Evening Day 4/Daytime Day 5
The headings for these entries are getting more and more complicated. Also, the internet on the ship is so ungodly slow. I realize it's a lot to ask for fast internet in the middle of the ocean, but this is worse than dialup. Oh well. Typing in a Livejournal form doesn't require any page loading, at least.
So, last night. Dinner was very nice. It was Italian night, so after the dinner, all of the waitstaff got together and sang to us in Italian. This ship has a shitload of waiters. It's a giant three floor dining room, and I think each waiter has, at most, three or four tables. It was neat when they sang, though, because they were all arranged going up the three flights of the grand staircase at the front of the dining room.
After dinner I went up on the deck (which I keep referring to as the roof-top, because it's so high up), and read and watched the ship pull away from Aruba. It's hard to believe that was only yesterday. It seems so long ago because I've done so much. I have this theory that you can't really fall in love with a city until you've seen it a night. I wasn't overly impressed with Aruba, but seeing it from up high, at night, it looked gorgeous.
At 8:45pm I had a massage, which was great. But I think I'm going to get another one. The one I signed up for was a soothing, hot rock massage, which was awesome, but what I need is a deep tissue massage for my shoulders and neck. For some reason, I've always held all of my tension there, and when I'm on vacation, that area tends to get really sore after a few days, to the point where it just kinda never stops hurting. Like this constant muscle cramp. Cuz I'm sure you're so interested in that. Anyways, yes, massage.
Once that was done I headed downstairs to play Bingo. I hadn't seen my parents since dinner, but I knew where they'd be: the casino. I wandered down there, as I had a little time to kill, and found both of them, on opposite sides of the casino. They crack me up, because the way they gamble reflects each of their personalities so well. My mom likes to play the cheapie machines - the one cent or sometimes the nickle machines, and just play for as long as she can because she enjoys it. My dad enjoys it too, but he always plays at least the dollar machines, and somtimes the five dollar machines - he's in it to win it. I enjoy playing both ways, and I've discovered it's fun to start small, play up your money a little if you can, and then risk some of it on the bigger machines.
Anyways. So I got my mom to come to Bingo with me. But she ended up annoyed again because of course we didn't win, and we had the same announcer, who my mom still hated. It was kinda funny. It was over fast, though, because it was a one game, $500 prize thing. Bingo on the ship, in case I haven't mentioned this before, is played in the big theater called The Lyric, and last night after Bingo (which was at 10PM), they had a "game show" called Love and Marriage, in which they had 3 married couples come up on stage and essentially play The Newlywed game. For those of you who don't watch Game Show Network, the Newlywed Game is a question and answer show, in which the host asks both members of the couple questions about their spouse, and they have to see if their answers match up. The results can be hilarious. And they pretty much were last night. The funniest was the older couple, who had been married for 58(!) years. The old guy didn't really get what a lot of the questions were asking, because they were sort of veiled dirty questions (example: "Your husband has just gotten out the the shower and is standing naked before you. You look down. How would you describe your husband: A stretch limo, a dump truck, or a little pink Volkswagon with two flat tires?") Anyhow, this older guy was a great mix of amusingly confused and really charming, which I find that many men in their 80s are. Oh, I forgot to mention that my dad and Julie joined me for this, and also for what followed, which was a short sketch that some of the crew on the boat did called "Fountains." That was particularly amusing, because they kept saying it was the "world premeire" of the show, and that they had been rehearsing for weeks and weeks - the whole thing just sounded a bit suspicious to me. It ended up being several of the crew members dressed in Greecian robes, filling their mouths with water and spitting it either at each other, or in fountain formations. It was quite funny.
After the entertainment for the night was over, there was a late night buffet up on deck which Julie and I attended. The highlight of that was that I actually got a Pina Colada in a pineapple. It was awesome.
An interesting aside - they do turndown service in the state rooms, and the guy who does ours always makes animals out of towels (quite odd) and then puts the mints on the towel. The first time it was a swan, and then last night, we got a bat, which he hung on a hanger, and hung from the ceiling. It was pretty awesome. We took pictures with it. My parents apparently got an elephant, but we didn't get to see that.
Although we got to bed pretty late last night, we had to be up really early today, because we were going on a tour at 8:30am of the island we arrived at today, Curacao (it's pronounces coo-rah-sow, with a little bit of a roll of the r if you want to really say it the way they do on the island). I was pretty exhausted, but I made it.
The tour was a bus tour with several stops around the island. All of the islands we are going to on this cruise (the two we have yet to go to are St. Maarin and St. Thomas) are part of the Dutch Antilles (sp?), although techinally Aruba isn't anymore, but they're still owned by the Netherlands. Anyhow, it makes for a really interesting compotsition on the island, both of people are architechture. The buildings on Curacao are very dutch looking, but they're all painted in very bright, tropical colors. The tour guide told us that the language they speak on the island (I can't remember what it's called) is a mixture of Dutch, Spanish, French, some Africa dialects, and a few other things I can't even remember. She said that there are 109 nationalities on that island. And there are only 130,000 people living there! You might be able to tell already, but I was quite charmed by this place.
