Just when you think you’ve gotten over your cold, you have a ridiculous sneezing attack. At least I wasn’t driving!
Unrelated: Today is the first day back for the SLSO. Looking forward to seeing the Joshua Bell concert (playing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto).
Easy day today: Run, errands, paperwork, one student. Here we go!
I do prefer that spelling, don’t you?
I’m finally starting to feel better! Today I ran in the park for a bit–first time since I got sick. Good for me 🙂 We are heading to a friend’s for a BBQ later today–I’ve prepared peanut coleslaw and peach crisp (my grandmother’s recipe).
My Tuesday schedule is looking to be really light–tomorrow I have only one student. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be busy though. Wednesday my classes at Child of God Lutheran School start. I will have three classes of students (at least that’s the starting plan) arranged by grade/level. Some are new, some are returning. My plan for the returning students is to get an idea of what they know/where they are now before I can go forward. The new students will be easier in a way, since I know they are all starting at the same place. The first day will be just setting the stage for expectations and getting to know one another I think. That’s probably all we’ll have time for!
Thursday I start at Good Shepherd School–I have nine (I think?) private students that day. Monday at that school I’ll have the remaining students privately and then orchestra after school–I’ll need to assess where they are level wise to figure out what to do in orchestra the first day. Something easy and fun I think. The good thing is that I will already have spent 30 minutes one on one with each student so it won’t be my first interaction with any of them (hopefully!). I’m guessing that it won’t be long until we need to start playing Christmas music, but it’ll probably be some Essential Elements review the first day, I bet. Maybe some scales too. And making sure everybody knows each other’s names and stuff like that.
The thing that will be potentially exhausting is that on Monday and Thursday after Good Shepherd School I’ll come home and teach a few private students. Hopefully I haven’t overscheduled myself! I think even if two days of the week are super busy I’ll be able to manage since other days aren’t so busy. And I used to do this sort of crazy schedule in Cleveland all the time…but I don’t think I want to get back to where I was there.
Okay, got all that silly vacation stuff out of the way. Back to the real world here. So, now I’ve come down with a nasty cold, I’m on day 4 of it and it is really annoying me! I am now able to function well enough to work, but I missed two whole days earlier this week. Just when I was ready to get back into the swing of things…
We played for two weddings today. The first one we almost missed due to horrendous traffic. It was at the World’s Fair Pavilion, which is about ten to fifteen minutes from my house. I allowed 40 minutes…and it took over an hour to get there. Luckily the photographer was running even later than the musicians (and the bride had only just arrived) and it just started late. I felt bad, but I don’t know WHY the traffic was so awful. Labor Day Weekend, I suppose. Wedding number two was very nice and uneventful. The bride’s mother was very sweet and came over to hug us afterwards. (I wanted to warn her away due to my cold but didn’t have a chance!)
Tomorrow I am ATTENDING a wedding. A good friend of Chris’s is getting married tomorrow. I hope I feel better! I haven’t been to the gym in five days (not being able to breathe properly/at all really messes that up 🙁 ) and I really don’t feel great moving around at all. Gah. Perhaps by tomorrow evening this will all be behind me.
My new school classes start on Wednesday. I am nervous but excited. I have met some of the students but not all, and I look forward to getting to know them better. I have a little preparation to do beforehand that I’ve been putting off until I feel better…I might just need to forge ahead and do some things today.
Happy Labor Day to everyone!
Well, finally our cruise was nearing its conclusion (sad!). I slept it quite a bit, ordered room service, and read outside on the balcony for awhile. I had still managed to finish about 7 paperbacks during my week! There were a few interesting activities happening through the day, but we didn’t really make it to any of them! We went to the gym and then decided to try lunch in the Dining Room (never done before!).
Just fyi: when you go to the dining room they ask you if you want to sit with others. We were confused by the question, but quickly learned this meant they seat you at a table with other random people. It was fine, but in the future I would probably say “no.” Lunch was fine–I had antipasto and a tuna sandwich. Chris had a burger that he didn’t think was very good.
After lunch I did a little souvenir shopping and then we wanted to go to the sun deck. We relaxed in the sun for an hour or so, and then went back inside. I insisted that we do some packing (our suitcases needed to be outside the room by midnight, and I knew we wouldn’t want to pack it all later) and Chris wanted to smoke one of his cigars.
After that, we didn’t really do much at all. It was great!
The FunTimes (daily paper) said there would be live music with the Legend showband before dinner, so we got ready early and headed down to listen. They played some jazz, and it was very nice. We went to dinner for the last time 🙁
After dinner the whole table went to the Casino to try blackjack again. I am not much of a gambler, so I just hung out. Chris didn’t do very well, so then we all played some other games, including the penny slots, where I turned $20 into $80. So that was fun!
We stayed up pretty late, but finally did need to get to bed. The next day would be early and long.
