancing. Most people abandoned shoes for the floor. It was a great time. Seth and Gina had not chosen to do a first dance song. That, of course, simply would not stand with the group of characters in the Providence crew-- which happily surprised them with a special dedication... of "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye. (almost all of us were in tears from laughing.. including the newlyweds).

After the reception ended, Seth announced that the celebration would continue in the pool (which was celebrated by all of us-- now extremely hot and sticky from dancing so much). And virtually everyone from the reception (with the exception of the kids, who were not allowed to stay on the grounds because it's a couples-only resort) got in. It was heavenly. We stayed until around midnight, feasting on the romantic Midnight Buffet (which was entirely made of fruit and different styles of chocolate).

After that day, Erich and I agreed that some day, we're saving our money for a couples trip to one of those places. It was incredibly over the top in the Mount Olympus fantasy-style resort. But wonderfully romantic. :)

Wednesday was our last full day there, and we wanted to see the Atlantis resort (which everyone on the island was talking about). We managed to meet up with everyone in the early afternoon, headed over to the resort by a ferry boat (or... the adventure boat. This thing should NOT have been used as a water taxi. We were very thankful to get over in one piece, and decided we'd skip the return ride and just get a real taxi to get home). Atlatnis was again, over the top. Very elegant, very expensive (they have a suite that runs $25,000 a night!!), but fun. We grabbed lunch in the marina village before going into the resort itself. One of the highlights we'd heard about was the aquarium, but it had a $30 entrance fee, and we got mixed reviews from some of the people we'd talked to. We were pleasantly surprised to find a free trail through what was called "The Dig" - a pseudo-archaeological underwater site that had what was considered a smaller collection of fish. But all of us had a blast in there-- there were a bunch of different small display tanks, plus one ongoing portal-view of a huge tank with a variety of different fish. The photo of the manta ray is from that uber-tank. Erich took a ton of photos from the free walkthrough. All of us were impressed and satisfied with The Dig, so we didn't even bother going into the pay aquarium.

The casino tables required a bit too high of a minimum bet for our tastes, so we stopped by the casino bar for a round of very yummy frozen drinks before heading back to our hotel. All in all, we thought Atlantis was quite nifty, but other than the free aquarium, a bit over-rated for the obscene nightly price they asked for rooms (I think the cheapest is around $400 a night-- and not all-inclusive like Sandals was).

We spent the evening low-keying it between the hotel and the casino. Erich again played some blackjack. I had some fun at the slots. I didn't win anything, but had fun being silly with playing one credit per game on the penny slots, and trying my luck at a quarter machine where I'd nearly broke even a couple nights before. An elderly British woman at the machine next to me won over $2,000 on a quarter machine pull.

As the evening went on, the group slowly filtered to bed-- and we said our goodbyes. We finally wrapped things up around midnight, knowing we had to get up and pack to leave the next day.

Our travel back was relatively smooth-- customs was a pain in the ass with about four layers of checking and rechecking before we got on the plane. Our connection was extremely tight in Charlotte, but we made our plane. But by 6 p.m. on Thursday, we were home. Our bags, not having made the connecting flight, arrived home around midnight.

All in all, we had a blast. We're broke, but now know to better prepare for a Carribean trip with additional savings beforehand. It was a needed week off, and we made some wonderful new memories, both as a couple and as the larger group of friends.