For the past two hours I've been trying to schedule the things I want to do in-between the things I have to do... and failing miserably. There aren't enough hours in the day. There aren't enough days in the month. This is a problem that only massive sums of money could ever fix (nothing opens doors and makes things possible like a wad of cash)... but, alas, I only have $23.00 to my name just now.
Ah to be obscenely wealthy! I'd love to have unlimited piles of money to throw at problems so they go away.
On an entirely unrelated subject... I was watching the Olympics on television when Mitt & Ann Romney came up because their horse, Rafalca, will be competing in "dressage" later this week. I don't know much about the sport except it looks like a hideous amount of training is involved to get the horsey to trot around in exactly a certain way like that.
But putting my lack of "dressage" knowledge aside, watching the news had me dead-curious to know how the Romneys managed to get Rafalca to London. I mean, seriously, it's not like they just walked the horse onto the plane and plopped him down in a First Class seat between them... something seriously crazy has to be involved in flying horses across the Atlantic. And what about jet lag? Do horses get jet lag?
This burning curiosity resulted in my Googling all kinds of crap about horse transport.
Apparently, horseys are put into special "stall containers," then loaded on a cargo plane which has a horse-care specialist onboard. Owners can choose from "economy" (three horses to a stall) or "business class" (two horses to a stall)... but I suppose since cost is no object to Mitt, he could insist on a private stall if Rafalca doesn't play well with others. In any event, the horses are well cared for on their journey, getting plenty of hay and water as needed. No mention was made on what they do with all the horse doo-doo and pee-pee to keep the plane from stinking, but I'd imagine it involved giant pairs of Depends made especially for horses...
Oh... and in case you're curious, horses can get jet lag... but it's often not nearly as serious a condition as humans can get.
Since I don't get jet lag much either, I guess that makes two parts of me that are horse-like now.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a woman at the airport trying to "secretly" take my picture with her mobile phone. "Well that's odd, I thought to myself," as I started waving at her frantically. Then I raised up my iPhone to take her picture, which caused her to disappear like a fart in the wind.
I tried to think back to what I was doing that was so fascinating that it merited a photo. Was I scratching my balls or something? I couldn't recall. Possibly? Probably. Hell, there really is no privacy now-a-days.
You can even spy on me in mid-air if you want.
Or I can spy on myself.
According to FlightView, I'm flying over Nebraska at 34,000 feet right now...
And while I am not currently scratching my balls, I've been thinking about it ever since I wrote about wondering about scratching my balls two minutes ago.
Guess now I'll have something to do at baggage claim while I'm waiting for my suitcase to arrive.
Get your cameras ready...
Problems arise when I travel all the time. But I'm not accustomed to having problems when dealing with those problems. I have a stack of loyalty cards... frequent guest cards... preferred guest cards... etc... which make dealing with problems not so problematic. When something comes up, the airline/hotel/rental-car/whatever takes a look at my credentials and makes it go away. It's one of the perks of being a frequent traveler, because your repeat business is something these companies value. They do whatever they can to keep you coming back.
But every once in a while...
This morning after a 45-minute nap, the only sleep I'd had in 23 hours, I had to get back to the airport to turn in my rental car by 10am. My plan was to then go directly to the hotel and get an early check-in so I could catch up on some sleep.
But the hotel was having none of it. No matter how great a customer I was.
They were overbooked with a convention and, unlike previous times I wanted a room early, there was nothing they could rush to clean so I could get some sleep. In fact, they had no idea when I might get a room... even at their usual 3:00 check-in time.
Well this was something new.
After wandering around the lobby in a daze for ten minutes, I eventually decided to drop off my suitcase, drink my fifth
The movie I decided to see? TED! The story of a teddy bear that comes to life and the life-long friendship he has with the kid he grows up with.
It wasn't as funny as I expected.
It wasn't as raunchy as I had been led to believe.
