Author: Just Visiting

Categories
All You Can Jet

Day 21: The Calm Before the Storm

I woke up to the pleasant surprise of sunshine around 9am and immediately headed out to the beach.

I pulled a lounge chair right into the water and laid out listening to music until the storm clouds started rolling in around 2. I was the only one on that part of the beach except for a crab who was playing hide and seek with me in his little crab holes.

Then I went to the Pirate’s Cove water park and lounged around in the lazy river and went down the water slide once, then right back out to the ocean for some snorkeling. I didn’t think I’d see much right off the beach, but I saw lots of crazy neon fish. I wish I had an underwater camera, but they wanted $22 for a disposable. Pretty big rip off considering the photographs from those things always turn out horrible. There were a few photographers running around taking pictures, so I was suckered into buying a few of me snorkeling and going down the water slide. Stay tuned for those photos when I get a chance to scan them in!

There was something wrong with my snorkel (or maybe it was just me) because I kept getting a mouth full of salt water every fourth breath or so. After about 20 minutes I had consumed so much salt water that I started to gag. I almost puked in the snorkel, so I ripped off my goggles and started dry heaving into the ocean but thankfully never vomited. I was pretty far out, so I started swimming as fast as possible back to shore and straight to the bar for some fresh water.

I snacked on some grilled cheese and cheese dogs from the grill almost every single day. Sometimes even twice a day, on top of the buffet and restaurants.

I took a nap on the balcony and woke up just in time for the closest thing to a sunset I got to see in Jamaica, which was still ruined by all of the clouds.

I even enjoyed a short walk on the beach that night.

Categories
All You Can Jet

Day 20: A Rainy Start to Hurricane Season in Jamaica

I arrived in Montego Bay for the most unexpectedly hectic four days of this trip so far. I took a 15 minute cab ride from the airport to the Sunset Beach Resort and Spa. The cab fare was [inexplanably] thirty US dollars. I only had a 20 so I had to stop at an ATM. Shame on me for not planning ahead. We pulled up to an abandoned ATM that locked when you stepped into the private booth. I felt a little uneasy since three people were waiting behind me outside, and all of my luggage was sitting in the cab. I tried to withdraw $20 when I got the error message “you must withdraw in multiples of $100.” I wasn’t even sure if I had $100 in the bank, but I went ahead and withdrew it anyway. When it came out, duh, it was 100 Jamaican dollars. I had no idea how much that was in US dollars, so I got back in the cab and down the road we went.

I thought for sure the driver would try and pull a fast one on me, but I asked him anyway “is 100 Jamaican dollars enough?” He slammed on the brakes, turned back towards the ATM, and tried explaining the conversion rate to me, which ended with “$30 is equal to $2400 Jamaican dollars.” I didn’t know what to do! It sounded like such a huge difference. So I went back to the ATM and checked out my balance. The amount had hardly changed since I pulled out 100 Jamaican dollars, so I figured he must be telling the truth. When I got back to the car, he showed me a sheet of paper with conversion rates on it and to my relief, he was telling the truth.

I was immediately greeted with a tropical drink upon checkin. I told the staff about my travel blog, and asked for a possible upgrade to an ocean view room- which I got, on the 7th floor.

I was sharing a room with another All You Can Jet-ter, and since it was raining outside we headed down to explore the property and have a few drinks. What else are you supposed to do with access to an unlimited open bar on a rainy day? Then we had a four course dinner at a Jamaican restaurant on the resort, and I had my first taste of Jamaican jerk chicken. Overall, it was okay but not really for my taste buds.

The resort had a great live band performing, followed by a couple hours of dancing.

I’ve embarrassed myself many times attempting to dance in public, but this was one of the worst. I wasn’t really drunk, so I was still a little shy and completely lacking rhythm as usual. One of the workers brought me up on stage and challenged me to a dance off. When I showed him a few of my white girl moves, he realized he’d have to teach me a thing or two. Bottom line, I am probably the worst dancer in the world. But I kind of wish someone would have gotten it on video.

After many more drinks, the party moved out to a beachfront bar and dance floor adjacent to a jacuzzi and two pools with a swim up bar in the middle. It wasn’t too happening for a Sunday night, so we bounced back and forth between the jacuzzi and the ocean before calling it a night.

