April 30th, heading home
I wrote about 6 pages last night, some of it really redundant, but I was trying to write about the cruise as well… I’m going to TRY posting it all at once and see what happens.
Sunday, April 30th, 2006
We are on our way home. Well, at least hopefully soon we will be. Right now we’re waiting for an earlier flight to see if we can get home earlier. That MIGHT happen. Jerry has been sick since last night. Even now he’s still feeling pretty nauseous, and looking for some place to get food that will be easy on his stomach, but nutritious… so he’s thinking a sorbet place or a fruit smoothie place. I can’t see it, due to the acids that fruits have. But well, good luck to him, I guess.
Let’s see, the ports… Puerta Vallerta was good, we got off the ship, went downtown and went shopping. We were hoping to meet up with Sean, but he couldn’t even get a hold of us, nor could we get a hold of him. I feel rather pissed about that, because it’s obvious that our service wasn’t even functioning, but Jerry had been able to put through some calls the day before, so it’s like what the HELL? There are days when I hate Cingular, when they just suck beyond all… whatever. This should NOT be that hard.
We’ve been walking all over the place today… I’m hungry…again. It’s 3 p.m., we just finished lunch… well, I finished lunch at noon, and 3 hours later, I’m hungry again. Heck, I had breakfast at 8, and was hungry at 11, so we ate at Bubba Gump’s in Long Beach. I had clam chowder, which was REALLY good, but then I was still hungry, so I had the fish and chips… had a hard time finishing the fish, but it was REALLY good, nice and hot and fresh. I hardly ate any of the fries. I probably should have just had another bowl of soup, lol. Oh well…
Mazatlan, which was the 4th day, we got off, and went on a trolley tour. That was pretty cool. We went all over Mazatlan, got a good feel for the city, the history, how they survive… on fishing, beer and tourism… We saw the malecon, which Jerry was telling me they want to do in the city next to Guayabitos, neither Jerry nor I can remember the name, but I got to see basically what they want to do… Jerry wants to bring in smaller ships for the tourism…but then he doesn’t want the area to grow big. I told him I didn’t think he could have it both ways. But he’s thinking like a businessman…
Anyway, Mazatlan was very nice, quiet… it’s actually a fairly small town, even now. I shouldn’t say SMALL, Guayabitos is small… Mazatlan is mid-size. It’s very nice.
Then the next day we went to Los Cabos… Cabo San Lucas, the Cabo Wabo, where we got our own private concert from Sammy Hagar, which was pretty darn awesome. I think I must have taken 2 or 300 pictures. I’ve been telling people I’ll do what I can to post them to the web so others can have them. I am hoping others will do the same so I can have some better pics, and pics of the other concerts that I forgot to take my camera to. I wouldn’t mind having some pictures of the ship, etc, for my scrapbook, though I don’t know when I’ll even be able to get around to scrapbooking it, truth be told, but I should try. At least I’ll have these notes to help jog my memory on what happened.
Okay, the city is La Peneta, Jerry just checked. I can’t seem to do the tilda… there IS a way, I just am not figuring it out now. I’m getting hungry again, thinking it might be a good time to search out some food. Jerry got his drink, which is green tea and blackberry tarrazo… supposed to have cleansing properties. He ended up getting it at Starbucks. There are NOT a lot of places to eat over here, probably little that’s healthy. I had all bran and raisin bran w/ skim milk for breakfast… I’m TRYING to get my fiber, but it’s either not helping much, or the only thing keeping my intestines together, I’m NOT sure which, lol. It’s been a somewhat rough trip, I have to say, on our bodies. Lots of rich food, we ate in Mexico, and I’m not sure if we got some bad water, or if the ice wasn’t filtered, or what. I did NOT have diarreah, just…um…TMI alert, very loose stools.
I am feeling the baby kicking more, though it can still be hard to tell from gas at times.
All right, 4 p.m. I got half a sandwich in me… not really feeling like eating the other half just yet. I’m kind of craving a diet coke though. That would probably give me a false sense of hunger, and I’d want to eat the other half of this sandwich. I think for now I’ll just stick with my water, and see when hunger strikes to want the other half. It was a really good sandwich though. I’m sure by 7, I’ll want it though.
This computer is not charging very fast. I started out at near zero power probably close to two hours ago, and now I’m at 51%,,, not very good, I must say. Especially since it’s been closed up for the last half an hour. I’d probably have to turn it off to get a really good charge.
Anyway, I got a book, and started reading it. It’s called Under and Alone, and is about an ATF agent who infiltrated a biker group known as the Mongols. I haven’t gotten very far into it yet. I figured I should take advantage of having the computer available to me while I could… I mean, I’ll be able to run it for awhile on the plane, but who knows for how long? Or if I’ll even want to drag it out? Jerry is resting, possibly asleep, on the seat next to me. We need to move a couple of gates down here pretty soon though, or we won’t hear the boarding call… I would say at five, and it’s four thirty five now. Our flight leaves at 5:55, so will start boarding at 5:25, so I want to be over there in time to hear announcements and such, but I don’t know if I’ll have access to a power outlet, so for now would like to stay here, where I DO have power, and can keep typing without worrying how the battery is doing.