But it hits far more often than it misses, and I really enjoyed the film. Yes, it's reminiscent of director/star Seth McFarlane's other work (namely, Family Guy) but it has a surprising amount of heart, some genuine laughs, the creepiest dance scene ever recorded, some great 80's-related homages, and (most importantly) a lead character that's about as real and believable as he could possibly be (despite being a teddy bear). Definitely some R-rated stuff, but worth your valuable time to check out.
Lunch was at Johnny Rockets, because I just can't help myself.
Then I took a train back to the airport at 2:30... finally got my room at 3:15... then got dressed and took another train back into the city so I could have a last-minute dinner with some - bloggers - of - great - importance, which is my favorite thing to do in Atlanta.
Despite having 45-minutes sleep in 38 hours, I was never really tired. I guess that's the power of keeping active with fun stuff to do... and loading-up on energy drinks.
I'm going to keep this in mind as I try to busy myself before my 7:30pm flight home tomorrow...
Whenever anybody outside of Washington State asks where I'm from, I just say "Seattle" because that's pretty much the only place in Washington that anybody has ever heard of. Seattle, of course has a reputation for rain (which is true... but not quite to the extreme as people might believe).
Anyway, it's been pouring down rain here in Georgia, which has people who know I'm from "Seattle" saying "thanks for bringing the rain with you!" But not sarcastically, as usual! Apparently, there's been quite a dry spell, and farmers are glad to be getting some moisture this summer.
Though, if the forecast is any indication, they'll be happy I'm leaving this weekend...
In the meanwhile, it is crazy wet outside, so I'm doing my best to stay indoors.
Which is good because I need to be working, except... Adobe has a big problem with their software running on the new MacBooks and MacBook Airs. For example, Adobe InDesign (the program I use to do page layout for things like THRICE Fiction Magazine) crashes a horrible death almost constantly. I've scoured for tips on how to make it happen less often, but it's still an impossible situation. So now I am in the horrible position of having to wait until I get home before I can finish a number of projects that are due... including the latest issue of THRICE Fiction Magazine.
This sucks so hard.
Almost as hard as the length of my work day. Right now I am so exhausted that the only thing that keeps me going is 5-Hour Energy shots and cookies. But the cumulative effect of downing three 5-Hour Energy shots to stay awake the past 15 hours is starting to make my brain haze over. The fact that I've got another four hours left to go doesn't bode well for my sanity.
Now, if you'll excuse me, a sea urchin just waddled up to my desk and asked me if I want to go see a movie with him and his friend the kangaroo (who, oddly enough, is named "Mr. Camel"). Since I could use a break, I think I'm going to accompany them... though I hope it's not another art-house cinema festival, because last time I never did manage to get the smell of popcorn out of my ferret.
The weather started out hot with blue skies today. I know this because I saw it with my own two eyes when I went out to lunch.
Around 5:00 it started raining. Hard.
This killed what little ambition I had to go out for dinner, so I decided to just keep working in my room. Since I had a packet of Chips Ahoy! cookies, I knew I wouldn't starve. "On the positive side, maybe the rain will make the cicadas shut up and I can fall asleep easier tonight," I thought to myself.
But then the rain stopped around 8:30 and the cicadas came out louder than ever. Boy am I glad that these noisemakers haven't made it up to Washington State yet.
So now I'm going to try and fall asleep knowing that Walking Dead zombies AND thousands of creepy bugs are screeching to get inside and eat my face off.
Because I'm just that delicious.
Bleh. Now I'm hungry. I guess a packet of cookies can only do so much.
What I need right now is an off switch.
And so Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson has gone and messed up their airport.
Back in May, they opened up their new "Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal" which handles all foreign flights. In theory, it's great, because it means you no longer have to claim your bag, then re-check your bag, then re-claim your bag again if Atlanta is your final destination on an inbound flight. Instead you just grab your bag and waltz directly out of the building to your car and... voilà!... you're on your way.
Assuming you drove your own car to the International Terminal and paid their hideously expensive parking rates.
If you didn't, Atlanta International Airport has just screwed you and you don't even know it.
But you will.
