Day Six Night/Day Seven/Day Eight
Well, I'm back in Puerto Rico now. It was sad to leave the ship, but it's also kinda nice to be back on land.
We had to get up super early to get off the ship. Like, genuinely early. I got up around 7:20 am, because we had to be out of our state rooms by 8am. We went up to eat breakfast, and before we were even done, our number got called to disembark, which was nice. So we were off of the ship and at our hotel by 10am. At which point I went to sleep for several hours.
Yesterday was my mom's birthday, and also our day on St. Thomas. It's a very beautiful island. I feel like I've described each island that way, but really, they're all just beautiful, and for a large part they look a bit similar, though each has its own culture and peculiarities. For St. Thomas we had to actually go through customs, because we were re-entering the US. The customs officer actually gave me attitude, because, well, first off, I don't have a passport at this moment. But that's ok, because as long as you have one ordered, you're supposed to be able to show your birth certificate and a passport tracking number which shows you've got one coming, and that suffices. But the customs guy looked at my birth certificate and said "you can get this paper at Office Max." I'm like, oh, sorry that the hospital in California where I was born in 1984 had paper that was too common. My bad. I wish American police officers weren't such dicks.
So, anyhow, we got off the boat finally, and went on a tour around 9:30am. We were in this open air bus, which means it's just kinda railing on one side. It was nice, especially because it kept us cool, but man, speeding up those hills and mountains, with only a railing between you and a huge drop-off can be a little unnerving. The tour was nice, because we just had a few stops for photo shoots, and little souvenir shops, and then the rest of the time we were just driving around, and hearing about the island. St. Thomas is very hilly, and basically all the houses are built on the hills, so they look tiny from the front, but then you look at them from the side, and you see that they are 3 stories high. It's also the most expensive island to live on of all of those that we visited.
Apparently St. Thomas started as a big pirate place, and then slowly was exchanged between countries, until America bought it for like 25 million. You can definitely tell that you're on an American Island, too. The tours make sure not to take you through much of the actual locally populated areas. They don't want you seeing anything that doesn't look pretty. There are lots of American fast food chains on the island, though, too. Everything is expensive, everything is about money, buying and selling. As you might be able to tell, it wasn't my favorite place. It just seemed so commercialized to me.
After the tour we went shopping (speaking of commercialization). St. Thomas is supposed to be the best island in the Caribbean for shopping, especially if you want jewelry or watches for cheap. Which I didn't. Seriously, there is a street that is nothing, NOTHING but jewelry shops. There are at least 50 on this one street, if not more. Julie and I shopped for a little while, and I bought sunglasses and souvenirs, but we were both hot and I think just kinda worn out from the trip in general, so we headed back to the ship around 3pm.
I went to sleep for a while. Till dinner really. My mom was sad at dinner, and we weren't really sure why. It was upsetting, because of course it was her birthday, and you certainly don't want someone sad on their birthday. We suspected that it might have been because we didn't have presents for her, though the only reason we didn't was because she said she didn't want us buying her stuff she didn't want just to give her something. But, anyhow, we felt bad. Also, she had seen a necklace she really liked on another island, and didn't get it, and then they looked for it on St. Thomas, and couldn't find it. They found things from the same jewelry designer, and even pieces from the same line, but they couldn't find the exact piece, so I think that frustrated her as well. So, dinner was a little bit tense at first, but we tried extra hard to make her happy, and after dinner I wrote her a note, and got her this sweater that she liked. It wasn't much, but I think it helped a little. I also worked on repacking a little. I had done the bulk of my packing the night before, so I just needed to re-arrange things a little to make sure everything made it in.
The thing is, while I stayed in the room to get things packed, Julie, who hadn't started packing at all, went out ostensibly just to get a drink. So I stayed in the room and watched Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, and filled out forms, and it got later and later. And Julie didn't come back. And our luggage had to be outside of the room by midnight. And still it got later. Finally, at 11:30pm, I was getting pretty nervous, because it isn't like her to disappear, or to wait till the last minute to get things done. So, i decided to go look for her. Not an easy task, considering this whole big ship I needed to search. Finally, after running around for 20 minutes, getting more and more nervous and convinced that something had happened to her, I found her in a bar outside the casino, drunk and talking to a bunch of older people. Needless to say, I was a little pissed. So, she came back to the room, and ended up having to pack in 10 minutes to get her stuff out of the room by midnight. But after that we settled in and got room service (which is also included in our package, we discovered) and finally, as we were about to go to sleep, my parents showed up.