The first stop we made was at a museum. There isn't a lot to tell about that place, except that they had this awesome instrument where you push these handles inside, and it makes bells go on the roof. It looks like a giant loom. It's crazy. We did a lot of driving around the island, and a lot of the island's people seemed to live in shacks with tin roofs. It was pretty incredible. I don't know whether they are very poor, or if that's just the way they build things, or what. I have such a mixture of fascination and guilt when I go to these places, because I feel like these tourists come in and feed on the local things like locusts. And even though tourists bring a lot of money to these islands, it never seems like the actual people who live there have all that much money. Then again, maybe the culture is just different. Anyhow, the architecture was a mix of the dutch type building, but they had these very Carribean touches, which was neat.
The second stop on the tour was a series of caves. They are coral caves, because they used to be at the bottom of the ocean, but when volcanic eruptions created the island, it pushed these caves way up high on the island. The caves were absolutely amazing. I've never actually been inside a bit series of caves before, but these were beatiful. They are "living caves" which means that they are still forming stalagtites and stalagmites. Also, there were little fruit bats living in the caves, which totally freaked my mom out, but I thought it was awesome. The only bad thing was that, instead of being cool, it was even hotter in the caves than it was outside. They said that the humidity in there was around 90 or 95%. Very still and very hot. But the pictures from in there are amazing.
As we drove around, we saw some of the other things that were unusual about the island. First of all, the island has salt flats, which I found strange. The only other place I've ever heard of those is in Utah. Living in those salt flats are wild flamingos. Seeing that was one of the trippiest parts of the whole tour. Zoo animals in their native habitat! I get excited about weird things, I know. Also, the island is covered in Cacti. I guess this is because it is so hot, and they don't really get much rain. I think the woman said that in thier rainy season, which is from October to February, they usually get 2 inches of rain. But Cacti on a tropical island? Not what you'd expect. Also, they have this giant bridge that is floating. It's set on these huge pontoons, and so they can float it out of the way to let boats through on their waterway. It is only a footbridge, and we walked across it after the tour. They also have a huge, really high bridge that is tall enough to let boats as large as the one I'm on now go through. That's really friggin big, by the way. We went over it, and I think that the tour guide said that we were 200ft in the air. Oh, and one of the local delicacies is iguana soup, which I really wanted to try, but we didn't go to a place that served it. Apparently it tastes like chicken. What a surprise.
The last stop on the tour was at a local factory where they make this liquor that they'r famous for. If I remember the story correctly, when some Venezualans (Venazuala is not very far from Curacao) came over to the island, they brought these orange trees, but the oranges turned out really bad, and bitter, and it would give you blisters around your mouth when you ate them, so they somehow decided to take the peels, and boil them fo a really long time, and then distil them somehow, and they got this liquor from it, which is only found on this island, out of the whole world. It was pretty good, too. I guess they have a hard time digging and also growing things on the island, because it's made of volcanic rock. Because they also had these little apples that are all over the place that are poisonous, and you can't even touch them, because they will give you a rash and blisters all over your skin. I dubbed them "evil apples", although I think "Snow White Apples" would have been appropriate too.
So, that was our last stop, and afterward we went shopping for a little while, though everyone was really tired, because it was already past noon, and no one had slept all that much, and it was HOT HOT HOT.
Oh, speaking of Hot Hot Hot, I have a funny story about that song. My sister got a random text message the night we were in Puerto Rico, saying "they're going to try and make you dance to Hot Hot Hot. Don't do it!" She didn't even know who it was from. So, the night we got on the boat, we went up to the deck to watch the ship cast off, and guess what the first song we heard the band up there playing was? Yep. They must have a pretty limited repretiore, too, because when we went up there last night, they played it, and several other cheesy songs that we heard that first night, again. Ah well, it is a cruise. Everything is a little bit cheesy.
So, the shoping wasn't all that exciting, because after we ate lunch, I only went in like two stores because I was so tired. But, I did get a new digital camera, because it seemed like they were selling it for pretty cheap. Time will tell if a) I actually got a good deal, and b) the camera works ok. It was factory sealed, so it should at least do the latter of the two.
Being on Curacao was fun, I really liked that island, but I'm not going to lie, I was pretty happy to get back to the boat, and even more happy to nap until dinner.
