Still Norovirus Free!!

Our jeans don’t fit.

We decided to take advantage of our Freestyle Offers today and eat in the restaurant in jeans.Turns out, that in five short days, we are already unable to comfortably wear our jeans. Looks like we will be eating lettuce only salads and triscuits as a meal for awhile after we get back. I actually took video with a very compelling explanation of why we have to drink many fruity cocktails, but it won't upload from the ship so that will have to be a part of the highlights from the trip when we get home. But I heard our photos from the last post didn’t load, so I will attempt to correct that problem.

We were in Saint Thomas today which was lovely. I’m endlessly amused by the fact that we went directly from Louis Vuitton to Kmart. As you can see – Aaron has his priorities and I have mine…ah wedded bliss.

But for the ladies – here is my new dream purse. It’s not a black epi leather as I originally planned, but apparently this just hit the shelves yesterday and it called me and I had no choice but to deviate from my original plan. Then we went to Kmart for bleach wipes and books. The pickings were slim. I will be reading actual romance novels for the next few days…I miss my Kindle.

I think I’m funny. For everyone except Jobin – this is actually Jobin’s purse that I am using on this trip since it’s good for travel. I can’t post a picture of the actual purse because I have to wait and show Jobin in person so I can see her face as she faces the fact that I have out-pursed her.

We are still having a great time. After the shopping we went to Megan’s beach where we lounged. We also saw a prehistoric fish, which was pretty cool, but failed to get pictures of it because we suck.

We are going to bed very early because tomorrow is when we go deep sea fishing. We have started taking the Bonine and plan to bring Dramamine, so wish us luck that we are not violently ill. I do plan to catch an actual shark.

Shark! Or a wahoo. Or however you spell it.

We made it through our deep sea fishing adventure without falling overboard! We had a great time. I reeled in the first fish which was small – 2 pound tuna. Then somehow – for some reason I was absolutely unable to stay awake for even one more minute and I fell asleep. Which is odd – for those of you that have been deep sea fishing – you know you are being tossed about like a pinball and it is not serene. But it made me incredibly tired regardless. So I slept until I heard a ruckus on the deck – Aaron was reeling and there was a second fish on so I went out there and reeled and reeled and reeled. Aaron lost his fish, and the guide said mine was ‘small’ so I could do it, but I reeled and reeled and I thought my arm was going to fall off. I actually have a disgusting blister on my hand like you would get on your foot. Gross. So anyway, I figured I was even more of a wuss than I had originally thought because I was ready to throw in the towel, but eventually I got the fish out. It was a giant shark! (Actually a wahoo but I’m calling it a shark.) The guide said it weighed 30 pounds. It was 4 ½ feet. It wasn’t as gory as the video of Kelly catching his shark, but it did get clubbed over the head several times then speared/gaffed by the guides. I ran before the carnage happened. But it was really bloody and not quite dead in the cooler. It flopped around in there for a while before it finally kicked it. Then Aaron caught another tuna and we headed back in.

Our giant fish!!

Then we went and ate in the tapanykki place. I don’t know how to spell that either. But it was really good and very entertaining.

If you are going to lose your sunglasses, at least let it happen in the Caribbean sea…

Today we were in Barbados – it is lovely. I would 100% go there on a non-cruise vacation. We were pretty tuckered out by our fishing extravaganza so we just went to the beach. We went to the Hilton resort and bought day passes which included food and drinks which was awesome. And there were fantastic waves and beautiful white sand and the weather was perfect (sigh….it’s ok to hate us.) So we were playing in the water when Aaron promptly got hit by a 6-foot wave and lost his sunglasses. Which sucks since they are prescription. So then we spent the next hour walking around in the water trying to find them – which was useless. We knew we wouldn’t find them but thought we would try anyway…. So Aaron was pretty bummed and my peace offering was that I wouldn’t complain for the rest of the trip and that he could be in charge for the rest of the day. (I feel bad being a liar this early in our marriage…we have nine days left. All of the employees on this ship should be planked. I’m just going to learn to complain in code.)