They wanted to come in. They wanted to show us something. We had actually already turned the lights out for the night, but they had us turn them back on, and my dad went over into a corner, saying he wanted us to see something. He said we wouldn't have seen something like this before. By this time I was getting a bit nervous, because they were acting very cryptic about the whole thing. And then he turns around, and he's holding a STACK of money. Like, this is more money than I've ever seen in one place in cash. He had won a huge jackpot. HUGE. I won't say how much, but it was more than enough to cover what they had gambled away on the trip, which was quite a darn bit. It was a pretty cool way to end the stay on the boat.
The only other thing there really is to tell is the show that I went to on the sixth night, the one where they did songs from movies. It was actually better than the Vegas show, though it was also very very cheesy at times too. I took some videos during it, though, so when I do my picture post (possibly later tonight), I'll include those too. That night I just went back to the room and packed, as I've said, and Julie was sleeping. She fell asleep around 9pm, and slept until 8am the next day. She was real, real tired because she had done the snorkeling that day, and before that she had done this tree-top obstacle course.
Anyhow, so that was the cruise. We also got a Cruise in Review DVD, if anyone is interested in seeing it (which probably no one will be, haha). We haven't even watched it yet, so I don't know if we're on it at all. I really enjoyed this vacation, much more than I thought I would (which was, as you can tell by my earlier posts, not at all), and I would totally go on another cruise. Actually, we're already talking about going on an Alaskan cruise sometime.
Tonight, when we were taking a Taxi to dinner, we saw our ship sitting in the harbor, all lit up and ready to take off with its next group of passengers. It was pretty sad to see. The same way I felt about leaving camp, or even a good class in college. You move on, everything else just keeps going, over and over.
Well, anyhow, we're in Puerto Rico now, as I've said, and it's nice, though I never really had any desire to come to this island, and I don't know that I'll miss it when I'm gone. It's pretty, but I don't understand the native language, which frustrates me even though most people speak English. But the view out of our hotel room is gorgeous, and we're going to go shopping and possibly boogey boarding tomorrow, which should be cool. It's also nice to be back to having high speed internet and normal TV. Those are the things that comfort me, and make me feel not quite so much like a stranger in a strange land. Though, of course, getting away from them for a while is always a good thing.
Pictures to follow quite soon!
We had to get up super early to get off the ship. Like, genuinely early. I got up around 7:20 am, because we had to be out of our state rooms by 8am. We went up to eat breakfast, and before we were even done, our number got called to disembark, which was nice. So we were off of the ship and at our hotel by 10am. At which point I went to sleep for several hours.
Yesterday was my mom's birthday, and also our day on St. Thomas. It's a very beautiful island. I feel like I've described each island that way, but really, they're all just beautiful, and for a large part they look a bit similar, though each has its own culture and peculiarities. For St. Thomas we had to actually go through customs, because we were re-entering the US. The customs officer actually gave me attitude, because, well, first off, I don't have a passport at this moment. But that's ok, because as long as you have one ordered, you're supposed to be able to show your birth certificate and a passport tracking number which shows you've got one coming, and that suffices. But the customs guy looked at my birth certificate and said "you can get this paper at Office Max." I'm like, oh, sorry that the hospital in California where I was born in 1984 had paper that was too common. My bad. I wish American police officers weren't such dicks.
So, anyhow, we got off the boat finally, and went on a tour around 9:30am. We were in this open air bus, which means it's just kinda railing on one side. It was nice, especially because it kept us cool, but man, speeding up those hills and mountains, with only a railing between you and a huge drop-off can be a little unnerving. The tour was nice, because we just had a few stops for photo shoots, and little souvenir shops, and then the rest of the time we were just driving around, and hearing about the island. St. Thomas is very hilly, and basically all the houses are built on the hills, so they look tiny from the front, but then you look at them from the side, and you see that they are 3 stories high. It's also the most expensive island to live on of all of those that we visited.
Apparently St. Thomas started as a big pirate place, and then slowly was exchanged between countries, until America bought it for like 25 million. You can definitely tell that you're on an American Island, too. The tours make sure not to take you through much of the actual locally populated areas. They don't want you seeing anything that doesn't look pretty. There are lots of American fast food chains on the island, though, too. Everything is expensive, everything is about money, buying and selling. As you might be able to tell, it wasn't my favorite place. It just seemed so commercialized to me.
