Aurora's Blog

I think I’m gonna start doing a thing with my travels where I say what I would do if I were to ever go back, so that that way I have a quick go-to-thing for stuff I missed out on or want to do again [without having to scour notes, etc.]

For Barbados specifically, I had the trip of a LIFETIME. I don’t know that I EVER want to go back, because it was so, so perfect, I sort of just want to leave it be.

There are many other places in the world I want to visit. And in Barbados, I went to every parish. I saw the things I wanted to see. I fulfilled my “Barbados bucket list.”

But IF I were ever to go back, here are things I’d either want to experience for the first time, or want more of:

1. The observatory (assuming it’s open again), on a Friday night
2. Harrison’s Cave, to see all the things they’re adding – ziplining, etc., and if they offer it, I’d take the adventurous tour, crawling around the cave 
3. I’d visit the official Barbados museum in Bridgetown. We just never got around to seeing it.

Those are the things I didn’t get to, that I’d want to. For things I did do that I’d just want more of:

1. The sunset catamaran cruise is awesome. I LOVED it so much, I’d want to do it again – wearing something on my feet, so I’m less scared of the turtles haha.
2. I liked diving with Aimee at Barbados Blue Watersports, and would be happy to dive with her again.
3. Hot sauce, hot sauce. I’d just get more. You can never have enough hot sauce. 
4. (I love the Club Barbados, and even though I like to try new hotels, I’d probably stay there again, because it is DOPE.)

Those are all the things I can think of. Let me know, since you read the blog posts, if there’s anything you can think of that I’m missing! And thanks for following along! 

We made it to the airport. It was super easy to check my bag again. (Upgrading to first class was sooooooo the right choice for this trip. It saved us SO much time/headache/hassle in this pretty crowded season. But also, I would’ve been able to check bags in a priority anyway, because I’m Mint status, baby!)

I do this sort of silly thing in foreign countries where, depending on the exchange rate, I try to save one of every bill thats like $50 (or maybe $100) or less (US).

And I had set aside all my Barbados bills…. but at the airport, I was double checking, and didn’t see a beautiful purple $20! ($10 US).

[I realized later I did have it. I had just put it in the wrong spot of my wallet. But at the time, we were on a new adventure!]

It felt like I couldn’t get one to save my life. I asked in a store. I asked at a dessert place. I tried an ATM. (I forget the problem was with the ATM. It may have only been giving $50s.) But eventually, right back where we started, at Chefette, I got change and had a beautiful Barbados 20.

(Writing this out, it seems stupid to hoard foreign money haha. Because I don’t travel that much, it seems like cool souvenirs, but if I start traveling all the time, I may not want to waste money on just having foreign money – but then again, it’s a souvenir you could always ‘return’ by getting it changed at a bank!)

After that short bit of tiny, silly adventure, we went to our gate and played some more Wordle games, and then we got on the plane.

During the plane ride, I slept for a lot of it. He watched TV for a lot of it. But when we were talking, I was kind of making half-jokes about how I’d never see him again. And then the guy on the aisle, toward the end of the flight, started making conversation with us and saying we seemed to have such great rapport he literally couldn’t believe we had just met.

And we were like “we haven’t.” And he was like “why are you never gonna see each other again, then?” And it was like “It’s a long story, but he lives in Singapore now, blah blah blah. We’re also half-joking, but maybe serious.”

And Alex is like “she’s half-joking/half-serious. I believe I’ll see her again.”

And then – oh my gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t mention this earlier on the blog – every time someone asked what we were doing there, Alex would always be like “she won this trip on Wheel of Fortune!”

So he told that to the guy on the aisle – this part of the conversation was happening after we’d landed. And the guy was so impressed and was like “whoa! I wish I would’ve asked earlier in the flight! I have so many questions!”

It was so funny to me that Alex always teed that up. And everyone always wanted to know more.

And for the last time, as we went through customs in the States, when they asked what we’d been doing, he was like “she won this trip.” And I got my last little questions about it from people being encouraged by my personal hype man yet again.

And then once we made it through customs, I hugged him tighter than I maybe have ever hugged anyone for like maybe a full minute.

And that was it. He went to Los Angeles. I went to my apartment in New York.

