All posts by Andi

Bloggings, Travel

St. Lucia

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We woke up this morning and it was rainy.  We had our breakfast and got off the boat to explore St. Lucia. We hadn’t made any plans for shore excursions in St. Lucia so we were not sure what we would do exactly. As we were walking into the port terminal a guy yelled at us about an island tour.  So we went over to talk to him and another couple with two kids followed.  At first the guy said $40 per person for an island tour.  Don talked him down to $30.  So we were going on an island tour. We were not really sure what that entailed but the guy told us to meet him on the other side of the fence and to ignore all other tour guides that tried to talk to us.

Finally the 6 of us made it to his van.  It was me, Don, a couple from Boston and their kids Jonathon and Aaliyah.  They were 5 and 6 years old.  We were somewhat disappointed to see that Phillip our tour guide had already brought another couple and their daughter into his van.  They didn’t speak English so I was thinking well maybe he is just dropping them off somewhere, because we have had tours do weird things like that.  So we all piled into this van.  Phillip was in the front with the man that didn’t speak any English.  Don, the couple from Boston (I can’t remember their names) were in the middle row of seats.  And the woman her daughter, the 2 other kids and myself were in the back row.  It was extremely crowded.

So from 9 am until about 4 pm we were cramped inside this van.  We got out in various locations to take pictures. I will try to remember the route we took.  We started at Castries.  From there we went down the west coast, the Caribbean side.  The next town I remember was Soufriere.  Along the way we took pictures with a man and his boa constrictor and views of the pitons.  Phillip also took us to a banana field and told us a bit about the banana crop.  I tried the local beer here called Piton. It was pretty good. The views of St. Lucia were amazing, absolutely beautiful.  That made up for being cramped into the van.  Here are some pictures from the Caribbean side of St. Lucia.

Then we made our way down near the airport.  At one point I thought he was going to stop and take pictures by the airport and I was thinking to myself “awesome, now is our chance to pay Phillip and get a cab out of this awful cramped van!”  But that didn’t happen we stopped at the lighthouse near the airport to take pictures of the Atlantic side of St. Lucia.

We made our way up along the Atlantic coast.  I remember going through the towns of Micoud and Dennery.  Then we went back to Port Castries.  Everyone in the van was very irritated by the time we got back.  It was way too long to be cramped up like that.  But we did get to see most of St. Lucia.  And now we know when we get an island tour next time to make sure we are not going to be cramped in a van with 15 other people for 8 hours.  Even though it wasn’t the most pleasant experience, I loved St. Lucia.  I think it will be hard to find somewhere else more beautiful and I wouldn’t mind going back.

Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Day at Sea

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Today was our Day At Sea on the cruise.  I have to admit I was looking forward to it a bit because I have been tired.  My plans were to lay by the pool and that is what I did.

I went up to the deck on the 10th floor with an ice cold Dr Pepper and a slice of pizza.  I was looking forward to the pizza on the boat, but it really wasn’t that great.  It wasn’t horrible though.  It was neat to sit there listening to my music and drinking my favorite drink while staring out into the ocean.  But then it got hot, really hot.  So I decided to go down to the pool and try it out.

The rest of the day was spent between the 2 different pools on the ship:  the Triton Pool and the Siren Pool. The Triton pool was more towards the middle of the boat and it was where the big screen was and all the activities were held.  So needless to say it was crowded and loud.  I enjoyed the Siren Pool much more.  I was able to read here and then get in the pool when it got to hot.  And that is what I did until about 3 pm. Then I went back to the room and got cleaned up.  Don had spent some of his day at the casino.

Tonight was formal night on the ship so we had to dress up to go to the dining room. We were planning on going with Michael and Teresa but when we called them they were not going to be ready to eat for awhile and we were pretty hungry so we decided to go by ourselves.  We were seated with 2 other couples.  One was a young couple from Florida, the other was older from Seattle.  It was nice getting to know these new people.

Since last night I was very unimpressed with the steak from the dining room I decided to get a cheeseburger which was funny since it was formal night.  Don had lobster tail. We both had some kind of alligator for an appetizer.  It was kind of like a fish ball but with alligator.  Again, I wasn’t impressed by the dining room.  The best part was the wine, bread and fries that came with my cheeseburger.

After dinner we went to the show on the ship.  It was a dance/singing show called City Lights.  It was okay, a little cheesy.  We saw Michael and Teresa there and we talked to them a bit after the show.  Then we went to an adult comedy show.  It was pretty funny.  I thought the Day at Sea was pretty good, but I couldn’t imagine having to be on this ship much longer than a day.

Bloggings, Snorkeling, Travel

St. Thomas

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This morning we woke up and went up to get breakfast. Overnight we had made our way to the island of St. Thomas. The view from the boat was beautiful.
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Seeing the houses on the island and the very blue water reminded me a bit of Greece.

Once we got off the boat we walked around a bit and found a beach to go to. We got in a cab and went to the beach. Our excursion wasn’t until 1 pm so we had some time on our own.