(Brief tirade - it’s hard not to complain. I have been accosted by more cruise employees and their bottles of God-knows-what than I have hairs in my head. You can’t get someone to wait on you or smile at you for that matter, but they are there to douse you with their sanitation fluid. I get it – it’s the Norwalk virus or whatever it is. And I don’t want it, and they are trying to keep it under control, but for crying out loud – when you pass the other ships in port, they are handing out iced towels and frosty beverages, when you get back to the NCL spirit, they are spritzing you with rubbing alcohol. You have no choice. They won’t let you on the ship or in the restaurant unless they have spritzed you. It’s so gross. I have actually started to just show them my purell and my purse sized bleach wipes when we walk by. I’ve taken to personally sanitizing our eating areas before we eat. For those of you that have cruised – it’s so bad they won’t even let you get your own coffee from the self-service coffee pot. Any hall you walk down they are washing the walls with bleach. I don’t know what the Norwalk/Norovirus does beyond ‘gastrointestinal distress’ but it must be something awful…)

Anyway - we had a great day in Barbados and we are both sporting quite impressive sunburns so I think we are going to go to bed early. We have a sea day tomorrow, so we will be embracing the nothing…

Regarding our sunburns – it’s like sunburn art – except the really ugly kind. I have an actual line across my forehead from where my hat was hitting and an unfortunate array of swimsuit straps. Aaron has his standard sitting-in-Canada-wasted-burn which means for those of you that may not know that the top of his head is bright white as it usually is, but his face is beet red. And then one side of his body is burned. We are a smokin’ hot couple, that’s for sure. You note I am passing on posting photos of this action.

Jen - I have to steal our blog.

It's attached to my email address...go figure.

Easier to blog than email – for those of you that haven’t been on a cruise, if you remember dial up – you understand why!

Happy Honeymooners!!

So many things…

I’ve decided that going forward we will be taking pictures of all the food that we are served so I can give you a visual to go with the narrative of the atrocities of mankind we are being fed. “Fine Luxury Dining” we were just told was what they call it. By our Cruise Director. Who does not know how to speak into a microphone so it sounds like, perhaps, freestyle rap instead of an announcement. We were talking at lunch today about how incredibly awesome it would be to have Gordon Ramsey on this ship. But then we realized that he may self combust or have meltdown so intense that he ends up in a coma or just some other kind of unresponsive state and that wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the world.

We are also dealing with an outbreak of Norovirus in addition to the swine flu concerns. What that means to those of you that have not cruised is that at every turn, you are accosted by a cruise employee toting a spray bottle of ‘hand sanitizer’ but we don’t really know what it is. And you are forced to sanitize your hands regardless of whether or not you are carrying your own purel or other sanitizing option. So we have some dead skin going on – it’s attractive. But so far we have no apparent infections. Go Fight Win.

So far – what we have learned is that no matter what cruise line you are on the people are equally ugly. There is no shortage of banana hammocks, bejeweled hats and other bejeweled accessories, unfortunate swimwear decisions; and a quite impressive, amazing array of man jewelry. I mean – we did leave from Boston which may as well been Jersey, but my God – I will have to see if I can start capturing that on film as well.

The band is called Marais or something, but what they really are is an Asian version of KiKi & Si.Since not everyone was a part of the auditory assault that was KiKi & Si; perhaps Jobin or Courtney can drudge up a memory as my memory has been seared by the sound of Marais. I’m working on finding Sound on Sound, but I can only take on so many battles each day. Sorry for the lack of explanation to you non-cruisers, Jobin/Courtney owe you an explanation.

What we are up to…

So we had two sea days in a row followed by Samana today. The sea days were nice, the first day I got impossibly drunk (imagine that…) and spent too much money at the casino (imagine that…)Aaron busied himself immediately becoming the Minister of Navigation and he can tell you at any moment of any day where anything is and what the most efficient route to get there is. It’s handy. The next day – post recovery – we lounged and ate at the French restaurant which is not The Olympic, but it was fine. Decent food and decent service, which is more than I can say for the rest of the staff which have their own personal definitions of freestyle service.(Jobin – I can guarantee you would not be able to hang on Norwegian. I may charge you a small fee for my trouble here. It’s like some kind of espionage, really…) Then we went to the cigar room and smoked cigars and drank cognac. I felt very manly.

Anyway, unfortunately I couldn’t find my Kindle before I left so I am bookless, which could in theory impair my lounging ability. I went to the library the first day and got The History of Loveby Nicole Krauss which was excellent for any of you book readers. Aaron is reading the new Dan Brown book. Tomorrow is Saint Thomas which will have an English bookstore - so all is well.And last night we watched a movie after eating in the cafeteria – a.k.a. the main dining room.Yeah.‘Feats of Glory’ is what they served, but you may have had it at the local OCB. But I can’t even attempt to explain without pictures, so more to come. So we watched ‘The Proposal’ which was terrible, but entertaining none-the-less. Someone was just telling me about that movie and said it was cute – which it was – but I thought Aaron had maybe died since his eyes glazed over to such an extent. Aaron has also taken to openly and shamelessly mixing his own drinks right on the pool deck – it’s impressive. The Sigg bottles of vodka were the way to go for future reference. Oh, and on the first day during my drunken casinoing I earned enough points for free drinks in the casino – so I have that going for me.

Aaron rockin’ down the kiddie pool slide!