Since I (obviously) didn't drive to the International Terminal (my car is back in Seattle), I had to get back to the main terminal so I could catch a hotel shuttle. But there is no train to take you back. Instead you have to wait 5 minutes for a bus... wait another 20 minutes for the bus to fill up... wait another 15 minutes to drive all the way back to the Main Terminal... then wait for your luggage to be unloaded... then wait for traffic... then walk to the hotel shuttle area where you needed to be all along SO YOU CAN WAIT EVEN MORE for your shuttle.
Which, needless to say, IS A HUGE FUCKING WASTE OF TIME!
So now I absolutely HATE flying into Atlanta on an International flight, and will avoid it at all costs. Or at least UNTIL THEY BUILD A TRAIN LOOP TO TAKE YOU BACK TO THE MAIN TERMINAL LIKE THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE! I mean, they can build a damn train FOR MILES out to the car rental center, but extending the EXISTING terminal train A MEASLY 500 FEET and adding a secure car to take exiting passengers back to the Main Terminal was too difficult? Apparently so. Or maybe they were too damn stupid to think of it.
But Seattle... frickin' SEATTLE... has figured out how to do this. It's EMBARRASSING that Atlanta... ONE OF THE BUSIEST AIRPORTS IN THE WORLD... has their head up their asses by thinking this absurd "bussing" idiocy is anything other than COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT.
It's like the stupid-ass city I live in. The one thing we need where I work? More parking spaces. The one thing they made sure to eliminate when they re-designed the street? THAT'S RIGHT... THEY GOT RID OF PARKING SPACES!
Everywhere you look... from city planners to airport designers... the people in charge don't seem to know what in the hell they're doing. Nor do they give a crap. And why should they? They can just start screaming some bullshit about "saving money" or "having to make hard choices" (or whatever) to justify their short-sightedness. No more taking the time and money to do things right... it's all about making sure there's enough money in the project to pay their huge salaries, and everything else is negotiable. And the consequences? Well, for Atlanta-bound international travelers who just want to take the damn train into the city? FUCK 'EM! JUST FUCK'EM!! They can waste their time riding a stupid-ass BUS for a half hour to get to the MARTA train station! Who gives a shit about THEM?!?
And welcome to Atlanta!
Ever since getting my new MacBook, I've been increasingly fascinated with the pixel density of its beautiful "Retina Display." Everything looks so frickin' amazing on it that I have a really hard time looking at non-Retina-enhanced visuals now... especially when browsing the web. Most websites are built to deliver 72dpi graphics, which end up look pretty bad. And so I've been experimenting with photos here on my blog, trying to figure out how to delivery hi-res images without breaking things for readers who don't have Retina-type displays.
The easiest way is to just double-size all your images. I tried this in my last entry with the picture of the jitney door. It's actual size is 800x1200 pixels, but I define it as 400x600 in the HTML. So now Retina displays get a sharp image to look at, and non-Retina displays just toss out every-other pixel...
Detail of Non-Retina low-res on the Left... Retina double-res on the Right
The problem is this... visitors who don't have Retina displays are downloading much larger images with no benefit at all. Since their browser is just tossing 3/4 of the data, this seems wasteful of their time and bandwidth. And, unlike Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, I give a crap about the people who spend their time visiting me.
This has led me to experiment with Javascript and CSS to deliver regular graphics for everybody except those visiting with a Retina-type display... they'll get the super-res versions. Sure they'll take longer to download, but at least all the pixels sent will be looked at.
And so now I just have to figure out the best way to approach this. All the easy solutions have serious drawbacks in one way or another, so it'll probably take some time and research to get it sorted. But hopefully, if you're visiting with an iPhone 4, New iPad, MacBook Retina, HTC One X, HTC Rezound, etc. - it will be worth the effort.
And here we are with a Very Special Edition of "Bahamian Bullets on Monday" where I answer questions and write observations from my time in the Bahamas. So don't flip that calendar... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Money! Bahamian dollars are completely interchangeable with US dollars, since the currency of the Bahamas is tied to the US exchange rate... until you leave the Bahamas... at which time any Bahamian dollars you might be carrying are practically worthless. Not that you'll see many Bahamian dollars. Thanks to the massive tourist trade with the States, you'll see a lot more US money than anything else. A friend asked me to get her a Bahamian $3 bill as a souvenir, but I couldn't find one...