I’m getting pretty tired. I’ll be so glad to get home, I really will be. I skipped the soda, and got another water, so I’d better plan on a trip to the bathroom here pretty soon, and maybe before we board. I don’t want to get Jerry up though, he’ll have to keep an eye on things, so they don’t get stolen. I’ll give him a little more time. We’re going to have more walking today… we’ve already walked a ton, gone up and down stairs, and Friday’s cabo wabo concert was preceeded by a walk to the cantina, that was interesting. We were on the second tender (the boat from the ship to the dock…they can’t actually dock the ship in Cabo, so they anchor the ship, and then send everyone in small boats to the dock). We waited for something like two hours for Sammy…oh, and Jerry had gone off to get us breakfast, and wasn’t back by the time they called our tender, so I was going to go get on the boat, hoping Jerry would catch up. He didn’t, and I realized when I got there, that I didn’t have my sail and sign card, so I could not leave the ship…Jerry had it. So I went back to where we were waiting, and finally Jerry showed, up, and by this time, they’d already taken tender number 5 to the dock, so we went with tender number 6… and then went to where all the tender number 2’s were waiting… and when we got to the Cantina, they let us in by tender number, so we were the second group let in… so we got “second row” but we had to stand pretty much the entire concert, which is NOT fun anyway, but REALLY wasn’t fun being pregnant, plus of course, I couldn’t drink… oh, I’d have sips here and there, but I was being very careful, as usual, with this pregnancy (though I have to think… just how careful am I being, going to Mexico? But I suppose that’s besides the point, as there aren’t any real “known” dangers like there are with drinking, or getting a massage from someone who doesn’t know how to properly give a pregnant woman a massage. Besides, we plan to move to Mexico, and it’s not like women aren’t having babies in Mexico all the time.
Even my sister in law, Aurora, just had her little girl in a hospital in Mexico.) So anyway, it was quite a trot to the Cantina, because we wanted to get there ahead of the crowd, even being tender number 2, who knew if we’d be able to get through everyone before they started letting in tender 3 and above? They pulled kind of a fast one on people, because they told everyone to meet in the Taj Mahal (the main lounge/stage) at 8 a.m, but they started handing out tenders at something like 7:15 a.m., and Jerry got there shortly after, and when I got there, they were already handing out tender 3’s, but Jerry got them to get me on tender 2. Oh wow, it’s already 4:50… hm… give Jerry 5 more minutes, then have him watch everything while I go to the bathroom. I got him up anyway, so he could go use the bathroom if he wants…which he did, then I’ll go use it. Man… I’ve only got a 62% charge, and it’s saying an hour and eighteen minutes to charge it, and 20 minutes ago, it was saying an hour and 8 minutes…so it’s gone up. This computer is NOT being very nice to me right now. Oh well, I’ll just read my book instead of getting on the computer, I guess. I wonder if I should have gotten Jerry up earlier, it’s been taking him quite a bit of time to use the bathroom… oh well, we’re not super pressed for time, but it WOULD be good to get on this flight, it really really would.
But it’s not like I don’t have things to do…I’m not bored by any stretch. This place has wireless access, but that does not include access to the internet, it seems…unfortunately. I did try, it seems to be an internal network… and now I’m not even seeing it, looking at what airport networks are available. I know Jerry was hoping for internet access, as he said he could get a jump on his email for tomorrow. Here he comes, guess I’ll go use the bathroom.
Okay, we did not get on the earlier flight, doggone it. So we’re leaving at 7:30, and should be back around 8:30, home by 10 or so. Oh well, more time to charge the computer, I guess. Oh good grief, it’s saying an hour and 44 minutes to charge. Somehow I don’t think so. Now it’s down to 1:27. MIGHT be more accurate. The book is slow moving at this point, just trying to build a pictures of what’s going on, and some history, etc. Good book so far. I finished the other half of my sandwich and now it’s just about 6 p.m. I got my diet coke. I drank it while eating the other half of my sandwich.
I’ve completely lost ANY train of thought I might have. Well, let me try to piece some more of our trip together. Last night, looking for things to do, we went and saw Lorenzo, the “super shopper” We’d seen him earlier in the week, and he’d told us to come see him anytime, and say “Lorenzo, hook me up” so we did, and I got a ring with a Mexican fire opal and two small diamonds… very pretty ring. He told us we had to write a glowing review of him in the comment cards, which I did, and Jerry did not. Oh well. I went to bed at 10:30 last night, Jerry went to see the show. I simply wanted to get enough sleep. I started getting tired during dinner, and the couple we usually sat with, Chris and Cindy, were missing, and everyone else was drunk from the cocktail party that went on before, free Waboritas and tequila shots, so yea, buncha drunks. Jerry had two waboritas, they were pretty strong, but not so strong that it should have made him sick…so we don’t quite know why he’s been so sick last night and tonight. But I managed to get a full night’s sleep, and we were off the ship and through customs in record time, like 8:30 at the latest, I would have to say. Being that we’d gotten up at 7, that was pretty good. Actually, we were amongst the first people off the ship. It was mostly due to the fact that we purchased the Carnival Vacation Club, which we then learned cannot be used for future Sammy cruises… but we were thinking about taking the girls, and unfortunately, would have to get two cabins L to accommodate everyone. They don’t allow any more than 4 to a cabin, and we’d have 6, so we’d have to break up into two cabins, though one recommendation was to put the kids into a cabin w/ no windows, and us into a cabin with a balcony… that sounds like fun.