After the tour we went shopping (speaking of commercialization). St. Thomas is supposed to be the best island in the Caribbean for shopping, especially if you want jewelry or watches for cheap. Which I didn't. Seriously, there is a street that is nothing, NOTHING but jewelry shops. There are at least 50 on this one street, if not more. Julie and I shopped for a little while, and I bought sunglasses and souvenirs, but we were both hot and I think just kinda worn out from the trip in general, so we headed back to the ship around 3pm.
I went to sleep for a while. Till dinner really. My mom was sad at dinner, and we weren't really sure why. It was upsetting, because of course it was her birthday, and you certainly don't want someone sad on their birthday. We suspected that it might have been because we didn't have presents for her, though the only reason we didn't was because she said she didn't want us buying her stuff she didn't want just to give her something. But, anyhow, we felt bad. Also, she had seen a necklace she really liked on another island, and didn't get it, and then they looked for it on St. Thomas, and couldn't find it. They found things from the same jewelry designer, and even pieces from the same line, but they couldn't find the exact piece, so I think that frustrated her as well. So, dinner was a little bit tense at first, but we tried extra hard to make her happy, and after dinner I wrote her a note, and got her this sweater that she liked. It wasn't much, but I think it helped a little. I also worked on repacking a little. I had done the bulk of my packing the night before, so I just needed to re-arrange things a little to make sure everything made it in.
The thing is, while I stayed in the room to get things packed, Julie, who hadn't started packing at all, went out ostensibly just to get a drink. So I stayed in the room and watched Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, and filled out forms, and it got later and later. And Julie didn't come back. And our luggage had to be outside of the room by midnight. And still it got later. Finally, at 11:30pm, I was getting pretty nervous, because it isn't like her to disappear, or to wait till the last minute to get things done. So, i decided to go look for her. Not an easy task, considering this whole big ship I needed to search. Finally, after running around for 20 minutes, getting more and more nervous and convinced that something had happened to her, I found her in a bar outside the casino, drunk and talking to a bunch of older people. Needless to say, I was a little pissed. So, she came back to the room, and ended up having to pack in 10 minutes to get her stuff out of the room by midnight. But after that we settled in and got room service (which is also included in our package, we discovered) and finally, as we were about to go to sleep, my parents showed up.
They wanted to come in. They wanted to show us something. We had actually already turned the lights out for the night, but they had us turn them back on, and my dad went over into a corner, saying he wanted us to see something. He said we wouldn't have seen something like this before. By this time I was getting a bit nervous, because they were acting very cryptic about the whole thing. And then he turns around, and he's holding a STACK of money. Like, this is more money than I've ever seen in one place in cash. He had won a huge jackpot. HUGE. I won't say how much, but it was more than enough to cover what they had gambled away on the trip, which was quite a darn bit. It was a pretty cool way to end the stay on the boat.
The only other thing there really is to tell is the show that I went to on the sixth night, the one where they did songs from movies. It was actually better than the Vegas show, though it was also very very cheesy at times too. I took some videos during it, though, so when I do my picture post (possibly later tonight), I'll include those too. That night I just went back to the room and packed, as I've said, and Julie was sleeping. She fell asleep around 9pm, and slept until 8am the next day. She was real, real tired because she had done the snorkeling that day, and before that she had done this tree-top obstacle course.
Anyhow, so that was the cruise. We also got a Cruise in Review DVD, if anyone is interested in seeing it (which probably no one will be, haha). We haven't even watched it yet, so I don't know if we're on it at all. I really enjoyed this vacation, much more than I thought I would (which was, as you can tell by my earlier posts, not at all), and I would totally go on another cruise. Actually, we're already talking about going on an Alaskan cruise sometime.
Tonight, when we were taking a Taxi to dinner, we saw our ship sitting in the harbor, all lit up and ready to take off with its next group of passengers. It was pretty sad to see. The same way I felt about leaving camp, or even a good class in college. You move on, everything else just keeps going, over and over.
Well, anyhow, we're in Puerto Rico now, as I've said, and it's nice, though I never really had any desire to come to this island, and I don't know that I'll miss it when I'm gone. It's pretty, but I don't understand the native language, which frustrates me even though most people speak English. But the view out of our hotel room is gorgeous, and we're going to go shopping and possibly boogey boarding tomorrow, which should be cool. It's also nice to be back to having high speed internet and normal TV. Those are the things that comfort me, and make me feel not quite so much like a stranger in a strange land. Though, of course, getting away from them for a while is always a good thing.
Pictures to follow quite soon!