(In the end, it probably was better that I asked Wheel to just fly me from NYC, ’cause even though I met him in Los Angeles, once I got to NY, my bags were there, and I didn’t have to worry about them going to LA, as they would’ve been had that been my official airport.)

What a trip. Truly, the trip of a lifetime. hopefully it won’t be the end of the Sky Team, but as we told each other in the dramatic airport goodbye, if it is the end, it’s been an absolutely amazing 8 1/2 year run.

Barbados for life!

*Exasperated sigh of someone who’s sad the trip is over*

In the morning, at breakfast, when I was asking someone who seemed so happy to work there what she loved about her job, one of the workers at the buffet mentioned that she loves this banana flambé thing they had at the Monday huge dinner.

Now, I didn’t realize on Monday when we got there that there were things you could only get on Monday, so I missed out on the flambé.

I mentioned it’s too bad I didn’t get to taste her favorite thing to make. And she mentioned she might be able to make it.

I had actually already heard this was an amazing dish. So, this was like my third time hearing it. So, I really did sorta want to try it.

And I got to! They were able to make it for me. (Yes, obviously I tipped them extra for that.)

And then, Alex said this thing about how he was happy for me that I really was marking off every single thing on my Barbados bucket list – even down to the minuscule things of bananas flambé.

And he was like “the squeaky wheel really does always get the grease.”

And I was all “oh, no. I’m not trying to be a squeaky wheel. I think I’m nice.” And he’s like “oh, no, no, no. A squeaky wheel doesn’t mean annoying. It just means persistent. I’m not being passive aggressive. This is a trait I admire in you. You get what you want.

And it’s just really sweet that he’s always seeing the best in me – even in traits that may be traditionally considered annoying, maybe.

They had free watersports at the hotel, so he hung out to waterski in the morning.

And I went to check out one final thing – Shark’s Hole (another beach in Barbados).

The night prior, I’d been wandering around for a hot second while Alex had to take a work call. And I stopped at the front desk just to chat (while drinking yet another signature hotel drink).

They’d asked about everything I’d done. And as always, when I’m leaving a place, I like to make it so that when a local says “have you done ____?” my answer is yes.

I try to get it all in! [I know there will ALWAYS be something else, but as long as I hit the main things, I feel pretty good.]

And the person at the front desk said, “the only thing I can really think of that you’re missing is Shark’s Hole. It’s a beautiful beach and tourists don’t normally go there.”

So, I had to get in one last thing.

I went to Shark’s Hole, which was in St. Philip Parish – the only Parish I hadn’t visited, so yet another thing checked off the ol’ Barbados bucket list!

It was indeed really gorgeous. I was happy to hang out there! But just for a bit. Then I had to get back.

Alex had a great time waterskiing, and even saw a monkey on our little porch of our room!

When I got back, we grabbed our bags, and *tears* headed to the airport.

And this is where I’ll finish tomorrow.

After I got back, Alex and I had a quick dinner in the upstairs restaurant at the hotel! We finally tried the other secret restaurant choice. And it was really delicious!

I had a goal to drink every signature drink at the hotel, and I still had 3 or 4 left. So, it was time to get cracking! I had one at dinner.

Then, back in the room, we had a semi-little sad talk as we were getting ready to go drink (just at the hotel) on the last night.

He lives in Singapore now. And for various reasons (such as living continents away, which isn’t always a barrier to everything, as we were in Barbados together, but still…), we’re not gonna do my new birthday thing together this year.

So… this trip is the last time the “Sky Team” gets to be together in who knows how long – which is really sad to think about. So… we weren’t allowed to think about it too much, because then I’d cry. (I was already a little drunk, as I was on me second drink from dinner at that point.)

Side note about all the drinks: I did think it was kind of hilarious that you could just bring drinks like wherever you wanted, basically. We had one of our glasses from the hotel in our hands at the grocery store!

Basically, if you’re in Barbados, there’s a drink in your hand.

And then after shedding a few tears, we went and met up with Jamie – the guy we met in the first couple of nights!

We all drank, and laughed, and had a great time. Jamie told us about cricket (what he was there for). I finished all the signature drinks.

Alex was a little jealous that I had the most adventurous day. He’s like “I should’ve gone with you…but if I had you wouldn’t have gone to cricket, and you wouldn’t have had this adventure without me.”