Eventually I managed to trade for a $1 bill that a jitney driver collected, since it was the only currency of the Bahamas I ever saw. I don't understand why the Bahamian government doesn't just print a bunch of $3 bills that souvenir shops could put in a plastic sleeve and sell for $5 each. Everybody would win. The government would be printing money that would rarely be circulated (thus bringing money into the country for nothing), and shop owners are getting a big return on an investment that never loses value.
• Jitney! I have no idea about "the jitney that the Sex and the City characters rode to The Hamptons"... but the "jitney" here in the Bahamas is a nickname for the local shared bus service (the name "jitney" having migrated from the US). From what I can tell, anybody with a bus can get a permit to run designated routes around the islands. Since I was staying at Cable Beach, I rode the #10 each day which runs from there to Downtown Nassau and back. In my case, they were a cheap ($1.25) alternative to a pricey taxi ($15.00+tip). But you do get what you pay for. Jitneys are almost always older vehicles, and many are busted to shit...
And I mean that literally... some of them are falling apart. The one I rode to dinner last night didn't have working air conditioning. But that's okay, because the door was broken and wouldn't close, so we had plenty of fresh air blowing in...
Despite being a bit dangerous, it was a beautiful old broken-down door with a lot of history...
And speaking of danger, you could literally be taking your life in your own hands when riding. When I stepped into my seat, my foot went through the floor. The plate snapped back up, but I spent most of the trip wondering if my seat was going to fall through...
Jitneys are a cheap way to get around and are everywhere. They're also fairly convenient, stopping many places along their route. But since the bus doesn't leave until full (and I mean really full, since seats fold down into the aisles), you sometimes have a bit of a wait at a start-point, but it's a small price to pay for the money you save.
I heard a few stories about how jitneys are not very well regulated, and it's not unheard of for drivers to be drunk or on drugs while operating their vehicles. Even worse, there have been incidents of violence and rape reportedly involving jitney drivers. It's probably not a good idea to ride in them at odd hours or in remote areas, but I had no problems at all the half-dozen times I rode them. Scary, broken vehicles aside, the drivers I saw were always courteous... helpful even... and seemed competent in their jobs. But I was on a major tourist route, so I can't really speak to what things are like around the rest of the island.
• Mural! I was asked about the little pirate guy who closed out my post on day one. He's not mine... he's part of a mural downtown...
It's called "Hello Nassau" by "Thundercut" and is part of a public murals project sponsored by Coke...
There are a few of them around that I saw...
Pretty cool, huh?
• Resort! While I was in the lobby of the Sheraton using the wireless internet (since my new MacBook Pro Retina doesn't have an ethernet port for the wired internet in my room), I watched a guy have a complete meltdown because he went to pay his bill and found out there was a $40 per day "Resort Fee" that was due. I had gotten a discount rate, but even then I was notified about the fee. Sure, it's kind of a bait-and-switch deal to be reeled in at one price and then have to pay a huge add-on fee, but it was clearly stated, and so I knew to expect it.
Then I got to wondering if Sheraton doesn't tell you about the fee if you book from their site, because that would make me pretty mad. But, nope, they absolutely show you the final price (and if you click on the total, you see the $40 fee added)...
But what if the guy booked at a third party site? I usually book my hotels at Orbitz, so I gave them a try. Nope, they too show the "Local Charges Due at Hotel" right after the price, which works out to be that $40 per night...
Then I checked Expedia. And here's where things get strange. They don't show any fees or taxes attached to the rate at all when you are reviewing what they have available...
But then you scroll down and see something remarkable... they claim the resort fee is already included in the rate! The same $159 rate that Sheraton and Orbitz are adding a fee to!
Thinking that this is a trick because the "total price" isn't displayed until the next page, I clicked onward...
There we go! They add the $40 resort fee in with their "$68.62 a night Taxes and Fees." Which means that their "Best Price Guarantee" is bullshit at $682.86 when Orbitz would total $679.35 (even though $120 of that would be paid directly to Sheraton at check-out).
