vacay diaries 1

Well sarah and kyle are running right now.  I’m on my Pullman bed.  For those of you who don’t know, that’s a bunk bed.  We woke up at 9am, so much for my idea of doing the sunrise stretch!  Oh well. 

So anyways our night in Miami—we got there after 11pm and checked into our riverpark hotel (kind of scungy) and then weren’t tired.  12am Miami is only 9pm Vancouver, so…  so I forgot to say that a little guy in a bright pink button up shirt (one button undone in themiddle) and a very tall guy in a polo shirt helped us at the front desk.  Little Hispanic pink shirt—I could hardly understand anything he said.  He was spry and energetic.  Tall black guy—he was quiet.  Anyways pinkshirt said it was Saturday and not time for bed.  He was right.  When we left the hotel we found ourselves in a deserted part of town, and not too good looking either.  We wandered around a bit and found a Columbian restaurant open, which we did not go eat at.  Then kyle asked a guy walking behind us where we should go.  He told us to cross the bridge and we would find a Mexican place open.  That’s what we did.  It was super humid out, and not cold but super windy.  I enjoyed the wind. 

It seemed like we walked forever and did not find anything.  I was giving up hope.  Then kyle asked another guy and he told is it was all just on the street behind and directed us to go through a garage to the 3^rd stair on the right.  I believe very firmly in the 3^rd stair.  Well as soon as we came out onto the next street there were people and lights and life.  And there was the Mexican restaurant.

It blew our minds.  Blew. Our. Minds.  We each ordered something and shared.  I got carnitas, which was three small tortillas with yummy shredded pork on them and then you added pico de gallo (YUMMIEST), guac, and some sauted veggies.  Delish.  We each had one.  Kyle got something that came in a stone bowl, which he is prone to do.  It had yummy steak bites, and Mexican sundry that you piled in a tortilla.  Sarah got the super nachos.  We realized too late how large a plate of super nachos would be in the united states of large helpings.  And it was massive.  And it was the most delicious thing ever.  And we ate and were satisfied beyond description.

The walk back to ghettoville was shorter than I thought.

We slept without incident.

The next day we got out of our rooms by 11 and went down to the lobby where there was wifi.  We all logged in to our various devices.  While there we met a couple on the next couch.  They were going on the same cruise as us.  Kyle wanted us to walk to the port, something sarah and I felt iffy about.  Well this couple said there was a shuttle going there that cost only 6 bucks each so we signed on too.  The couple was from cincinatti ohio, and I was surprised at that by their accent.  Anywho the shuttle was supposed to pick us up at 12pm.  And there we were, all waiting for it outside the hotel when up pulls a taxi van.  We’re all, yo.  We’re waitin on the SHUttle yo!  He’s all yo, I charge y’all 15 bucks totally yo, that’s a cheap deal yo!  We’re all sold yo!  So we all cram into this taxi van, us and the couple, and he crams our luggage in, in unbelievable ways.  Like sarah and I were sitting in the back and the floor was sarah and kyle’s suitcase.  Yo.  Also none of the seatbelts seemed to work.  Also if we had walked we’d be dragging our suitcases on the shoulder of the highway.  Good idea kyle.  Ya that lookout is only a 4 minute hike.  1 minute per kilometre. 

When we got to the port this friendly blackman who was a porter helped us with tagging our luggages.  So we didn’t understand most of what he said.  We stood there standing like dummies  with blank faces while he was giving us instructions, over and over and yet we did not know what to do.  Finally he slowly and gently gave us instructions and we finally understood.  Like I pride myself in being able to understand people, but I did not know that English that he was speaking.

We weren’t supposed to get to the port before 1pm but the place was hoppin’.  We got in line not far behind a guy carrying a flat of water.  Does this guy think there’s no water on the ship?  I felt it was super wiewd that he was bringing a flat of water and could not help dwelling on it.  so we wound around to a lady who took our pics, gave us our cards and a map of the ship and then we went up some stairs and showed our cards a couple of times to some more people and then we were ON BOARD.

Once on board we wanted to head to the lido deck which is deck 9.  We know the lido deck because the lido deck is the food deck.  And we hadn’t eaten one single morsle yet that day.  However there was a bit of a jam up of the elevators. It took a while to find one going up, but eventually we nabbed one and stepped out onto the lido deck.  There was music blaring and people were already in the pool and hot tubs with drinks in hand.  I was all, did those people come to the cruise in their swim suits??

The first place we saw to eat was the burger joint, and we all chose the ringer.  Then sarah and I topped ours with mushrooms, bacon and carmalized onion.  Kyle ate his pure.  Kyle went and got us lemonade.  The lemonade was so strong that after I took mine and sarah’s back and filled it half way with water, it was still too strong.  Strong eh?  I found a soft serve ice cream and frozen yogurt machine and helped myself.  Then when we were done we decided to give ourselves a tour of the boat.  So we dropped our carry on luggage off in our room and discovered one king size bed in it.   it looked as though we were going to have a cozy night.