Categories
All You Can Jet

Day 20: On The Way to Montego Bay!

I had the perfect redeye from SFO to JFK. We departed at 1030p, and said good morning to New York (over the Atlantic Ocean) at 7a.

I don’t have anything exciting to say about the flight since I slept almost the entire time. I think I only woke up two times the whole flight. It felt like we were at JFK in no time! I’m at the airport right now waiting for my 1040a flight to Montego Bay! This will be my first ever stamp in my passport! I got my passport back in 2006 for a school trip to London and Paris that never happened, and I’ve never used it since.

I might not have internet service down there, and I definitely won’t have cell service so you might have to sit tight for a few days for some updates. But rest assured, I’m staying at an all-inclusive resort with a water park, so I will be having fun. There is one possible downside. I checked out the weather for the next few days, and there looks like a lot of rain. Here’s hoping these are quick showers, not steady overcast days. I want to lay on a beach and swim in the ocean! At least the temperature will be in the high 80’s, with a real feel of 104!

Categories
All You Can Jet Food + Drinks

Day 19: Last Day in The Bay

I spent the majority of Saturday packing for Jamaica, and resting up. I did manage to make it out of the house for a quick bite to eat with Terazia, an extended family member I haven’t seen since she was like 7 years old. Now she’s 18 and going to college in San Francisco. Crazy how fast kids grow up!

We went to a cheap Taqueria, that I’ve actually eaten at before. It’s not the best Mexican food, but it’s cheap and quick. I ordered the nachos this time instead of a 90 pound burrito. They were great at first, until they got all soggy and it looked like baby diarrhea.

I packed and made the trek to the BART around 7p for my 1030p flight. It’s a damn good thing I looked at the flight information again at 6p, because I thought my flight was at 1130p. Next stop, Montego Bay, Jamaica!

Categories
All You Can Jet

Day 18: Strolling and Eating Through North Beach

Friday was quite possibly the perfect day pretending to be a San Francisco local. Not to mention the weather was warm- a rarity in the bay area. After enjoying my usual oatmeal and tea, I went for a walk around the North Beach neighborhood. I spotted an awesome name for a cafe. If you don’t get it then sorry, but maybe you should expand your musical horizons.

Another sign for the cool people out there. I hope this street is named after Chris Osgood!

I ended up down on The Embarcadero, which is probably my favorite word ever. It was about 800 degrees outside, so I stopped in The Plant Cafe for an extremely overpriced, disgusting lemonade. The drink was so tart and sour, it was hardly refreshing. I think it was close to $4 or $5 for about 10oz of what tasted like pure lemon juice. But I’m not one to waste food or drinks, so I sat on the pier sipping on it, people and boat watching near the Bay Bridge.

The heat was really kicking my ass since I was already nearly dehydrated, and the lemonade was soaking up what little water was in my body, so I made my way back to the apartment for some free, and satisfying water.

I found myself at the base of the Transamerica Pyramid, so I snapped this photo looking up.

Then a quick stroll through Chinatown for some souvenir shopping,

and I found myself standing outside of Goodby Silverstein & Partners again. If I were ever randomly offered a job there, I think this is the only agency in the world that I would pack up my things without hesitation and leave New York for. Maybe some day.

I got back to the apartment and soloed on a bottle of pre-dinner red wine from Trader Joe’s. I’ve got an obsession of trying cheap, local wines whenever I travel. This one was decent. Nothing great but definitely satisfactory for the $5 I paid. It was perfect though; watching the sun set on San Francisco as the fog rolled into the bay, enjoying a relaxing beverage while waiting for my friends to arrive for dinner.

Back in the spring, two friends of mine, Jim and Karen, left New York to move to San Mateo. As soon as I knew I was visiting San Francisco, they were two of the first people I asked to meet up. They drove into the city, and we went out to an Italian restaurant called Colosseo. It was absolutely incredible. Service was a bit slow, but the food more than made up for it. At first we were all disappointed by the size of the portions, but then we reminded ourselves that we’re just fat Americans who need to learn portion control. We all left stuffed, after licking our plates completely clean. I ordered the ravioli al formaggio, which was a cheese ravioli in a cheese sauce. The flavor of the different cheeses in the sauce melted together perfectly, and was even better when I dipped bread into it.

