Learning to Live Together: Best of '09

I'm participating in the Best of 2009 challenge. I'll try to respond to the designated topic every day this month and remember 2009. You'll learn more about me, and I'll learn more about you if you sign up here to participate

Happy December blogging!

December 1 - Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?
My wedding and honeymoon were both out of town for us, so it's tempting to say the wedding, but as far as being a TRIP and not just a very very special occasion, I'm gonna go with honeymoon.

My father in law paid for us to go to one of the Sandals resorts in Jamaica. A lot of things about this supposedly all inclusive were disappointing, but since this is the Best09, I'm only gonna talk about the awesome things. For me, it was my first time leaving the country, and it was M's first real vacation in forever. The first amazing thing was that, given our collective luck and the fact it was late June, we didn't get hit by a hurricane!

We were in villa #69, which struck us as pretty funny. There were 4 rooms in the building; we were on the ground floor with nice easy access to the private pool. There were gorgeous flowers everywhere, a bunch of stray cats I loved to call, and awesome tropical birds. But animal-wise, the most awesome were the geckos. Yes, the geckos. We have them here, but on our honeymoon we would sit on our porch at night and watch the geckos hunt and interact with each other. It's a little thing, a silly thing, but a really connecting thing, just sharing such a little thing together.

More awesomeness was our discovery of Jamaican rum cream. Mmm, nectar of the gods I swear. It's smoother than Bailey's. One of the bartenders turned me onto it. It's a lot like chocolate milk; it barely tastes of alcohol but it's still strong enough to affect you after one easy-to-drink glass. We started substituting it for Appleton's rum in our strawberry daquiris. Mmmm, sooooo good. Unfortunately, its pretty hard to find here. Best alcoholic drink ever. Try it if you get a chance.

Then of course, were the activities. I've never been scuba diving before, and for some reason M assumed I wasn't interested, despite having gone to Miami to study marine science (before an epic flameout in chemistry sent me to the psychology program). We did the resort certification course (which means it does me no good back in the real world; Ill have to get for-real certified here) and then we went diving 3 times. Although we went to the same reef every time, which was also where we went snorkeling our first day, it was really cool for me, being able to get so close to all these brilliantly colored fish. M has been before, so it was less exciting for him, but he was still happy to go repeatedly with me. My first trip was kind of rough; I couldn't achieve neutral boyancy, so I was kept floating up, and I scraped my hand on some nasty coral that continued to itch for weeks. The issues with bouyancy were kind of funny; at the end of the first trip I ended up floating all the weay to the top of the water (not a problem, since we were only 40 feet down).

Some of the nighttime resort activities were fun. There was a giant buffet with all the restaurants and some cool ethnic costumes. There was the guest-staff talent show, the highlight of which was one of the staff members we got to know doing a spot-on michael jackson dance the day MJ died (remember the good old days, before it was non-stop MJ news? "Yup, still dead"). But I think our favorite was the newlywed game night. It was hilarious, lots of embarassing questions. We weren't selected for it, but we compared answers and woulda got all of them, a nice feeling on your honeymoon.

Jamaica is an interesting place. We noticed driving to the resort from the airport how all the homes looked half done, almost like there'd been some natural disaster. But they had this gorgeous, ornate architecture. We learned on the way back to the airport, while stopped at the store with the pot plant in front of the bathrooms, that the reason is Jamaicans don't get mortgages, they just build as they can afford to. I had no idea there was a Jamaican "language", which the scuba instructors frequently used (which always makes you wonder if theyre making fun of you). I wasn't a good shopper at the pseudo-authentic Jamaican market; I'm not a haggler and I felt guilty everytime a shop owner called to us or we decided not to buy something from them. We did end up with awesome wood-carved kissing dolphins (I looove dolphins) and a little desktop see no evil hear no evil speak no evil monkeys, which seemed like a decent metaphor for marriage, as well as another set of the monkeys on a set of chimes. Im now obsessed with said monkeys.

Wow, I just realized I typed all that without a single picture, and it's fairly long. Seeing as I actually have Jamaica photos, #fail on me. So now, for your viewing pleasure (or not) some Jamaican honeymoon photos!