(And of course I reminded hi that I don’t have some kind of magic adventure dust and the day could’ve equally gone in his favor, you just never know.)

(In the sweetness of sort of ‘saying goodbye’, he was like ‘maybe your best day here didn’t even include me. You’re always gonna be fine. You’re the most adventurous person I know… which made me want to cry even more, because I always tell him he’s the most adventurous person *I* know. And then he always says “I’m like that around you, because of you.”)

So so sad to be saying goodbye.

We stayed until the bar closed. And then we went to bed.

And I’ll get to the next morning tomorrow.

Aaaaagh! Parliament!

So, being Barbados, obviously they welcome me in a bar, because in what universe would they not?

And they gift me a drink. Then Ruth takes me around!

I’m her first tour since the pandemic! So, I feel super special.

She takes me around and explain how the Bajan government works.

I really hope I’m explaining this correctly, because I’m going off of what I retained and remember, not like official things haha. So… if this information is super important to you, like, fact check me, just to be sure.

My understanding is that you only vote for your local representative. And whatever party wins the majority gets the Prime Minister. And then, the prime minister appoints the majority of senators (and the minority party gets to appoint some other ones).

So, the winning party will always have all the branches.

On the one hand, this is so awesome, because you could actually do things in power. On the other hand, this is scary because imagine all another party could do.

But, in Barbados, apparently all parties believe in things we argue about here – healthcare for all, abortion access, etc.

So, you’re just voting for more nuanced things, and also how you tackle the issues that basically everyone agrees on.

Anyway, Parliament was gorgeous. I got to see both chambers and the cute walkway between.

I was so so grateful to Ruth and Wilfred and everyone. What an incredibly special day!

And then I’ll get back to the rest of the trip tomorrow!

So, Alex and I part ways for most of Saturday.

It starts in the morning, because I only have to get a rapid test to get back in the states, but he has to get a PCR. The difference in how much it costs to get a rapid at the hotel vs the main gymnasium place of Barbados is negligible, especially when you factor in cab fare.

But, for a PCR, the difference in money could be argued to be worth it. And it’s not like he’s stingy with money at all. (He paid for basically every single thing we did, since the trip itself was free for him. So, he got us that sweet private tour with Island Safari, and all our touristy stuff. At the end, he ultimately even paid for my Covid test when we were checking out, which was really sweet!)

But maybe because he’d paid for so many things, might as well save a little where you can, especially since he didn’t have any giant things he wanted to do on the last day, and he was already going into town anyway to meet up with his old roommate’s friend who happens to live in Barbados. So, why not just go early and get a Covid test?

Well, okay. I have other ideas haha. So, I’m gonna grab my test very quickly at the hotel, and then get on the road!

I got the sense that Alex wanted a semi-low-key last full day. And I wanted more like a last hoorah – trying to fit in everything recommended from tourist books etc., just checking off that list! So, we happily went separate ways for the morning/afternoon, with the idea that we would meet up for dinner.

I hired a driver for a handful of hours. (Thank you Wheel of Fortune for that extra spending cash.) And I told him all the things I hadn’t yet gotten to hit, and asked if we could try our best to do it all. And we did!

We headed up to Archer’s Bay, which was a fun little beach (covered in… seaweed, maybe? Definitely covered in something!).

It was cute though, and relatively empty/serene.

Then we went to Hunte’s Garden, which was actually really gorgeous. Someone had recommended Hunte’s Garden, and I was sort of thinking, “I’m from LA, where we have Huntington Gardens, which is sprawling and gorgeous, and has stuff from so many areas of the world. I wonder how unique this garden will be.” But it was unique!

It was reeeeally peaceful. Barely anyone was there. It was a perfect spot if you wanted to clear your head or read a book or something. The air felt so fresh. It was small, but mighty.

Then, I went to the animal sanctuary during monkey feeding time. There were a lot of monkeys! I always talk a big game with monkeys, like “oh yeah! I wanna be monkeys friends! I wanna hold a monkey!”

But then when I see a million monkeys running around in the wild, I’m like “aaaaagh! Monkeys!” haha 

One of these days, I plan to hold a monkey! Today was not that day. (But you’re not supposed to hold them there anyway. You’re supposed to look at them.)

I also stopped at the “Hot Pot” which is a little makeshift natural hot tub on a beach in Barbados. It was kinda warm, and I’m glad I got to see it in its glory.