I can't check all the hotel booking sites, obviously, but it really doesn't matter. If the guy booked through Sheraton, Orbitz, or Expedia... he knew the total rate. If he booked at some other site that didn't warn him about the resort fee, he should be yelling at them... NOT THE POOR GIRL AT THE RECEPTION DESK!
In any event, it's word to the wise to always always always check the fine print whenever you book a hotel, car, cruise, or whatever. Shady stuff like this is getting more and more common as companies use hidden fees to avoid paying taxes... or to make their rates look better.
• Return! When you land at Nassau's airport (which isn't anywhere near Nassau, curiously enough... it's on the other side of the island), there are at least a half-dozen signs telling you that when you return to the airport, YOU NEED TO ARRIVE THREE HOURS EARLY IF YOU ARE TRAVELING TO THE UNITED STATES. There's even a sign posted on the baggage carousel where you wait for your luggage that's staring at you in big letters.
When it was time for me to fly back to the good ol' USA, I followed instructions and arrived THREE HOURS EARLY. I was kind of glad too, because the line at customs was quite short, but still took me 35 minutes to clear. Had the line been all the way to the door, it could have easily taken me two hours to get through it.
So there we are sitting on the plane when an announcement is made. There's 15 people still stuck in customs, so they're holding the plane.
EXCUSE ME?!?
Why in the fuck did I bother showing up three hours early then? If I would have know that I could have just ignored the signs and showed up whenever the hell I wanted to, I would have slept in an extra hour!
Then, after a half hour, they announced there were still eight people in line for customs, and it was moving slow because there was only one counter open... so we were just going to continue to wait for them.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?
Everybody who arrived at the airport THREE HOURS EARLY... AS INSTRUCTED... was already on the plane. Why in the hell are we still waiting on people who couldn't be bothered to get to the airport on time? How is this our fault? I don't give a shit if customs decided to close ALL the fucking counters... people who showed up on time made it through... BECAUSE THEY SHOWED UP ON TIME!!! Stop blaming customs for the problem... they weren't the ones who made the people show up late to the airport. AND STOP PUNISHING THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED INSTRUCTIONS AND MADE IT TO CHECK-IN THREE HOURS EARLY LIKE THEY WERE TOLD TO!
I am sick and fucking tired of companies pandering to the lowest common denominator. All it does is remove consequences for idiots who can't be bothered to follow the rules like everybody else. Well, guess what? If you keep removing consequences for being stupid... people are going to continue to do stupid shit. Do you think any of the people that showed up late to the airport will bother to be on time next time? Of course not! And why should they? You're just going to hold the plane for them!
Is it any wonder that this country is going down the crapper and American companies are going bankrupt? Keep rewarding stupid often enough, that's all you're going to have left.
And, on that tragic note, I've got a couple hours work that needs doing before I can turn in for the night, so I must bid you adieu...
Well... uhhh... that was an interesting night. Or so it would seem. Things are a little... fuzzy... right now in my brain.
After I started drinking, I apparently decided not to stop. I totally blame the group of enablers I hung out with at the bar. Well, that and the fact that this KALIK beer they have here is pretty darn tasty. I cannot, however, offer any explanation for the two shots of tequila that were on my bar tab. Except to say that it was probably because they didn't have Jägermeister...
At some point I noticed the sun was setting, so I decided to run down to the beach and take a photo. I ended up tripping in the sand and crashing into a palm tree, but I still managed to get the shot...
As I was limping back to the bar, I saw people eating popsicles. Since I hadn't eaten dinner yet, I decided that was the perfect thing to have.
And since I was a good boy and totally finished all my popsicle dinner, I rewarded myself with another beer for dessert.
I don't know what I was rewarding myself for with the four beers that followed... but they were on my bill, so I'm sure I must have totally deserved them.