Then using our little map we checked out everything from top to bottom.  By the time we were done my feet hurt and I was tired.  We rested.

At basically 4 we had to go to muster station c for our emergency blah blah blah.  That was a bit of a tortuous thing.   Waiting in line ups, in layers with everyone’s body heat glowing.  A little girl behind me threw up.  It was a big deal, her family left, a person came in to clean it up.  Sarah had no idea of any of it occurring. Lala land.  When that was all over we gladly left.

That’s when we donned our suits.  I picked out a tarty number for sarah from her plethora of suits.  I wore my black polka dotted two piece tankini with a skirt and a black sundress maxi cover-up. Sarah had a short poip sundress cover up. We rocked the boat with our awesomeness.  When we got on to the top deck we were already moving away from miamaiamiami.  We found a spot and peaked at the sights.  Then we lay on some beach chairs.  I had a book.   We soon moved because it was so windy and although I tucked my hair under me,  sarah couldn’t.

We found ourselves on the back of the boat on the lido deck.  We found ourselves dipping our feet in the pool, and then we found ourselves sitting on the edge and suddenly we found ourselves in the pool itself.  I took clicks.  It was fun.  So we checked out the hot tubs.  Met some girls.  Got out, had some pizza… sarah and I had the funghi and kyle had the proscioutto.  I dripped.  I dripped hard. 

Eventually we came back to our rooms to change for dinner.  Sarah was the only one who changed to be brutally honest.  When in our rooms we met neil.  Neil wasn’t waiting for us in our room or anything.  Neil was at the door. Neil is our stateroom steward.  Sarah and I talked to him.  He said he would have my Pullman bed down and we decided that between 6 and 7 would be a good time.  We asked him a few questions about room service and sundry. 

It’s time to talk about neil.  Sarah and I wanted to wax our bikini lines but we have no way of warming up our wax.  We were discussing what to do and I said we could ask neil to warm it up.  And then I said “oh neeeilll!” in a high pitched snooty old woman way that can’t quite be described, “please heat up this wax for me!”  which really hit our funny bone.  “oh neeeeiiillll!” has become a constant saying.  As I was going into the bathroom this morning to change I dropped my garment top “oh neeeiiillll!” I crooned “I dropped something!”  kyle was getting out of the shower and held my wax out of the door “oh neeeeiiil!” he called in a hilarious falsetto.  “be a dear and wax kyle’s back!” sing songed sarah and i.  every time we come up with a new “oh neeeiiil” we kill ourselves with our hilarity.

Our dining time is whenever we want and our room is the golden dining room.  Our servers were Arnold and Eduardo and both were from the philipines.  Kyle has a bond with them that will never die.  I was undecided as to what appy I wanted but kyle was getting one of my choices and so I went for the other one.  Kyle got a tomato gazpacho.  It was really good and refreshing.  Sarah got a very very measly guac and chip and salsa.  I got smolked salmon with one candied cherry tomato.  We all chose the prawns with sweet and sour sauce and garlic fried rice noodles.  Kyle got a second  entrée thanks to Eduardo.  Tilapia.  So so.  Sarah and I got crème brule’s.  sooooo good.  Kyle got black forest cake 7/10, says kyle.  Wait! Depends on whether I’m rating it out of deliciousness or, out of how good a black forest cake could ever be? He asks.  So here’s the run down.  9/10 for black forest cakes, and 7/10 for deliciousness. 

 Last night after dinner we watched a show in the amber theatre.  There were some super cheesey singers and dancers.  One guy particularly made us laugh.  All the girls had long single braids from the top of their heads and sparkly dresses.  All the guys had velour suits with wide open vests that revealed their chests.    When doing ‘the edge of glory’ some dancers spun the singers around on some bleachers.  Then came the opening show with the cruise director named josh who seems to want to be called the big sexy.  Josh asked people where they were from and what they were celebrating etc. 

When we left the amber theatre  we decided to go to the hot tub.  Sarah was reluctant at first because she didn’t want to be freezing cold right after she got out but then she realized the bathrobes would work for such a purpose. 

So we changed and went in the hot tub where we found a guy from California, san jose actually.  We found out later he was a marine.  After a while the girls we met in the hot tub earlier came and had some flirtin’ with the marine.  They didn’t remember us.     We thought they were a doobie group. 

When the hot tub closed we found ourselves on the lido again and bam! Snack foods.  Our favourite is the chicken tenders foccocia sandwich.  Yumzie.   Snacky snacky beddy beddy.