Then we went for some tea to help us digest the amazing meal we had just consumed. I ordered a raspberry herbal tea, which had a horrible aftertaste similar to vomit. We managed to snap this semi decent photo of the three of us at the coffee shop, thanks to Jim’s long arms. Well, at least longer than mine.

The digestive tea didn’t really help, so we took a little hike up a hill to look 0ut at the city before calling it a night. Overall, it was the perfect day in San Francisco, and a great evening with friends. I can’t wait to visit again!

Categories
All You Can Jet

Day 17: Boating on the SF Bay

Thursday I ventured out of the apartment with no plan or direction in mind. The weather was in the 70’s, so I tried to avoid hills, but after a while that became impossible. I ended up at the foot of  Lombard street, which left me huffing and puffing and wishing I had done some warmup stretching. I was moving faster than most of the tourists, but I was also about 30 years younger than them. These extra pounds I’ve packed on during this trip didn’t exactly help get me up that hill.

I took a walk down near the Fisherman’s Wharf, and next thing you know I’m sitting on a boat headed out for a 1 hour tour of the bay.

The boat took us down under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz before heading back to the city.

I met these two guys from Germany on the boat. We dodged waves together as I took 72365 pictures.

After I got off the boat, I stopped by a place called Melt! for something cheesy. I wanted to eat some fondue, but at $30 a pot, I opted for a much cheaper sandwich. I had my first ever croque monsieur, which wasn’t exactly as tasty as I’d hoped. I love gruyère cheese, but it wasn’t as flavorful in this sandwich. Regardless, it was still good enough to try again at another restaurant someday.

I went back to the apartment to enjoy the sunset with a bottle of unopened wine. I ended up catching up on Entourage until 4 in the morning before calling it a night. Overall, a lovely, relaxing day in beautiful San Francisco!

Categories
All You Can Jet

Day 16: Mountains, Sunsets and the PCH

Wednesday morning I said goodbye to my roommate Razz,

and headed up the Pacific Highway from LA to San Francisco. The pictures speak for themselves.

As always, check out the full photo album on my Flickr.

Categories
All You Can Jet

Day 15: Leaving La-La Land

Tuesday was my last full day in Los Angeles. I was ready to leave the minute I woke up. LA is okay, and actually pretty awesome when you’re with the right people, but definitely not a place I want to spend too many days without a car. I left Ty’s by foot in order to meet up with Chris in Hollywood. It took me 45 minutes to walk to the bus, then another 25 waiting for the bus, and an hour and a half on the bus. When I finally got off, I met with Chris and we waited an hour for yet another bus. Forty minutes later we were starving as we got off the bus at the Cheese Store in Silverlake in search of some supposedly incredible panini. Of course, just as you’d expect to see after any four hour commute, they were sold out. At least we got a few free samples of cheese and crackers out of it.

I could’ve eaten everything in the entire Cheese Store, but instead I ended up eating Mexican food for the 80th time this trip. I ordered cheese enchiladas, chips, guacamole and orange Fanta, randomly. Chris had the fajitas, and we ate in this little canopied jungle in back of the place, where I’m pretty sure Chris spotted a Mexican lemur or something.

After stopping for some coffee and tea, we walked faster than any form of LA transportation could take us, over to Chris’s friend’s house in some random neighborhood. Rumor has it that the housing complex has been some sort of musician’s haven for years. Bands practice, hang out and record there to this day, all around a center courtyard that looked like it could be used for a tropical swimsuit shoot. Cue Chris’s fierce swimsuit pose:

We made it over to Second City on Hollywood Boulevard to see a hilarious improv comedy show for $5, then on to Dillion’s for my last night in LA. I got a nice little glimpse of Capitol Records on the way.

Categories
All You Can Jet

Day 14: Playing Tourist in LA

Monday was a bit overcast in LA, and definitely much cooler than I’d expected. I went down to Santa Monica for the first time, and enjoyed the sites of vomiting dinosaurs in front of all of the shops.

