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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Rosanna! Rosanna


My friend Denise anounced last fall that she was getting married and her dream was to have it on a beach! She decided on the destination, so off to Nassau, Bahamas we went. I was pretty excited about it seeing as how I hadn't been to the Bahamas since I was 18, which (here i am daing myself) was ONLY 22 years ago! I remember they had just started digging the great Atlantis complex and we spent most of our time on Cabbage Beach (which i swear was called Paradise Beach a long time ago!) Anyway, we (Denise, Steve, Jill, Anita, Danielle, Erica, Erin, Kane, Dave, Lisa, Amanda and Roger - and i'm sure more but i forget) landed on a Saturday and took the shuttlebus to our home for the next 7 days, Superclubs Breezes - All-inclusive Resort. There we met up with a few more wedding attenders - Kyla and Gunter from Toronto. We thought the best course of action for the first night was to try as many tropical drinks as we could stomach before we eat! How's that for smart thinking! We had: champagne cocktail, yellow bird, hummingbird and a dirty banana. They were all very enjoyable! We chowed down on some serious buffet and then were entertained by the Junkanoo parade through the hotel lobby. It was loud and very very cool! I got video, but not pictures.


Our first full day was spent at the beach laying around and relaxing, with project frecklization at full throttle! I could see freckles "popping" out of my skin right in front of my eyes! I was like my own personal rice krispie! I was excited! Other than the the annoying captain walking around trying to sell everyone tickets to the booze cruise ("we slam the jam!!"), the insanely loud "music" coming from the booze cruise boats that you could here miles away, the marenge dance lessons and the general screaming and yelling going on at the pool, it was a beautiful beach and we all enjoyed ourselves a little too much as we met in the foyer of the restaurant all various shades of light dusty pink to red lobster!! The bridesmaids were concerned that perhaps they might have tan or burn lines for the wedding. but luckily Erica is a makeup artist and "don't worry Erica can airbrush me!" was a common phrase that night. (You can never go wrong sleeping with a makeup artist!) That night, i managed to use 3/4 of a bottle of aloe vera gel to tame my red lobster legs! lucky me, only 6 more days to go! (Sidenote: this has solidified my decision to never go to another all-inclusive ever again!)

Day two, we got on the reggae bus and headed into downtown Nassau to check out the goods and get away from the all-inclusive insanity! The bus rides in the Caribbean are always entertaining! Music blaring, locals hanging out the door, honking at everyone and everything, slamming on the brakes and accelerating at high speeds. So much fun! I think this is where the discussion on Foreigner vs. Toto started. In the end i think Toto won out and we were guaranteed to hear these lyrics randomly "sung" out at any point in time during the next 6 days.... "all i wanna do in the middle of the night is hold you tight! Rosanna! Rosanna!" thanks to Erica. It was an overcast day when we left the hotel and by mid day is was pretty soggy. So we kept ourselves dry by ducking into the local liquor store and self-serve sampling some wares! (mango rum is pretty good) The rest of the rainy day was sadly spent indoors playing gnip-gnop. I believe that Jody and Dan arrived this day and were fairly primed when we met up with them and Jody was telling us stories of the brides "sparking vagina", which, as you can imagine, had us laughing hysterically!

With all that rain there is bound to be some serious humidity. We decided to conquer the humidity by going on a day trip sailing and snorkeling out to Rose Island. I had a lot of Greece and Turkey flashbacks during this sailing trip. It was so awesome! the brightly colored fish and coral were a great sight. And Rose Island was a tiny little piece of land that was barely inhabited by anyone but us that day. We met some other Canadians who gave us some tips on more great day trips to a place called Harbour Island.





After our exhausting day, we decided to take it easy at the beach the next day. We did a lot of people watching, napping, reading and sea-kayaking. And because we vegetated most of the day and enjoyed the sun, we decided to go out for dinner to this fabulous restaurant called the Humidor for Brazilian BBQ! this was a good choice, holy cow was it good! We also found out later that they have a side room sweatshop where they roll all the cigars.
Day 5 was wedding day. I have to say it went without a hitch which was amazing considering the wedding planner didn't do a single thing towards planning anything on Monday. So the bride and groom spent a few stressful hours on monday re-planning the wedding! All in all, a very gorgeous, beautiful day!
Our last full day in Bahamas was spent on a day trip to Harbour Island. We started the morning at 6:20 with the wakeup call, a 7 am bus pickup and to the marina by 7:30 for the Bahamasfast ferry departure at 8 am. The ride was over 2 hours and started off really wet and rainy. However after our pitstop at Spanish Wells, we arrived with smiles on our faces at Dunmore Town on Harbour Island. We got into our golf carts (the only vehicle to get around in) and Danielle took the drivers seat on the lefthand side! We toured the entire Island in about 4 hours which included every church, school, restaurant, haunted house, regular house and the most important feature the pink sand beach!! I'm not kidding, it was pink!
All in all, a very enjoyable time and if i had to go back to the Bahamas, I would, just maybe rent a house and do way more island hopping!