Day 8: Disembarkation
We were in zone 14. This meant we had to put our bags out in the hall the night before except what we needed. We needed to vacate our stateroom by 8:30 and when our zone was called, we could leave the ship. We actually had a late afternoon flight so we were in no rush. We decided to eat breakfast in the Dining Room (eggs benedict!) which was again something we hadn’t done. Then it was only a little time until our zone was called. It went very smoothly, and soon we were on dry land…
We got home safely later that night.
Okay, so wrap-up: I currently have a bad cold, I wonder if I got it on the ship? I don’t remember anyone being sick, but who knows. We had a fantastic time overall, and definitely want to cruise again, but we might want to try another line. We would have preferred more classical music or jazz and perhaps more “upscale” activities like the wine tasting. However it was overall a fantastic vacation, and we enjoyed the wide variety of activities. Chris was happy with all the excursions I planned, and I was happy they all turned out to be as good as I’d hoped while planning them!
I wrote a brief review for the website that helped me so much, cruisecritic.com. Here’s the link to that if you want.
Thanks for reading! I hope to go on another cruise next summer. If I do more teaching during the year, I should be able to better afford it 🙂
Today we scheduled our only “through Carnival” excursion. Those of you new to cruising: excursions are little trips you can take during the port days. The ship sells a lot of tours, and also independent operators on the islands will offer trips, either through the internet, or when you get off the ship in port. Why go with Carnival (or whatever your ship carrier)? They are guaranteed to get you back to the ship because they can hold the ship for you. You are also guaranteed of a certain level of quality. Why go with another group? Probably cheaper, first thing. You could have a smaller group of people/more personal guidance. And generally getting back to the ship on time isn’t an issue, because most tours are only for a few hours anyway. We chose Carnival for this tour because it was going to be a long one: we were going to visit the Mayan Ruins at Xunantunich. The whole tour was seven hours long, plus Belize is a tender port, and not an easy tender like Grand Cayman–the tender takes about 15 to 20 minutes to get to shore from the ship.
We had to get up very early to meet by 8:00 am in the Follies Lounge. They had people sit in various places to wait for the tenders to get ready. We heard the ship drop anchor just a few minutes before 8 (maybe more than one?) and eventually were able to line up to get on the tender. We rode the tender boat to the port at Belize and then were herded into an air conditioned bus (complete with bathroom!).
Our guides introduced themselves and we were on our way. We had a two hour bus ride ahead of us. The guides made it very interesting though, by pointing our various landmarks and telling us about the culture and history of Belize (formerly British Honduras). One thing I found particularly interesting due to my family background was that there is a large Amish and Mennonite population in Belize. The guide said you could get a fair price on well made furniture or used cars from them!
Finally we arrived at the site. We had to get off the bus and get onto a ferry to cross the river. This was a hand cranked ferry.
Next we got into vans to be shuttled another mile or so. Finally we were at the visitor’s center!
Xunantunich means “Stone Lady” and is thought to have been from around 200 to 900 BC. I linked to the wikipedia article if you want to know a little more history. In any case, our guide told us tons of information at the time, but as it was super hot and I was nervous about the climbing, I didn’t remember much of it.
There are several buildings (huge ones!) but we were to climb up the largest, called “El Castillo”. From the top we would be able to see for miles, including to Guatemala, only a few miles away.
After the whole group got to the top…we did have to go back down. We took a different route down that was perhaps steeper but easier in a way. I was pretty pleased to be on the ground as well. One other note: during the tour two men with large rifles followed our group. Our guide said they were border patrol to protect us from the Guatemalan border. They did give us our distance, but I couldn’t help but think of all the stories you hear of groups of rich tourists getting kidnapped. (Rich simply in that we are from the US–we are all wealthy in comparison).
In any case, the ruins were fantastic! I want to see more 🙂
We did the opposite travel on the way back and were soon back on the bus, on our way to a lunch stop. Here we were given an authentic Belizean dish of chicken, rice and beans (made with coconut milk…so good!), plantain, and cole slaw.
On the way back, we mainly slept. We were at the pier just a few minutes after the official time for the last tender, and we were on the very last tender back to the ship. What a day!!
That was the last port of the trip, just to let you know. The rest of time would be just on the ship.
There was an adult dodgeball game at 5:30 that Chris wanted to do so we headed up to the sports deck (top deck of the ship). When we got there, we ran into our tablemates. They had been playing the free throw competition. I did not want to play dodgeball so I just watched Chris play. He did very well and won a medal. He did not want the medal, but I did, since our tablemates already had one from the free throw comp.
After the excitement of dodgeball we relaxed in the lobby for awhile and then had to get ready for our last “elegant evening.” After the week of eating, drinking, and excursions, Chris and I were not as thrilled to get dressed up. We didn’t bother with taking pictures, and simply did our best to squeeze into our clothing.