Trivomitops
Barfasaurus

After a brief reminder of how much I hate shopping, we walked down to the Santa Monica Pier. To me, a pier is a pier. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve kind of seen them all. If you’re not fishing, they’re like a cheesy date idea, or a place you wander when you’ve got absolutely nothing else to do. But to me, the Santa Monica Pier felt more like a much cleaner Coney Island.

It was a little chilly on the beach that day, so we got back into the car and headed over to Beverly Hills for some Sprinkles Cupcakes. As you can tell by my body type, I’m no stranger to cupcakes. In New York, most everyone is obsessed with Magnolia. I think they’re the most overrated cupcake I’ve ever had. I think Crumbs beats Magnolia hands down, not only because the cupcakes are gigantic and they offer more varieties, but because they’re moist and fresh. Every time I’ve gotten a cupcake at Magnolia it’s been small, and extremely dry. Their icing is good, but not worth a special trip. But Sprinkles. Oh my. I ordered the Black and White cupcake- a dark chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting. It was such an amazing combination, and such a moist, delicious, flavorful cupcake! I wanted to order another, but at $3.56 a piece, I held back. But definitely, Sprinkles trumps Magnolia any day. Crumbs is a completely different class of cupcakes (and oddly enough, there is a crumbs just down the road from Sprinkles) so I can’t really compare the two.

While digesting the deliciousness we just ate, we went for a drive through the hills, over to the valley. It was an entirely new part of LA that I never knew existed, geographically speaking. If I’ve learned one thing about LA this trip, it’s that it’s enormous. That and public transportation sucks. But we’ll get to that later.


After cruising past the million dollar houses up there, we came back into Hollywood so I could remember what a dump I thought it was the last time I was here. Luckily it was a pretty clear day, so I was able to see out to the Hollywood sign from the Kodak Theatre.

Then I got in touch with an old friend from Toledo that I haven’t seen since or spoken a word to since I moved to New York. I had no idea he was living in LA, but of course, the power of Facebook clued us both in. Turns out, he’s living just a couple of streets over from where I was on Hollywood Boulevard. We met up at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and since Chris used to work there, we got to take a quick (free) sneak peak inside. Honestly I’m not really into all the Hollywood/celebrity stuff, but apparently it’s a pretty hot tourist destination since it’s the site of movie premieres and award ceremonies.

Then we went on to a place called Big Wang’s to watch some Monday night football and eat some tots and wings.

I needed the total combined score for the game to be 41 or over to win the $130 weekly pool that I participate in. After a strong island iced tea and a beer, the combined score was only 16 at half time so we left the bar. By the time we got back to Ty’s each team had scored and the combined scored was somewhere around 30. We watched the rest of the game, play by play via an iPhone app. It looked like the guy I was tied with (who chose 40 as his tie-breaker number) was going to win as the score neared 40 right on the nose. But then, as if they knew I needed the money, some major scoring started happening and I won the pool with a combined score of 47. I may or may not have screamed and jumped around a bit, followed by a celebratory shot and a few bragging phonecalls. That $130 definitely helped me out on this trip!

Categories
All You Can Jet Food + Drinks

Day 13: Greyhound San Diego to LA

Not really an eventful day. I woke up and made my way to the bus since both Sam and JJ were still in jail. The Greyhound station in San Diego is so much nicer than the stations I’ve been to in Toledo and Las Vegas. Plus, with such a short trip, it was $15 for a 2 hour, non-stop ride from San Diego to LA.

Once I got to LA I didn’t do a whole lot. I am staying with an “acquaintance” from back when I was about 16 years old. We never really hung out, but I was friends with a lot of his friends, and we went to the same high school together. Luckily he was nice enough to not only let a stranger crash with him for a few nights, but to agree to drive me up to San Francisco as well!

After I got settled in, we went over to Don Antonio’s for some Mexican food (of course, what else). I ordered the cheese and onion enchilada plate, and the xango for dessert. I’d never heard of xango before, but apparently it was some sort of fried cheesecake, with cinnamon and sugar and vanilla ice cream. Whatever it was, it was delicious.

After dinner we went to a pretty cool place called Q’s Billiard Club on Wilshire Blvd and watched the battle of the Mannings (Giants v Colts football game). Not a very eventful day, but it was a nice welcome to Los Angeles.