It was here at the beach we discovered that our old underwater camera wasn’t waterproof anymore. On our last trip in Belize the SD card holder broke in the underwater camera. Since then we had taken it to a repair man but were unsure if it would still be water tight…it wasn’t. Not a complete loss though because before this trip we had bought the new updated Olympus Tough camera. It was just kind of a downer because we thought we would both have Tough cameras haha.

I can’t remember the name of the beach but it was very beautiful.
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At 1 pm we went back to the boat to meet for our Snorkeling Trip. The snorkeling was good, but definitely not as good as Belize. We did see turtles though! We didn’t get good pictures of the turtles because they were far away. But we did get some good pictures of a Sting Ray.
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After snorkeling we went to an awesome beach and had some rum punch.
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Once we got back we got cleaned up and went to the dining room for dinner!

Bloggings, Food Blog, Travel

San Juan Puerto Rico

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Today we woke up around 5 am and quickly got ready.  We ran to kinkos real fast to print another luggage tag for the cruise.  We decided to check a bag with our fins. Then we got in a cab to head to O’hare. 
We had a some breakfast and then had about an hour to spare before boarding.  We started boarding on time at 8 am.  Once we started moving and getting ready to take off though we sat in one place for a long time.  Finally the captain said we had to go back to the gate to get a mechanical issue checked out.  That was annoying to hear but also scary. 


We went back to the gate and sat.  Why is sitting in an unmoving plane so much harder to do than when you are in the air?  I get so irritated.  Luckily the problem was fixed quicker than I thought it would be.  We finally took off around 930 or 10. 


The flight was about 5 hours.  I hate long flights!  We sat next to a family that had 3 young kids.  They were cute and luckily they were also well behaved.  We landed around 3:30 pm, an hour later than scheduled. 

We got outside in San Juan and it was hot!  We got a taxi to our hotel.  It took about 20 or 30 minutes to get there.  I was so tired and hungry. 


Our hotel looked very cute when we got here.  It’s called Casablanca Hotel.  We picked it because we could get a night here free through Hotels.com. The guy at the front desk is from Indiana.  He asked how the weather was in Chicago.  We found out our room was on the 3rd floor and no elevator.  We are used to that by now.  I was shocked at how small the room was.  It is probably the size of our living room if not smaller with a bed, couch and a tiny tv.  It looks nice though. 


I quickly changed into some more weather appropriate clothes and got ready to go out.  We started walking around Old San Juan.  The area is very cool looking and everyone walks.  Things are very close. We saw where the cruise ship will take off from. 


We were having a hard time finding a place to eat so finally we asked these 2 guys.  They gave us 2 restaurants that were authentic Spanish food.  We decided on Mojitos.  It was pretty  good. We had a mashed plantain appetizer.  I had skirt steak with fries. Don had a pork chop with rice and beans.  The food was good, I ate all of it!

Then we started walking around more.  We went down by the water and came to a plaza that had vendors selling food and purses.  We got a bag of churros.  They were delicious.  Then we sat down for awhile because it looked like a concert was getting ready to start.  But after sitting for a long while we decided to go back to the hotel because we were tired. 


Now we are just chilling in the room.  Not really sure what we are doing tomorrow before we get on the ship.

Bloggings, Food Blog

One Year Anniversary

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Last week on September 17th we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. We had been thinking for awhile about what we should do to celebrate. About a week before I showed Don some restaurant ideas I had came up with. He then told me he had already made reservations somewhere and it was a surprise.

I got out of work a bit early on our anniversary. I was supposed to work until 730 but I left around 7. We both got a little dressed up. It was a nasty rainy day and our reservations were not until 8. We walked around a little bit and then Don decided we would go to the place and see if we could get in early.

We went to the Signature Room inside the Hancock Building on the 95th floor. I was surprised! I didn’t know where we going. When we got up there Don asked for a table by the window but they told us it would be about a 20 minute wait. That was okay because we went to the bar. We both got martinis. It was starting to clear up outside and you could see the city more.
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About 20 minutes later our table was ready. There was a rose sitting on my plate and a little card that said Happy Anniversary. There was also champagne, which was really good.
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We both ordered a soup. Don had lobster bisque and I had some kind of carrot soup. It was pretty good. For our main meal I had the NY Strip Steak with mashed potatoes and Don had a seafood dish. The steak was very good. All of the food was very good. After the meal we were just sitting there talking and taking pictures. We got on the subject of the best desserts we have had and of course the peanut brittle ice cream pie from Belize came up. We kept talking about it and then all of the sudden the waiter brought out this chocolate pie with peanut brittle and ice cream in the middle. I couldn’t believe it! Don said he asked them to make it. It was huge! After we took some pictures of it the waiter took it back and brought us each a slice while he boxed up the rest. The pie was okay, nothing compared to Belize. But it was just so funny that he did that. Only my husband would do something like that hahaha. We then brought all of our boxes home.
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I feel so lucky to be with my husband. He makes every occasion so special.