Back from the Island

Finally got home last night. It was a long day. I think our total travel time was about 15 hours. This included Airtran's ridiculous request for us to be to the airport 4 hours (4!) early because of the high traffic they have been having. Well that was completely unnecessary as we cruised though Aruba Customs, Security, US customs, Security, then sat and sat and sat as we waited. Flight was a bit bumpy, got to Orlando, their airport sucks. Very surprising since they would have high volume from Disney etc, none the less, 2 restaurants, one being burger king, the other being Outback, that is it. Small. 3 hour layover, napped a little on the next flight. Then as we waited for our bag, it never came out, we waited and waited, everyone else was gone. So I went and talked to the baggage dude, apparently they sent out bag to Atlanta for no particular reason, and put it on another flight to Indy, so we had to wait for it. Then a very tired and snowy 1 hour drive home.

None the less, it was all worth it. I have yet to dump the photos and just have the few from the blackberry right now, more will follow. But for a quick recap of our adventures.

We did the timeshare tour thing Sunday, to get it out of the way. It is optional, but you get a nice incentive at the end. They took longer then they needed to when we obviously weren't buying anything... I like how when they decided they were done trying to sell it us they instead tried to get Dave to buy a timeshare for us.....right.... but in the end we got a gift cert for $80 to a restaurant and Dave and Donna got one too.  So it was sort of worth it. Then finally out to the beach to play in the Caribbean Sea and lay on the beach

A lot of the other days are kind of a blur but Christina wrote down what we did each day. Lots of lounging on our beach and by our pool, as well as up at Boca Catalina which is an amazing little beach with snorkeling and a few huts for you to relax under. We went on a tour of the beer brewery there which was kind of cool, however when we ate lunch  few of my chicken fingers were still raw on the inside, so glad i didn't inadvertently eat those and it might be where Christina got a small amount of food poisoning... Went to Baby beach on the southern tip of the island which is kind of a manmade cove, calmer waters, shallow, and some snorkeling, nice.

One thing that was really cool was the second time to Boca, we saw a sea turtle, i have 2 bad photos of it as i chased him. My flipper kept on slipping off, and he was cruising. Very surprising to see one because there were a ton of snorkel boats there and a lot of people in the area, he was getting the heck out of there. I was trying to keep up but with the flipper, and the fact that i don't use a snorkel and just hold my breath, and being out of shape...he got away. Christina was the one that spotted him, so the last time we went 2 years ago we saw squid, and this year a turtle.

Part of Christina's x-mas present was Salsa dancing lessons. This was a lot of fun. Some how whenever i plan things that are supposed to be group events/rates etc we always end up the only ones, so instead we basically got private lessons. Sabine was a great teacher, very nice, and now we are going to have to get some music to practice with. We also went out to a Salsa club Wednesday night which was fun, it was out on a pier in the water.

We also took a sunset sail on a catamaran on Thursday night. I was a bit worried on how it would go because i research a bunch before we left and decided to just pick one when we got their. I have heard bad things about the "chain" companies that do it. Just bad experiences but Red Sail operates out of our resort so we tried them instead of a private boat like last time. It was great. Very friendly, the boat wasn't "too" packed with people. I only tripped once and almost hit Dave in the head because i got caught in the netting between the pontoons (don't know if that is what they are called). Lots of good drinks too. Very plentiful and free flowing. I know I had quite a few and was having a really good time before we got back to shore.

Adding on to that, anytime I went near the water I took ginger pills this time. 2 years ago I got seasick and didn't not want a reoccurance. So I was taking them most of the week, and it worked great. No side effects like pills or patches, and I think they really did help. Heck maybe it was just a placebo kind of effect, power of the mind, but I felt great.

Only downsides of the trip: Travel time, Possible slight food poisoning, sunburn (stupid me...), and a weird heat rash the last 2 days. 

I will put photos up later and maybe Christina will fill in the details on her favorite parts of the trips.

Here are the few shots I was smart enough to snap with the blackberry so i could post them online when we got a signal in the US. I've gotta download the rest later.