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All You Can Jet

Day 25: Feeling Like an Old Person in Florida

I was back out the door and on my way to JFK by 930a on Friday. I got stuck underground on the E train for about 30 minutes (possibly due to water on the tracks from rain). Then of course, since I was already running late, the ticket kiosk at the airport was unable to confirm my ticket, so I had to wait in the check-in line for at least another 20 minutes. I don’t know if it’s just because it was a Friday morning or what, but the airport security line was unimaginably long as well. I waited for over an hour and 20 minutes to pass through security. With each person they let through, seven others got to cut ahead of us because their flights were departing in just a few minutes. So there we stood, the people who arrived at the airport over an hour early, waiting for those who show up at the last minute to cut ahead of us and make their flight. I was one of the last people to board my flight to Fort Myers, and I didn’t even have time for breakfast that morning. I got on the plane ready to order a meal, but jetBlue only offers boxed meals on flights over 3 hours and 45 minutes, and my flight was (of course) only 3 hours and 40 minutes.

When I got down to Florida, I spent my Friday evening lounging around indoors, doing laundry, eating stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut, and watching an Entourage marathon on Spike TV. After the whole Jamaica debacle, I wasn’t really up for spending any more money or doing much of anything really. The rest of my trip was fairly similar- visiting with family, watching tv, and lounging on couches.

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All You Can Jet

Day 24: Leaving Jamaica

Thursday I woke up to a tiny bit of sunshine, but by the time I got downstairs for breakfast the storm clouds were rolling in.

It was pouring all day again, but the winds had died down immensely. I managed to get out on the same flight I was booked for the day before, just 24 hours late.

I landed back in rainy, windy New York around 8pm. I made it home just in time to watch The Office, eat some dinner, repack my bags, and get some sleep before leaving again at 930am for Fort Myers. I’ll tell ya though, it has never felt so good to leave a Caribbean island.

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All You Can Jet

Day 23: Stuck in Jamaica

I woke up at 7am to one of the most intense thunderstorms I have ever witnessed in my life. The thunder was loud, the lightning was bright, the rain horizontal, and the wind was blowing chairs across the sidewalk right into the pool.

Before long, the beach had completely disappeared as the waves rushed in and the water slammed up against the walls of the resort.

Since the resort was open-air, the inside of the resort was starting to flood and most of the areas were closed down.

As if totally oblivious to the weather, I grabbed my bags and went to check out to go to the airport. That’s when I saw the sign at front desk that read “ALL JET BLUE FLIGHTS FOR TODAY HAVE BEEN CANCELED.” I may have freaked out for a minute. Being stuck in a foreign country with no money for a hotel room during a tropical storm is not exactly an ideal situation. I spent the next four hours trying to figure out my situation, when Betsy and her daughter came down into the lobby. Since I was freaking out, Betsy offered up her room for me to crash in for the evening free of charge. Seriously, nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. If not for her, I may have ended up staying in the lobby all night. I kept my all inclusive bracelet on and enjoyed the resort all day long. There were some kids scouring the beach for seashells in-between the downpours, and they were finding some pretty amazing shells and crabs. I searched and searched for one of my own but no luck.

The beach was a mess. All kinds of things were washed up on shore.

The umbrella huts were knocked over from the wind and waves.

The Margaritaville booth was destroyed.

When the rain started again, we went back inside and enjoyed more indoor entertainment as we continued to get soaked.

We went up to the room to pray for the weather to clear up so that we could get out of Jamaica on Thursday. Jenice introduced me to her teddy bear, and she seemed pretty bummed that the weather had been so crappy, because her bear didn’t get to wear all of her outfits that she’d packed for her. So I said “let’s see ’em!” and with that we had an impromptu fashion show while watching “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Of course, since the teddy bear was the model, Jenice the stylist, I was the photographer.

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All You Can Jet

Day 22: Playing at the Water Park During a Tropical Storm

I woke up with an intense craving for bloody marys which is strange because I’ve only had them once in my life before. I gulped down about 10 of those for breakfast.

It was raining, so I paid $15 for internet access and decided to play on that for a bit until I got bored. After a bit I thought “screw it. I’m on vacation and I’m not going to let some rain stop me from having a good time.” I changed into my bikini and went out to the hot tub where I met a couple groups of people from Pennsylvania and LA. After nearly an hour in the jacuzzi, one of the dads asked the kids, “who wants to go to the water park?” to which I shouted “me!” Then I felt a little weird, so I said “I mean, if that’s okay. I’ve been dying to go and maybe I won’t look like such a loser if I’m with some kids.” So we gathered our things, filled up on drinks, and went over to the water park. It’s not a huge water park by any means, but obviously enough to keep a group of children (and some fun-loving twenty-somethings) amused for an hour or two. There were two water slides and a lazy river, but all of the kids and I kept running in circles up and down the slide. Honestly, it was the most fun I had since I arrived in Jamaica. I bought a couple of pictures that the resort photographers took of me going down the slide with the kids. Once I get back to a scanner, I’ll post those.

It stopped raining for a little bit, so I went down to the beach with one of the moms, Betsy, and her 7 year old daughter Jenice (I may be totally butchering the spelling). They were from LA, and Betsy was probably about the same age as me. Nicest people ever.

The kids wore me out so I headed back to the room for a quick nap before dinner. Unfortunately I didn’t have time for a nap before dinner, so I got ready and went over to the Italian restaurant for another five course meal. I ordered a cheese manicotti with snapper, which was a very interesting combination. The dish had all kinds of mixed vegetables, and in my opinion it just didn’t mix too well. The manicotti was great on its own, as was the snapper, but together it was a bit strange for me. I also enjoyed a glass of red wine, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, a caesar salad, calamari, eggplant, and a cannoli. The meal definitely didn’t compare to some of the amazing Italian meals I’ve had in New York, but Jamaicans also cook a bit differently. It was all good, just in a different way my ridiculously American taste buds aren’t used to.

During dinner it was really storming. The entire resort lost electricity quite a few times during dinner, but never more than a minute or two at a time. On the way back, there was a steel drum band playing in the common area.

After I made a quick Skype call to my mom, I went back to watch some live entertainment. Some guy proposed on stage (of course. What would a Caribbean vacation be without witnessing a proposal or two, no?) There were a few dance offs, and then some crazy man limboed underneath of a burning piece of wood about a foot off the ground.

The entertainment went on for several hours, inviting members of the audience to get up and compete in a few random competitions. They called five women up on stage for a cake eating contest. They blindfolded all five, then took them off of the first four girls, leaving the fifth one to believe they were all still competing. We watched and cheered on “all of the contestants,” and after the cake was gone they took the blindfold off the last girl to show her that she’d basically just been scarfing down cake alone, with all eyes on her.

Later in the evening I saw the cake-consuming winner hanging out in the lobby. She was actually an insanely nice woman from Toronto, who was down in Jamaica on business. I almost felt bad that they played such a prank on such a nice woman, but  she liked caked so I guess that made it okay. Her coworker told me that he laughed so hard he threw up. I wish I would’ve gotten that on tape! I stopped and chatted with those two about all things New York, Toronto, and hockey related until I decided to call it a night to go up to the room and pack.

It took me all of 10 minutes to pack, so I sat on the balcony watching the thunderstorm out over the ocean until my buzz wore off. With each crack of thunder, all of the lights would go out in the resort. Kind of crazy seeing nothing but pitch black in front of you, except for the glow of lightning reflecting off the water.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!