That's about it. I did go to dinner, and it was good as always, and now I have to run down to deck 4 (I'm on deck 8 in the internet cafe) to go meet my family to see a show. They're doing an homage to Vegas Divas. I'm saying this for about the 100th time since I've been on this boat, but, "are you sure we're not on a gay cruise?"
So, last night. Dinner was very nice. It was Italian night, so after the dinner, all of the waitstaff got together and sang to us in Italian. This ship has a shitload of waiters. It's a giant three floor dining room, and I think each waiter has, at most, three or four tables. It was neat when they sang, though, because they were all arranged going up the three flights of the grand staircase at the front of the dining room.
After dinner I went up on the deck (which I keep referring to as the roof-top, because it's so high up), and read and watched the ship pull away from Aruba. It's hard to believe that was only yesterday. It seems so long ago because I've done so much. I have this theory that you can't really fall in love with a city until you've seen it a night. I wasn't overly impressed with Aruba, but seeing it from up high, at night, it looked gorgeous.
At 8:45pm I had a massage, which was great. But I think I'm going to get another one. The one I signed up for was a soothing, hot rock massage, which was awesome, but what I need is a deep tissue massage for my shoulders and neck. For some reason, I've always held all of my tension there, and when I'm on vacation, that area tends to get really sore after a few days, to the point where it just kinda never stops hurting. Like this constant muscle cramp. Cuz I'm sure you're so interested in that. Anyways, yes, massage.
Once that was done I headed downstairs to play Bingo. I hadn't seen my parents since dinner, but I knew where they'd be: the casino. I wandered down there, as I had a little time to kill, and found both of them, on opposite sides of the casino. They crack me up, because the way they gamble reflects each of their personalities so well. My mom likes to play the cheapie machines - the one cent or sometimes the nickle machines, and just play for as long as she can because she enjoys it. My dad enjoys it too, but he always plays at least the dollar machines, and somtimes the five dollar machines - he's in it to win it. I enjoy playing both ways, and I've discovered it's fun to start small, play up your money a little if you can, and then risk some of it on the bigger machines.
Anyways. So I got my mom to come to Bingo with me. But she ended up annoyed again because of course we didn't win, and we had the same announcer, who my mom still hated. It was kinda funny. It was over fast, though, because it was a one game, $500 prize thing. Bingo on the ship, in case I haven't mentioned this before, is played in the big theater called The Lyric, and last night after Bingo (which was at 10PM), they had a "game show" called Love and Marriage, in which they had 3 married couples come up on stage and essentially play The Newlywed game. For those of you who don't watch Game Show Network, the Newlywed Game is a question and answer show, in which the host asks both members of the couple questions about their spouse, and they have to see if their answers match up. The results can be hilarious. And they pretty much were last night. The funniest was the older couple, who had been married for 58(!) years. The old guy didn't really get what a lot of the questions were asking, because they were sort of veiled dirty questions (example: "Your husband has just gotten out the the shower and is standing naked before you. You look down. How would you describe your husband: A stretch limo, a dump truck, or a little pink Volkswagon with two flat tires?") Anyhow, this older guy was a great mix of amusingly confused and really charming, which I find that many men in their 80s are. Oh, I forgot to mention that my dad and Julie joined me for this, and also for what followed, which was a short sketch that some of the crew on the boat did called "Fountains." That was particularly amusing, because they kept saying it was the "world premeire" of the show, and that they had been rehearsing for weeks and weeks - the whole thing just sounded a bit suspicious to me. It ended up being several of the crew members dressed in Greecian robes, filling their mouths with water and spitting it either at each other, or in fountain formations. It was quite funny.
After the entertainment for the night was over, there was a late night buffet up on deck which Julie and I attended. The highlight of that was that I actually got a Pina Colada in a pineapple. It was awesome.
An interesting aside - they do turndown service in the state rooms, and the guy who does ours always makes animals out of towels (quite odd) and then puts the mints on the towel. The first time it was a swan, and then last night, we got a bat, which he hung on a hanger, and hung from the ceiling. It was pretty awesome. We took pictures with it. My parents apparently got an elephant, but we didn't get to see that.
Although we got to bed pretty late last night, we had to be up really early today, because we were going on a tour at 8:30am of the island we arrived at today, Curacao (it's pronounces coo-rah-sow, with a little bit of a roll of the r if you want to really say it the way they do on the island). I was pretty exhausted, but I made it.
The tour was a bus tour with several stops around the island. All of the islands we are going to on this cruise (the two we have yet to go to are St. Maarin and St. Thomas) are part of the Dutch Antilles (sp?), although techinally Aruba isn't anymore, but they're still owned by the Netherlands. Anyhow, it makes for a really interesting compotsition on the island, both of people are architechture. The buildings on Curacao are very dutch looking, but they're all painted in very bright, tropical colors. The tour guide told us that the language they speak on the island (I can't remember what it's called) is a mixture of Dutch, Spanish, French, some Africa dialects, and a few other things I can't even remember. She said that there are 109 nationalities on that island. And there are only 130,000 people living there! You might be able to tell already, but I was quite charmed by this place.