Eventually everybody decided to go to the casino. It sounded like a great idea at the time, but I was completely drunk so I probably wasn't in the best shape to be making decisions. Fortunately, I also wasn't in the best shape to remember how to get money out of a cash machine, so I only lost the $20 I had on me. At least I think it was $20. Let's see... I started the day with $50... minus $24 taxi to Paradise Island... $4 for the ferry... $1.25 for the jitney bus... so yeah, $20 pissed away (give or take). I can live with that, I guess.
When I finally dragged my drunken banged-up body back to my room, I took this picture of myself...
I'm not sure why. Probably because I was surprised to have gotten so sunburned considering I was only wandering around Atlantis for a little over three hours. Guess the sun here is mighty powerful.
The time-stamp on the photo is 12:47am, so I'm guessing I was in bed by 1:00am.
I woke up around 7:30 this morning with quite a lot of pain in my knee and shoulder, but barely a hangover. I was going to chalk this up as a WIN! until I saw my shorts laying on the floor with the back pocket half-way ripped off. Which means my right ass cheek was exposed for heaven-only-knows how long last night. I hope I was wearing boxers underneath, but that's debatable considering I was buck-nekkid when I climbed out of bed. I'm pretty sure it didn't happen when I fell into the palm tree, so I have no clue when... or how... it happened.
Anyway...
The only thing I really wanted to do in the Bahamas (other than nothing) was to go diving. Unfortunately, I am still poor thanks to buying my new MacBook, so I knew early on that it wasn't going to happen. This trip may have been ridiculously cheap, but it was no excuse to rack up debt on my credit card with some dives. The plan was to use my "resort credit" to pay for most of my meals, and not spend more than the $150 I brought with me ($50 a day) for everything else.
Never mind that I blew past my entire resort credit by $62 because I ran up a massive bar tab last night... I'm sticking to the plan, dammit! I now have -$12 to spend on for my last day. I guess this means I'll be selling myself down on the beach tonight so I can afford dinner. Here's hoping some sugar-momma (or sugar-daddy, because you can't be picky about these things) likes men with their ass hanging out of their shorts.
In the meanwhile, I suppose I'll see what I can do with my -$12.
There's still no sign of the scattered thundershowers I've been promised three days in a row now... so maybe I'll lay by the pool and read a book. The sun is just now peering over the East Tower, so I'm sure the courtyard will be flooded with an ungodly amount of sunshine any minute now...
Because, hey, I've already got the start of a really good sunburn, why not take it all the way?
But first I have to drag my lazy ass out of bed so I can make my way down to the lobby and post this to my blog*. It's 8:40 now, so I'm hoping to make it by 11:00.
*I'd post this from my room, but the internet here is wired. Since the new MacBook Retina doesn't have an ethernet port, I'm sans internet. Technology: it's not always all it's cracked up to be.
My big plans to do nothing today were destroyed at 9:26am.
But in a very good way.
Because that's when I got an email from a Blogography reader who got a text from her brother who saw that I was in Nassau... "DAVE! You're in the Bahamas? Come visit us in Atlantis! We promise to make it worth the trip!"
"Atlantis" is a resort on Paradise Island (formerly Hog Island) that's just north of Nassau. I investigated it when I was looking for a hotel here, but photos of the popular water park on the resort grounds showed that the place was overrun with kids, so I put it on my list of places to avoid.
But the idea of getting away for lunch was oddly appealing, so I got cleaned up and hopped in a taxi. Destination: Atlantis...
Now, usually, non-guests can only enter the Atlantis grounds by paying for a $135 day pass. It's a lot of money, but you do get to use the water park, pools, beaches, and all the other facilities... IF they have any passes available, since the number they sell depends on occupancy of the hotel. Fortunately, I didn't have to pay the money because my new friends just handed me one of their room keys, which is like a Golden Ticket to the grounds.
You don't have to have a pass to enter the Atlantis casino, of course. They're happy to take your money for free. And it's totally worth the trip, because they have four pieces by one of my favorite artists, Dale Chihuly!
Here's the Temple of the Sun...
And the Temple of the Moon...
And the Crystal Gate...
I couldn't find a name for this very cool chandelier. Perhaps it's "Temple of the Alien Intestines" or "Chandelier of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" or something. In any event, this photo doesn't do it justice. The piece is absolutely magnificent, and a little terrifying...