I wonder where Jerry is… I know he told me, not sure I was paying attention though, because I have no idea where he is. They just called a flight for Denver… wah! L I want to go to Denver! But I don’t think I could go and not take the girls… see their grandmother, and I’d love to see Ellen. She thinks maybe we can meet up in Las Vegas in June, but I have to wonder if that’s going to happen, but I sure would love to see it happen… though I’d have to take an extra bag for all the stuff I’d want to buy from the Disney Outlet store J. Last time we spent 400 dollars in that store…what kind of damage could I do with no Jerry to frown at me? Though without a car to get it all home in, I WOULD have to think twice about certain purchases… I would think.
Okay, let’s see if we can get back to the trip… man, do I ramble, or what? It’s just a stream of consciousness for me, I guess. It’s 6:18 p.m., the computer is charged 73%, but it says it has an hour and 32 minutes… makes NO sense whatsoever,does it? So let’s see… Puerta Vallerta, or P.V. as Jorga and Julie call it… we went to this little restaurant, looking for a bathroom, and they said we could use theirs. They were PRISTINE… updated toilets, clean bathrooms, you didn’t feel like you were going to get the cooties there, unlike some places in Mexcio. And I told them so… I told them they had just about the nicest bathrooms I’d ever seen in Mexico. The villa has pretty nice bathrooms though, but of course, those are private, and these are public. Anyway, we checked out the menu, and they had some pretty good sounding things, so we went on our way, thinking we’d come back and eat there, which we did. It was really secluded back there, off the beaten path, so it didn’t take very long before we turned back and went to the restaurant. They had REALLY delicious food, I must say. I had some mushroom and asparagus soup, and we had a plate of quesadillas, which I could only eat one of, and we shared a shrimp burrito, which was heavenly. It took quite a long time to get us our food, so they gave us complimentary flan, and Jerry was given a shot of really good tequila, which he enjoyed thoroughly. Now, I don’t normally like flan… it’s the consistency of it, I can’t really take…but this was GOOOOD flan… really good. I told him my sister in law in Mexican, and their flan was better than hers (lol). But even so, I couldn’t finish it… I just gag at certain textures, especially now that I’m pregnant, so I gave the other half to Jerry, who enjoyed it thoroughly. I wished I’d been able to go on the dolphin experiences, but they all said not suitable for pregnant women, so I didn’t.
6:30 now… half an hour til we start boarding. The computer is charged 76%, and it’s saying an hour and 46 minutes to charge fully…weird, but whatever. I think I’ll read for awhile, I am not feeling much like typing anymore.
7:13 p.m. The plane isn’t here yet, so there is NO WAY we are leaving at 7:30. It’ll take them awhile to get everyone off the plane, and then us boarded, but we’re not going to miss any connecting flights… but we’re going to get there later than I had thought or wanted to. Hm… the computer is now fully charged…which figures, but a minute ago it was at 82%. Okay, I hear the plane, so that’s good… but it’ll still be closer to 8 before we get off the ground. I am just anxious to get home to the kids, who will likely still be up, even though it’s a school night. I’m going to call home and tell her we’ll be late. Hm… not there. Jerry thinks they might not have school tomorrow. He thinks it’s a holiday, but I can’t think of what kind of holiday it would be. They just boarded the crew, and it’s 7:22 p.m. I wonder if I should pack up the computer yet, or just leave it open til they call group 1. We’re in group two. I told Jerry I don’t know what difference it makes, we’ve got our seats reserved. They’re saying 15 minutes til they start boarding, so we may not get off the ground until 8:15… well, what’re ya gonna do? Not much. They’re saying the flight is overfull, and are offering a free ticket to anyone who is willing to bump to the next flight…which is NOT us. I just want to get home. My back hurts, I’m tired, I want to see the kids, I want this vacation to be done… okay, it was fun, it was wonderful, but I am ready to be done, that’s for sure, and I definitely do NOT want to be hanging around the airport anymore. Sometimes the nicest thing about going on vacation is the coming home part J.
Cabo was a short day… we got into port at 7 a.m. and left at 4. There were a ton of rumors abounding, some were true, and others went unconfirmed, though certain things seemed to be awfully coincidental. We do know one guy got arrested and put into a Mexican jail. The ship helped get him out, but left him behind in Cabo. We heard someone died on a Catamaran cruise, and the only thing that would make one wonder is that we left late from port, and the ONLY person they won’t leave behind, the only person they MUST have on board to sail, is the ship’s doctor. So it would seem that perhaps the ship’s doctor was off the ship, and perhaps something did happen to one of the cruisers…. Who knows? Well, I’m going to pack up, as they seem to be boarding people now.