Give me some Dutch and French!


The second island that we hit up was St. Maarten. Once again, I was still so dazzled by the water! There's our ship, the Explorer all docked up.

We went on an local artist tour. We got to ride in a nice air conditioned bus and got a pretty good tour of the island. Unfortunately, the tour guide was very boring and I tried really hard to pay attention to her on the bus. Not to mention at each artist's home/gallery, I'd catch her digging for gold. No joke! In one of the galleries, this artist painted on ceramics and pottery. I liked a few of the bowls but they were out of my price range. It was so funny, I was looking at some bowls when this huge thing went scurrying across the wall. I almost broke some things, freaking out that it was probably a crazy humongo island bug. What it actually was, was some sort of lizard. I ended up getting these cute shot glasses with these pretty flowers painted on for my girls. As I was paying for my glasses, I realized that she didn't actually make the bowls. She had bought them and then painted on them. That was very disappointing since some of them had cool shapes and cutouts. My favorite artist was still Dona. She was so friendly and gorgeous. I wanted to buy all these pieces from her but I didn't bring any credit cards or enough cash on me. I was only able to get the one piece with the woman and the boat.

After the tour, we went back on the ship to grab lunch and to pick up some funds for some duty free shopping. Since the main area where we wanted to shop was quite a walk, we ended up taking a water taxi. It was very convenient since you didn't have to wait a long time for one to pick you up. Only Kevin and Emmy had something they were on the look out for. Kevin wanted this ring he saw in the magazine and M wanted a watch. Whatever store we walked into, most of the workers would pounce on you. There were definitely stores that were so out of my price range that once I saw the tag, I didn't even bother trying it on since that would make leaving even harder. I got to try on Dior and Hermes watches. It's funny how they act like $1000 some dollars is not a big amount. M was looking at some TAG watches and I was commenting how they just looked like Fossil watches. The lady behind the counter gave me the most disgusted look after hearing me say that. Em said I had offended her with that remark since the watches are so superior to what I called them. There was this small store that sold the funniest tees. Some were extremely raunchy while others were tasteful. Em and I advised Kevin to get the "man whore" one for his brother. There was another one that was hilarious, it said "what time do you want your mom home?" Too bad they didn't have any in his size. If they made them in women's sizes, I would have gotten it and rocked it in front of a few certain friends. I did end up getting some things, you can see what I got here.

St. Thomas, here we are!


The first island that we arrived at was at St. Thomas. I was so excited because we had decided to go snorkeling here. Originally we had wanted a horseback riding tour but the times conflicted. With the moment I stepped off the ship, I was in awe with the color of the waters. I just wanted to place it inside a bottle and keep that color forever. We sailed for good amount of time before reaching the place where we would be snorkeling. Getting all the gear was exciting; I just tried to not think about who had used my mouth piece before me. Mmm yummy. We had to jump off a plank to get off, where is my pirate outfit when I need it? We were supposed to keep our goggles on but not the mouth piece. Well, the goggles completely close off your nose and in my blonde moment, I was thinking, "how am I going to breathe while waiting to jump off?" Kevin of course reminded me that as humans, we can breathe through our mouths as well. Right. This was the first time I had ever gone snorkeling so I was having some trouble with the swimming and breathing through the tube.

Man, was the water salty! It just made swallowing any water 10 times as worse! The things I saw were so amazing! It's not like I've never seen creatures from the ocean but seeing them while you're in there with them is so different. I was so lucky to see sea turtles! I figured all I would see were fishes and coral. Too bad that I wasn't a crazy swimmer/diver, cause then I could have gotten really close to them. I also got to see a sting ray before getting back onto the boat.

Sailing back to the pier, they offered you as much alcohol as you wanted, along with some salsa and chips. The better judgment of me was like, "Hmm, fatigue + sun + alcohol + salsa + rocking boat = not a good idea!" I opted out on the beverages and settled for a soda. However, most of the other snorklers were chugging down the alcohol and they definitely paid for it. It became such a puke-fest onboard. It was so hard to pretend to not see anything since when you turned away, someone else was going at it. Kevin and I were thinking that the tour guides must get such a kick out of this cause I'm sure they see it happen all the time and they were just waiting for it.


Once back onto the ship, I had to rush with the showering cause I was told that it was Caribbean night in the dining room and the waiters would be dancing with fire on their heads. Not to mention there was going to be flambé desserts! (There's our waiter with the fire and getting it down with one of our Russian 6). After dinner, we rushed back to the top deck to get a glimpse of St. Thomas at night. It was so pretty with all the lights!