The first stop we made was at a museum. There isn't a lot to tell about that place, except that they had this awesome instrument where you push these handles inside, and it makes bells go on the roof. It looks like a giant loom. It's crazy. We did a lot of driving around the island, and a lot of the island's people seemed to live in shacks with tin roofs. It was pretty incredible. I don't know whether they are very poor, or if that's just the way they build things, or what. I have such a mixture of fascination and guilt when I go to these places, because I feel like these tourists come in and feed on the local things like locusts. And even though tourists bring a lot of money to these islands, it never seems like the actual people who live there have all that much money. Then again, maybe the culture is just different. Anyhow, the architecture was a mix of the dutch type building, but they had these very Carribean touches, which was neat.
The second stop on the tour was a series of caves. They are coral caves, because they used to be at the bottom of the ocean, but when volcanic eruptions created the island, it pushed these caves way up high on the island. The caves were absolutely amazing. I've never actually been inside a bit series of caves before, but these were beatiful. They are "living caves" which means that they are still forming stalagtites and stalagmites. Also, there were little fruit bats living in the caves, which totally freaked my mom out, but I thought it was awesome. The only bad thing was that, instead of being cool, it was even hotter in the caves than it was outside. They said that the humidity in there was around 90 or 95%. Very still and very hot. But the pictures from in there are amazing.
As we drove around, we saw some of the other things that were unusual about the island. First of all, the island has salt flats, which I found strange. The only other place I've ever heard of those is in Utah. Living in those salt flats are wild flamingos. Seeing that was one of the trippiest parts of the whole tour. Zoo animals in their native habitat! I get excited about weird things, I know. Also, the island is covered in Cacti. I guess this is because it is so hot, and they don't really get much rain. I think the woman said that in thier rainy season, which is from October to February, they usually get 2 inches of rain. But Cacti on a tropical island? Not what you'd expect. Also, they have this giant bridge that is floating. It's set on these huge pontoons, and so they can float it out of the way to let boats through on their waterway. It is only a footbridge, and we walked across it after the tour. They also have a huge, really high bridge that is tall enough to let boats as large as the one I'm on now go through. That's really friggin big, by the way. We went over it, and I think that the tour guide said that we were 200ft in the air. Oh, and one of the local delicacies is iguana soup, which I really wanted to try, but we didn't go to a place that served it. Apparently it tastes like chicken. What a surprise.
The last stop on the tour was at a local factory where they make this liquor that they'r famous for. If I remember the story correctly, when some Venezualans (Venazuala is not very far from Curacao) came over to the island, they brought these orange trees, but the oranges turned out really bad, and bitter, and it would give you blisters around your mouth when you ate them, so they somehow decided to take the peels, and boil them fo a really long time, and then distil them somehow, and they got this liquor from it, which is only found on this island, out of the whole world. It was pretty good, too. I guess they have a hard time digging and also growing things on the island, because it's made of volcanic rock. Because they also had these little apples that are all over the place that are poisonous, and you can't even touch them, because they will give you a rash and blisters all over your skin. I dubbed them "evil apples", although I think "Snow White Apples" would have been appropriate too.
So, that was our last stop, and afterward we went shopping for a little while, though everyone was really tired, because it was already past noon, and no one had slept all that much, and it was HOT HOT HOT.
Oh, speaking of Hot Hot Hot, I have a funny story about that song. My sister got a random text message the night we were in Puerto Rico, saying "they're going to try and make you dance to Hot Hot Hot. Don't do it!" She didn't even know who it was from. So, the night we got on the boat, we went up to the deck to watch the ship cast off, and guess what the first song we heard the band up there playing was? Yep. They must have a pretty limited repretiore, too, because when we went up there last night, they played it, and several other cheesy songs that we heard that first night, again. Ah well, it is a cruise. Everything is a little bit cheesy.
So, the shoping wasn't all that exciting, because after we ate lunch, I only went in like two stores because I was so tired. But, I did get a new digital camera, because it seemed like they were selling it for pretty cheap. Time will tell if a) I actually got a good deal, and b) the camera works ok. It was factory sealed, so it should at least do the latter of the two.
Being on Curacao was fun, I really liked that island, but I'm not going to lie, I was pretty happy to get back to the boat, and even more happy to nap until dinner.
That's about it. I did go to dinner, and it was good as always, and now I have to run down to deck 4 (I'm on deck 8 in the internet cafe) to go meet my family to see a show. They're doing an homage to Vegas Divas. I'm saying this for about the 100th time since I've been on this boat, but, "are you sure we're not on a gay cruise?"