I also stopped at this bar I’d kept seeing every time we went to Bridgetown, which had this blow-up obstacle course in the ocean. Sadly, I didn’t have time with all I wanted to do to go to the obstacle course, but they did tell me about it. And if you feel like it, they’ll boat you out there and let you play!

If ever I were to go back to Barbados, this would absolutely be on my list of things to do.

So, then!

While I’d been scuba diving earlier in the week, Alex went to the cricket game and had an amazing time!

I’d never been to a game of cricket. And I think I mentioned, maybe, that while we were there, there was this HUGE tournament that happens only once every four years for cricket. 

Basically everyone in our hotel was there for cricket.

Cricket, cricket, everywhere.

So, why not? I headed over to the stadium to see if I could get a ticket.

And this(!!!!) – this A+++++ such a memorable Barbados experience is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

So, first we stop by the the Harry Bayley Observatory, because I love space and science. And it’s also a ‘little known’ thing in Barbados, and I like getting off the beaten path.

So, from everything we can gather, every Friday night, the observatory is open to the public.

Well, our trip has been largely unaffected by Covid. And we’re very lucky! Practically everything is reopened. Rates are low right now. The world seems fairly safe and accessible in this moment. But alas, the observatory was still closed.

And the person who was there when we got there was SO nice. He wanted so badly for us to be able to look through the telescope, but he said for various sanitation reasons, he just couldn’t make it work.

But at least we got to head up there and see the big telescope. Then on down to Oisten’s we went.

Oisten’s is a HUGE fish fry of a bunch of restaurants that happens every Friday night.

Alex and I took quite a long walk around the area, which was really nice – walking by the water and everything.

It was really sweet because his original plan was to stop by the hotel after Mount Gay, but ultimately we didn’t. And he noticed I was carrying my sort of heavy purse and our souvenirs from Mount Gay. (I didn’t say anything. He just noticed before I even really clocked that it was heavy or anything.) And he carried my bright pink purse, like the manly man he is, not afraid of carrying a girly purse!

I thought that was really nice. We waited in a long line for some food, and played some games in the line. It was super crowded and hard to find a place to eat, but we found one more out toward the water.

Then we walked around the fish fry, which by this point was in full swing. There were dancers on a stage. Overall, it was pretty fun. It was maybe the most touristy thing we did. (We were told later if you want to hang with locals, don’t go until after 10pm.)

I could sense there was a little exhaustion in the air, but it was fun. We got home and went to bed.

(And one random cute thing was that I woke up for a second in the middle of the night, and we were two little matchy-matchy people. We had the same t-shirts on (from Mount Gay), and we were sleeping in the same position with one leg up like we were flamingos, and we had the same eye masks from JetBlue. It was so funny, and it was just such a special trip!)

And tomorrow, I’ll talk about our A+++++ Saturday! 

So, if you’ve been reading the whole story, you remember that we made all of our final plans pretty late in the game (at the layover, on the way to Barbados haha).

The only thing I had locked down early was scuba diving, because I didn’t want to leave it to chance, since I couldn’t go to Barbados without scuba diving.

All that being said, we knew we had to go to Mount Gay. Everyone said so. It’s the ‘birthplace of rum’ – which is like, Barbados’ thing.

And they have lots of different options for what you can do there, but the only thing that still had tickets when we were planning was the cocktail making class – which I was totally cool with, because of all the things we could do there, I thought cocktail making would be the most fun, since it’s so hands-on, and maybe even a small little skill.

But man oh man oh man were we drinked-out at this point.

The first part of the class, they kept giving all these samples to explain the differences between the rums. It was so hard to drink them all! We were suffering a little.

Alex only then told me that he had originally wanted to go to Saint Lawrence Gap on Friday night (if you remember, we moved it up because nothing was happening in Holetown), because he didn’t want us all drinked-out before Mount Gay. But it was a little too late to late for me to learn that now haha.

So we just made it through.

Now, the people at Mount Gay were super nice. It was a lovely place. So, nothing against them or any of that, but it’s crazy how much Alex and I were consistently on the same page.

We ‘graded’ everything we did, just for funsies. And everything had gotten an A so far – even the cave that just had the trolly thing through it, because it was cool and they had the greatest drinks of all time.