Funny men

I have a thing for Vince Vaughn so I was very excited to watch The Break-Up last weekend. In all honesty, it wasn't as funny as I expected it to be. Though I do give it credit for hitting the target on certain aspects of relationships. I think that's my problem, I hype movies up and then I get a bit disappointed.

Who has been one of my fave men? Adam Sandler....ever since Billy Madison, he's been cracking me up. I think I used to quote that movie all the time, to the point where my mother would threaten me that if I ever dated a guy like that, she would disown me. I guess she got sick of hearing me sing the "back to school" song. So I got to watch Click tonight. I didn't know who I was more excited seeing, Adam or Kate (after all, she is on my "list"). It was so funny, to the point where my cheeks were hurting and I was feeling some pains in my stomach. Don't be fooled though, there were some very serious scenes and I had the waterworks coming out. Nothing beats seeing Sam wearing a red banana hammock though. Frodo would have been proud (or turned on since you could cut that sexual tension with a butter knife)!

Cruisin'

I finally went on my first cruise ever with Kevin and Emmy and I had an awesome time! It was also the first time I've ever been able to see waters that gorgeous colored. We spent the first day just exploring the ship and trying to figure out how we would be spending our time. Since M's luggage was the only one that didn't arrive at our room yet, we all opted to just keep on whatever we were wearing for dinner. Originally I had thought that it would have been a small setting but we were brought to a giant table. Who would we be having dinner with for the next few days? How about 6 Russian grandmas, who barely spoke any English. It was weird at first and most of them seemed so angry and displeased with everything. But as the nights went on, a few started opening up and we definitely enjoyed their company. Em and I even gave each one a nickname. We had Grill (because she was totally eyeing me like a piece of steak the first night), Sexy (well cause she's really sexy), Angry (who did smile the last night), Sugar Free/Grinder, Camera Shy, and Pirate Lover. It was so awesome being able to order whatever you wanted. Trust me, Em and I took full advantage when it came to the desserts. The best was the cherry (which really were the size of my eyeballs) and banana flambes! I really loved the fact that I never had to drive myself nuts trying to figure out eating plans. Also, it was fun getting dressed up and trying to coordinate outfits on some nights.

We decided to attack the wall on the 2nd day. Nothing like wearing a tight crotch harness. Imagine being held up by your vajayjay (as Dr. Bailey beautifully called it). Since neither Kevin nor I had ever climbed before, we made Emmy go first. Can I just say that being short definitely has its disadvantages? I was pretty content with ringing the middle bell but the guy wouldn't let me down until I tried reaching the top. Woo hoo, we all reached the bell! Did I ring that bell! I must admit, my arms were sore for muchos days afterwards. There were a few times when I was in a bad spot where there weren't many things to grab onto so I really had to yank myself up.


There was even an ice skating rink on our ship! Of course Kevin made all the teeny boppers jealous with his mad skills. So many of the boys would look at him with their gaping mouths going, "Woah....how'd you do that??" I just wished that it was open all the time but you could only go on certain days and during certain times. I'm assuming it was because the ice skaters needed to practice for the show. We went to see the ice show which was amazing! At first it was a bit cheesy but it got much better. Especially when they brought out this crazy ring that they would spin in. I don't even know how to describe it. I'm not sure when we first spotted "Henry" but we squealed with delight when we saw him. Of course I wanted to snap a pic and one of the state attendants came out and saw us. He of course thought we were crazy and that we've never seen a vacuum before, but I explained to him that we'd never seen one this cute!

Alrighty, I will post more later on. If you want to see pics, just ask.

Get your bake on


Behold....the mighty layer brownie!

Man, was it hot in the kitchen today! I was on a baking frenzy today, while attempting to cook some dinner simultaneously. I had promised my cousin June cookies ages ago but I haven't been around to do so. I figured since I was already making cookies, I might as well go crazy and make all my other cousins some goodies. It didn't start well at all though. Earlier in the morning, I thought I had gotten everything that I needed from the supermarket. Of course, later on I realized that I was still missing some ingredients and that some that I already had were expired. Ugh, back out again. I thought I'd be slick and just go to SuperFresh instead of driving further to ShopRite. Of course that would have been too easy! They didn't have what I needed so in the end I still had to go to ShopRite. But it's all good, I took my frustrations out on the batters! In the end I had a massive amount of cookies, brownies, cheesecakes, and 4 dishes and a soup for dinner. Not bad if I say so myself.

Pieces

I'm broken. I'm heartache. I'm confusion. I'm guilt and regret. I am at a loss.