The beaches and the bars

December 16, 2005

Well the last day and a half has consisted mostly of meeting new people and doing very fun things with them.

After yesterday's message, I headed back out to the beach for a bit, and then tried to join the percussion class, I couldn't find it, I think it didn't happen because everyone was so busy decorating the place for Christmas (cutting down palm trees growing in the lobby to be replaced with a cheesy fake Christmas tree, gag), but I did get in on the salsa class, and that was fun. Then I hung around and watched an auction, which was fun, but had to leave early to get ready for my 6:30 dinner reservation in the Italian restaurant.

Dinner was good, would rather have not done it on my own, but oh well. Afterwards, I went back to my room to relax for a bit. The entertainment last night was a magician, who was more funny than magical.

After the show I headed to the disco to get my salsa/merengue/cha-cha lessons from one the musicians here. It was a very sad state of affairs there, just a handful of people, and really no one dancing. And the musician had to leave, so that didn't last long.

Jenn and I and Mike and his girlfriend Stephanie headed out to the lobby bar, and just sat around chatting with various people as they came and went - until 3 in the morning! At that point I was feeling so stinky from all the cigarette and cigar smoke that was blowing around, I decided it would be fun to go for swim in the pool, so Mike and I jumped in with all our clothes on, as we didn't have our bathing suits. What fun! And I was sober, just in case you're wondering.

After that, we all hung around for a bit more, and then called it a night.

I slept in until noon today, thinking it was going to be pouring rain so it wouldn't matter, but I was surprised to discover it was another pretty great day. So I quickly headed to the beach, where I was planning on just vegging out. Pretty soon I got talking to Agnes and her daughter Leigh (from Vancouver) and then Amie (man) and Brian asked if I wanted to play horseshoes, so I joined in that. I was pretty good at it too!

Then Brian discovered I hadn't been snorkelling, and offered to take me out and show me how, so I definitely took him up on that!

I got some of the equipment from the resort, and off we went. It was really cool, there is a coral reef very very close, so we headed out to that. It would've been really fabulous, but my mask was leaking, so everytime I just started to get going, I'd have to stop and empty my mask. The water here was about 3.5 feet deep, so it wasn't a problem, but I scraped my knee on some coral standing up once. I'm kinda proud of my coral scrape now, but was annoyed at the time. Anyway it was a great experience, and I hope to do it again someday without a leaky mask.

Then, it was time for dinner, which I ate with David, and we went to see the show (cheesy) and then hung out at the piano bar.

I'm just on my way back to my room now, it's 11ish, and I'm determined to get up early enough to do yoga at 9 tomorrow morning, so it's going to be an early night for me!

No plans for tomorrow, but yoga, but Sunday I'm going on a scooter tour.

I have to wrap up now, I'm running out of time.

Hope everyone is super!