Spring Break 2008

We just got back from our Southern Carribean Cruise. We decided this year to celebrate Ben's (hopeful) graduation. It was expensive and foolish and we'll never regret it...it was so much fun. We went on a 7 night cruise with two of our couple friends from dental school, the Luffs and the Johnsons, from San Juan, Puerto Rico to St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts. I promise pictures will be coming. To add to the drama, when we left Columbus we were having a huge blizzard that they were calling the 'storm of the century.' More than 20 inches of snow fell overnight and there were seriously 4 foot snowdrifts all over. The Columbus airport was closed for 2 days..it was a giant mess. We went from winter wonderland to absolute tropical paradise. It was awesome. Here's the rundown of our cruise (in case you are interested).
First of all, we ate like crazy on the cruise. We tried tons of new food. Ben tried escargot (not too bad), lobster (not that good) and tons of seafood. I stuck with mostly foods I knew I liked but I tasted a lot of his stuff. We also had goat cheese pizza and other things from the buffet line, and ice cream whenever we wanted. Oddly there were almost no Americans working on the cruise ship. The boat rocked, but neither of us really ever got sick. Oh yeah, the cruise ship was HUGE! I don't know how that big old thing even floats. They also have lots of things to do on the ship, Ben even got up and sang La Bamba at a karaoke bar one of the nights. It was so funny.

We left from Puerto Rico at night. We were so excited and they had a big party on the ship with tons of salsa and line dancing. I was surprised that even Ben was getting into it. We woke up the next morning staring at the harbor in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. It was breathtaking, just like something you would see on a postcard. Aqua blue water, dozens of little sailboats and yachts anchored in the harbor, big old houses on the hill overlooking everything...amazing. Ben thinks he wants to live there now. We took a tour of the island and then went to a beautiful beach and hung out. First sunburns of the trip.

Second day was Dominica. It looked like something straight out of Jurassic Park. Huge lush mountains with rainforests and tons of rivers. The streets were so steep and narrow. We hiked up to some waterfalls and swam in some of the pools. We drove around the island and Ben swam in the alleged 'fountain of youth', an emerald pool below a waterfall in the rainforest. They grow a lot of fruits on that island but it seemed like most people were pretty poor there. Also, the taxi drivers just mobbed us when we go off the boat. They were all fighting and it was a huge mess. The one we ended up going with ripped us off, so we were kind of bugged about that.

Next we went to Barbados. Barbados was gorgeous and had some amazing beaches. We decided to just go to a public beach and hang out all day. We also got our first taste of snorkeling there. I was a little nervous at first but it was so much fun. We swam out in the coral and saw lots of neat fish. We also chased some crabs on rocks. They looked like tarantulas or something, there were crawling all over the rocks, but none of us dared to grab them. Second sunburns.

We went to St. Lucia next. We probably had the most fun here. We had the crazy idea to rent scooters in a foreign country where we had no idea where we were going, and driving on the left side of the road no less. We wanted to go sorkeling at a beach about 30 miles from the port. The locals were so nice and would just tell us to follow them until they turned, then we would find new people to follow. The roads were reall narrow and windy and went through mountains the whole time. Absolutely beautiful views of the coast were all over. We got these directions to turn up this super steep mountain dirt road. I was nervous the scooter was going to break as we drove through the boonies, but then all of a sudden we pull up to this private black sand beach of an exclusive resort where they just waived us in because we're Americans. Grass hut bungalows, swaying palm trees, the works. We went snorkeling there and saw these schools of fish that were about 3 or 4 feet long and really skinny like snakes. It was awesome. We were driving like crazy to get back to the boat on time. We were like a crazy motorcycle gang terrorizing the streets, except on scooters. I still can't believe we did that. Third sunburns.

Next we went to Antigua. We honestly could not believe how pretty the beach was here. We took a taxi to the other side of the island to be away from the other tourists. The sand here was white and so fine that it was almost like walking on powder. We hung out on the beach all day and tried to get tan but we mostly got sunburned. Well, at least Ben did. I got tan. We went snorkeling here too. There were mazes of coral that we had to swim through to get to a place where we could see fish. There were less fish here, but we did swim with a couple of stingrays. Ben and Richard had already seen one, so when I went snorkeling later with Ben I had my eyes out for one. I was adjusting my mask and the next thing I know this huge stingray came swimming right underneath me. He was only about 3 feet away! The stingray was about 4 ft wide and probably 6 feet long including his tail! Ben tried to swim after him but couldn't keep up when he disappeared over some shallow coral. It was amazing.

By the time we got to St. Kitts we were exhausted from partying so hard. We decided to take another rainforest hike. Our guide had us eating all these wild almonds and guava and some things that smelled like feet but didn't taste too bad. We shopped a little bit and I got a couple of fake Coach purses! I was so happy!

Finally we got back to Puerto Rico where Ben and I decided to stay an extra day. We stayed at the Sheraton right at historic Old San Juan. There was tons of stuff to see there. The streets there were awesome and filled with shops and colorful latin style houses with balconies and gorgeous flowers all over. El Morro fort was pretty cool and they had some kite flying festival the Sunday afternoon that we were there. There were hundreds of kites flying all over...it was so cool. We also checked out the San Cristobal fort there too. We saw some wild iguanas there that were abouyt 4 ft long. We walked all around Old San Juan for two days and checked out tons of plazas, a park with hundreds of pigeons (literally everywhere), and Ben even talked me into walking through a 400 year old cathedral where Juan Ponce de Leon was buried (apparently he settled Florida and Puerto Rico). It was all really interesting.

I can't believe how much fun it all was. We saw some beautiful places and did some amazing things. Ben is really tan now and I am almost black. We are so sad to be back home now, but we missed our Porter and we are all out of money so I guess it was time.