After dinner, we hung out with our tablemates for a bit and then turned in for the night. Tomorrow would be a relaxing day at sea only, no big plans, no plans at all!
Originally we were just going to relax on Roatan, since we had already booked so many things (including a long day tomorrow in Belize). Carnival built a whole port and beach area (with of course the requisite shops and restaurants) on Roatan Island called Mahogany Bay, and ostensibly we could have done the whole day there for no fee, just relaxed on the beach and whatnot. However, the more I did research and the more I thought about it, I really wanted to see the rest of the island and not just the Carnival part. Plus the day before was a beach day in Cozumel, and I didn’t think Chris would like the beach too much (turns out in his “old” age he is much more amenable to lying around, but oh well!). I learned we could book a private driver for the day and get a tour for a pretty reasonable rate (compared to other places, for sure) so I decided to do that. I wanted to do some sightseeing and eat some authentic food.
There were a couple of companies on Roatan that offered similar looking products. I decided to go with the highest rated company, Victor Bodden tours. The only unnerving aspect was that we would have to meet the tour guide outside of the grounds and evidently it would be quite the walk up a big hill (this is Carnival trying to make it harder for you to book independently and just spend money on their property.)
The ship was scheduled to dock at 11:00 am and it was just a little bit early. The odd thing is that the ship almost backs into the port. I got up early and watched this all from the balcony. We got off the ships shortly after 11:00 and walked through the port, Mahogany bay, up a big hill, down a big hill, and finally met our tour guide for the day. His name was Frankie, and he was very personable.
Originally I didn’t know what we wanted to do. I’ve never been there, so how would I know what to see? I potentially wanted to zipline, but figured with a private tour, and having done parasailing and jet skis already that we had had enough adventure. And this is something I should have thought of: Victor Bodden of Victor Bodden tours owns his own zipline on his property (tourism is booming, I guess!). It is also part of a place called “Monkey Business” which is a little zoo with birds and monkeys, a petting zoo of sorts. I had said we did not want to do this, because Chris and I thought it sounded creepy and exploitative.
Frankie drove us around the island for a bit. Like I said, he was very personable. He pointed out many different places, took us through several villages, some VERY poor. He drove up a very long hill/dirt road to the highest point on the island–you could see all around you. Just to let you know, Roatan is a very lush, hilly island. Grand Cayman is very flat–Roatan Island is the opposite.
After about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of driving around, Frankie took us to the Monkey/zip line place. I guess we had to go there, since I thought we had already said we didn’t want to zipline. However, we decided to just pay the $5 zoo fee and spend some time there. It ended up being pretty neat.
After the zoo we went to West End Beach. We could have stayed there for awhile, but we decided to just walk around a bit, and then we wanted to have lunch. The water was beautiful!
The beach was pretty small but beautiful, and jammed with rustic looking restaurants/resorts. Evidently the scuba and snorkeling are great, but we didn’t do any of that. We had already had a good beach day, so a little walk was good enough. We were quite hungry by this point, so we wanted to get some food.
Our guide recommended a place, and told us that his favorite food was iguana–a delicacy in the area. We invited him to join us for lunch, and we ordered “off” the menu. I forget the name of the restaurant, something to do with Creole’s something (should have taken a picture). Frankie and I ordered the iguana and Chris went with the stewed chicken. Both dishes came with rice and beans, and plantains. Frankie was worried I wouldn’t like the iguana, but I ended up really liking it! (Plus I am just not a very picky eater and love to try new things.)
After lunch, we just wanted to do a little shopping. We went to a gift shop type place where almost everything was “50 percent off!” (Pretty sure it was always that way…) We got some awesome smelling coffee and a beautiful wooden plate. Finally our guide dropped us back off at the pier. We said thanks for a great day and gave him a nice tip. Overall it was a great tour, though I might try a different company next time as I felt like Victor Bodden had a little bit of a racket going on!
We walked around Mahogany Bay for a bit and poked our heads in a few of the shops. We also tried coconut water (directly out of a coconut), which I had heard was really tasty. For the record: it was NOT very good.
Finally we got back on the ship. We hit the gym (ran a bit…gah…so hot on the treadmills!) and then went out to the sun deck for a little while. We just relaxed, had a frosty drink, and got ready for the show before dinner.
The show was “the Physical comedy of Max Winfrey”. It was EXCELLENT. He was very funny, did a lot of juggling, and some other stuff (knife throwing) all with a witty sense of humor. I did not have high expectations, and I thought the show was just fantastic.
We went to dinner, and then after dinner there were two new comedians: Dobie Maxwell and Eddie Capone. We attended both “R rated” shows with our tablemates, and they were very funny. I liked Eddie Capone the best–he would make fun of audience members and himself.
Next stop: early morning in Belize, Mayan ruins tour!