So Samana today – it was something. Much like we were warned by Madelyn’s Bob & Deb – very very poor. We wondered around for awhile and then Aaron bartered with some dude to take us via moped rickshaw to a waterfall. Also – there were two other ships ‘in port’ even though there is no actual port. There is a dock – Aaron thinks the dock on Lake Ida is bigger than this. So we got in at 11 but after the world’s hottest tender ride got into the town around 1.There was standard issue crapazite to buy at the three stores, and a lot of people trying to sell us seashells for a dollar – mostly children – very reminiscent of China. Madelyn – I did find your coffee, so we were successful on that front.

We took a moped rickshaw to this waterfall where we were greeted by our guide who took us into the jungle down to the waterfall. It was really cool – I took video of this plant called a mimosa (yes, like the cocktail) that shrinks into itself when you touch it. It was amazing. We saw banana trees, cocoa trees, orange trees, plantain trees, various other trees and wildlife and a lot of stray wild dogs (which was really sad.) Then we went to the waterfall and back and the guide – who we planned to tip - informed us that we owed him twenty bucks, which was a bit of a surprise, but was fine because we did make it in and back intact. Then we took our terrifying moped rickshaw ride back to the boat and here we are!!!

And so…

So far so good. We are having a great time – tomorrow we are in Saint Thomas where we have a lot of various things to buy – mostly related to bleach and bleach wipes. Oh and black socks since that was the one thing I forgot so Aaron looked extra stylin’ in his suit with his white socks. And Louis Vuitton. So tomorrow will be a good day.

Back to lounging we go!!!

Jesus will be disappointed next Tuesday.

We learned during the radio version of bible-dipping that the Lord will be returning to the general Nebraska area next Tuesday. Just so you know.

I just to don't see the Lord or Jen approving of the latest trend ripping through the Middle and probably the rest of the country. I know it's not just here in the Ha, because I know I have witnessed the baffling atrocity while driving on 94, so it can't be Ha/Bluffs specific. And I imagine that next weekend when I am trucking up 63 in Wisconsin I will see more - it seems Wisconsin appropriate...

Truck Nutz. That's right. I'm using a z because there is no other way.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, I will do my best to snap a photo today during my journey to the office. I can only hope that I get to choose the size and color of the Nutz that I have the joy of photographing.

Yeah.

What would make me especially happy is if I happen upon a vehicle with Truck Nutz in the parking lot of the Steak & Lube. I can't get my hopes up too much, but it could happen. And - I will dare to dream for a moment - what would be beyond fantastic is Truck Nutz on this fantastic Chevy that we passed on the way into the abyss of central Iowa - we saw this Chevy truck, one of those giant trucks and on the back gate(is that what it's called?) there was a beautiful silk screened picture of the same Chevy parked all bad-ass and sideways on the bluff of some cliff in the mountains of I'm guessing Montana or maybe Wyoming. It would be like having a picture of yourself framed on your wall and in the picture you were getting your picture taken. I don't know. I might have lost it there - but anyway, if that truck had Truck Nutz that would be great.

What?

Somewhere in Middle America there is a Horseshoe Casino. It’s a lovely establishment full of the usual Iowa/Nebraska-casino-going-types; which include a variety of combine drivers drinking beer in a can and millionaires blowing their money on icky women and craps…until last night. Last night we experienced the Asian Invasion.

At first, Jen and I kept smacking each other and we felt quite shamed by the fact that we pointed out the volume of Asians packed into this casino on a Sunday night in Iowa. We felt quite guilty until I just couldn’t stand it anymore so I asked one of the staffers – I asked what the happs were in The Roadhouse this evening that brought out such a crowd. That’s when the delightful little Vietnamese woman behind the counter squeeled ‘oh, it’s the Asian Invasion concert, Jiyn Duc Won is the headliner – he’s like the Justin Timberlake of Vietnam’.

Oh.

I still think my favorite part was the tall white guy in the middle of the sea of Asians with his bad haircut and bad suit. It was just bad.

And Jen got yelled at for peering in the window of the Roadhouse. It was wicked awesome.

Oh Yeah!

It isn’t often that I get to stray from the Marriott to stay at some interloper hotel, but every once an awhile I get to hit up one of the other lame corporate hotels. A Hilton, a Crown Plaza – if I’m very lucky – the Double Tree (which if you were in the Minneapolis part of the Middle you would know as the lesbian hotel.) But this time I was lucky. I was very lucky. I had the honor of staying in the Mecca of Entertainment in the Iowa/Nebraska area known as Council Bluffs, IA. At Harrah’s – Oh Yeah!

If I only had time to explain what the inside of a casino in Council Bluffs, IA is like. If only…..