Using the magical powers of my friend's room key, I then got to see the water park, which features a giant water slide...
But the coolest thing I saw was the Atlantis Lazy River tube ride, which ends with a float through a big tube... THROUGH A GIANT SHARK TANK!!! Now, this the very definition of SHARK EXTREME!!
But the SHARK EXTREMENESS doesn't end there. Much to my amazement, there are sharks swimming around in the fountain pools on the resort grounds! No fences. No barriers. No nuthin'. You can just walk right up and look inside...
I guess the sharks are well fed by drunken tourists who accidentally fall into the predator-infested waters. But not everything is deadly at Atlantis. They have giant balloons in the shape of donuts and cupcakes too...
From there we wandered down to the Paradise Island marina. If you've got billions of dollars for a giant yacht, you can probably afford to berth here...
And then we got to the reason my blog friends thought that a trip to Atlantis would be worth the trouble...
ZOMG! There's a Johnny Rockets here! AND they had my vegetarian burgers in-stock! How amazing is that? Now I was really glad I decided to drag my lazy ass out of bed this morning!
After a great lunch, it was time to bid my friends goodbye and get back to my scheduled plans of doing nothing. The passenger ferry was just around the corner, so I decided to save money on a pricey taxi and just take a jitney bus from Nassau back "home" to Cable Beach. The ferry itself is an odd experience. The "ferries" are actually just rickety old boats that charge $4 to cross from Paradise Island to downtown...
It's not exactly a pleasant trip because it's sweltering hot, you can't see out very well, and you've got a "tour guide" screaming the entire trip (who expects to be tipped for "entertaining" you). I managed to get a few pictures off, but the boat wasn't exactly conducive to photography...
With three cruise ships in town, Nassau was beyond packed, so I bolted for the jitney stop and my $1.25 ride back to my hotel.
And here I am, hurrying through this blog post so I can put the excitement of my day behind me and get back to the important business of doing nothing.
Well, not exactly nothing...
A few more of these and it will finally be a vacation...
I'm not a sun-worshipper. I'm not one to lay around on a beach all day. I'm not a fan of high heat and humidity. So I'm the one who experiences a secret glee when I hear that there will be overcast skies and scattered thundershowers when I'm headed to a tropical destination. It'll still be hot, of course, but at least I'll be shielded from the sun and the rain will make it so there's a reason for the humidity.
Except the forecast was a lie, and so here I am in the Bahamas with blue skies and unrelenting sun in full 95° heat. If I was into this kind of weather, I'd describe it as "perfect."
The view from my room pretty much sucks, doesn't it?
Oh well. At least the flight down was surreal... but nice...
The reason I am here is twofold...
I'm staying at a resort on Cable Beach, which is a pretty stretch of sand west of Nassau...
I was able to contain myself all of an hour before I hopped a taxi to Nassau, and Hard Rock #146 for me...
It's a nice, old-school cafe with plenty of memorabilia covering the walls. In other words, it's exactly what a Hard Rock should be...
The town of Nassau is kind of nice, if a bit touristy with all the cruise ships stopping by. I didn't feel like doing any of that kind of thing, but couldn't resist when I saw there was a PIRATE MUSEUM!!
They recreate a pirate village you can walk through along with a pirate ship and various dioramas to show what pirate life was like. They also have a bunch of trivia you can play along the way, which was pretty cool...
I have no idea what's going on here. I hope it's some freaky-ass attempt at surgery to alleviate back pain...
From there I wandered down to Junkanoo Beach...
One thing I've noticed so far is that the kids who live here are really well behaved. This adorable tyke was content to play quietly by himself while his family was swimming, which was a big contrast to the tourist kids who were screaming and yelling and going bat-shit insane as they terrorized the beach...
If I knew that the weather was going to be this beautiful, I would have brought my "real" camera instead of relying on my iPhone and my pocket shooter. Oh well, something is better than nothing...
My plans for tomorrow? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Though I'll probably venture away from the resort for a little while... especially if those overcast skies ever show up.
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