I have just two things to report:

We had a delightful team dinner at the steakhouse on the top of Harrahs where we discussed new and fabulous ideas for New Years traditions, as well as the cock-blocking of McLovin (which was very sad.) Now, the 360 - as one might imagine when thinking of a restaurant on the top floor of a building - has panoramic views of both sides of the Missouri River, including the illustrious Downtown Omaha. Hot. I’m sorry – Oh Yeah! The food was exceptional just incase you are wondering. But ANYWAY the best part about the panoramic views from the 360 is that the building is 12 stories high. Yep. And it’s towering compared to everything else. That’s the height of the East Building at Riverside for those of you from Fairview. Sad. It’s their ‘skyscraper’ in the middle of that very, very big sky. Or perhaps the best part of our dinner was the fact that we were sitting in the 360 during a relativly intense storm in the middle of tornado alley. It was somewhat terrifying. I thank the makers of Grey Goose.

Jake – to answer your earlier inquiry – there is Oh Yeah 1-8 and they will take you pretty much anywhere you want to go – probably even the Bikini Bar. We were stuck in some stupid van. No Oh Yeah for us. F.

This is all I know. Or I have to finish my actual work now.

What part of our purchase warrented use of jelly?

McDonalds drive through. Louisville Kentucky. 845EST, Monday August 27th, 2007.

Greeted with hun by the drive through lady, offered jelly for use with sausage McMuffin. Or Diet Coke. Unclear as to what purpose jelly might serve.

Gross.

It Was In Middle America...

Sort of. Does Northern Wisconsin count as Middle America?

Once Ashley and I met a Murderer. A serial Murderer. Not a serial killer, a serial Murderer. They are more dangerous, trust me. We were on the ferry boat, headed to Madeline Island. We were drinking a beer, and we noticed the queer man in the car ahead of us. (not queer like Glee, queer like really f'ing weird.) He kept looking at us. He had funny glasses, and a lot of Gear in his car. I mean, really a lot of Gear for one queer man. So at first I was all "He wants our beer" but we soon smartened up (I thin kwe smacked ourselves in the head and said "Smarten up, Us!" and realized what he wanted was US. No, not like that. Like, he wanted to Murder us. In a bad way. That's what all the gear was for! Murder Gear! He brought all his Murder Gear on the ferry boat so that he could Murder us!

His name was Kevin. We didn't ask him that, because generally we don't speak to Murderers, but it was clear that his name was Kevin. You just had to look at him and his dumb glasses to know that his name was Kevin.

We made it off the boat alive...(I drove while sitting as far under the seat as I could..I didn't know what Murder tool he was going to use, it could have been a gun or a hook or something) and Ashley laid across the back seat with a blanket over her. Well, actually it wasn't a blanket because we are never that prepared, it was actually 24 used McDonald's napkins that she unfolded and spread across her body.

So we drove quickly to the house, parking under a cover of trees and foliage. That's right, foliage. We booked it into the house and discussed how lucky we were to be still alive.

Due to other topics of conversation such as the price of tea in China, the Summer Olympics, and midgets related to how Ashley hates Small Things, we soon forgot about the Murderer. We hid our ugly the best we could and proceeded out for the night. We were driving on South Shore Road listening to Montgomery Gentry or maybe it was "Krammit The Frog" when we saw a beam of light. It was getting larger and closer as we drove. (duh) Ashley screamed "IT'S KEVIN!!!!!" she was right! It WAS Kevin..on a bike! With a headlamp! And a bag of Murder tools in his bike basket! COMING TO MURDER US!! With his tools! Luckily he didn't see us. (he apparently isn't a Murderer with very good attention to detail.) We donned disguises...OK, they weren't disguises but we did put on sweatshirts...and tried to enjoy our night knowing that Kevin was waiting for us at the house with his Murder tools, because the last thing a girl wants is to let a Murderer ruin your last night alive.

We cautiously drove back to the house at the end of the evening. I suggested driving the vehicle INTO the house so that we wouldn't have to risk running all willy-nilly through the dark to the house. (and Lord knows I've done it before...) but we vetoed that idea when we remembered that my grandparents lived there, and even though they would be kind and understanding when they heard that we were simply protecting ourselves from a MURDERER, it would probably cost a lot to repair. So we were forced to run. We didn't do it willy-nilly style, though, we did it James Bond style, with the help of trees. Ashley started, holding her fake gun (because you kind of have to when you're playing James Bond Junior) and hid behind a tree. She looked left, looked right, motioned to me, and as I headed for that tree, she headed for the next one. We repeated this until we safely arrived at the front steps. There are a lot of trees up there, so this took 45 minutes.

After a thorough search of the house, we determined that Kevin must have built himself some sort of forest shelter, where he lays in wait and eats squirrels.

I think he's still there, because we have not seen him since.