But, he said that he’s never been an alcohol-tour kinda guy, and I agree! I don’t really super dig that stuff either.

And I thought maybe if they taught us really specific cool Barbados cocktails, we might feel a little differently. But we ultimately just made two pretty simple, known drinks.

It was cool. But it was the first thing that didn’t get an “A.” (Actually, in general, Friday doesn’t get an A, as you’ll see with the rest of the stuff. But it’s okay because spoiler alert, Saturday gets an A+++++.)

It was funny that we kept trying to super water down our drinks and hide that we weren’t using the correct amount of alcohol, but there’s only so much people can drink – even in Barbados!

After we made our drinks, we chatted up a couple who seemed fun, who happened to be from where Alex was from. So, that was pretty lovely.

And I can’t even believe this, but after all these years, I didn’t know why Alex had gotten into working in television, and his story was INCREDIBLE (but I’ll leave that for him to tell, as this isn’t his blog, so I don’t need to be airing all his incredible stories on it). But if you run into him, ask him! It’s so good. And he’s such a good storyteller (which makes sense, since that’s what he does for a living).

After that couple had left, we hung out on a bench while we waited for our cab and we talked a little more about the new info I’d just learned about Alex. And it was really special, continuing to get to know him even better after all these years.

And then we were off to the observatory! (Again, just warning you, Friday doesn’t get an A. (Spoiler alert: the observatory is closed because of Covid.)) But we’ll get to the rest of Friday tomorrow!)

Okay, so the part that I forgot to mention yesterday is that while we were waiting for nightlife time to start, we walked to the local grocery store!

One thing I really like doing in foreign countries is going to grocery stores, because it’s cool to just kinda see what the local stuff is all about.

And specifically, we went to that grocery store because I’m absolutely obsessed with Barbados hot sauce.

So, there’s this random unlabeled bottle of spicy sauce at every meal of the hotel. And I’ve been pouring it on everything.

Because it’s random and unlabled and I’ve never tasted exactly anything like it, I just assumed it was something special and unique that the hotel made.

But THEN there was something incredibly similar on the Catamaran Cruise. And then we had to know – what is that?!

And apparently, there’s just special Barbados hot sauce, in all sorts of brands! It’s like the local thing down there. So, we walked to the grocery store to grab some. And in the store, Alex asked a man who was walking in the aisle what brand he recommended.

And he was so super helpful! He recommended “One Drop,” but none of us could find it anywhere on the shelf. So, Alex and I picked a random one and moved on.

So, Friday morning, Alex and I had a little time before we went to Mount Gay. So, I made a little run to the post office.

One thing I loved about the post office was when I looked up, the tubes for air conditioning or whatever were green! Everything is so bright and wonderful in Barbados! Even random tubes in the post office.

I sent some hot sauce home, and to my dad. I also stopped by a little store where I got some souvenirs.

Everyone was so incredibly sweet. I was fatter than I wanted to be, going to Barbados, but people were always commenting me on my ‘curvy body’, like it was the ‘perfect Barbados body,’ so that was something! haha (I mention that here because specifically the sweet woman at the shop said I had the perfect Barbados body.) Even though I was heavier than I wanted, everyone always made me feel like one of the prettiest people on earth. So, if you’re fat, but you’re curvy, go to Barbados and they’ll make you feel loved.

(Everyone was SUPER nice. I didn’t meet a mean person in all of Barbados.)

So, after my errand running, it was time to go to a cocktail-making class with Alex. And that’s what we’ll talk about tomorrow.

After we got back from Harrison’s Cave, we had a delicious dinner at the good ol’ hotel that we loved. (The Club Barbados. xoxoxo to them!)

And now that scuba diving was over, and there were no more early mornings or important things you had to have a right mind for, it was time to see the nightlife side of Barbados.

Originally, since we thought the weekend would be more happening than weekdays, we were going to wait for St. Lawrence Gap until Friday.

But we still wanted to do something, so we thought we’d check out Holetown (the area where we were)!

Well, we went to the area/intersection that was suggested to us… Every bar was a ghost town. There was nothing going on.

But at this point, we’d already dressed up for going out. We’d already pregamed at the hotel where drinks were free (and where I was trying to eventually get through their whole list of special suggested/signature cocktails, and knocked down a couple that night). We were already out and about. We didn’t want to call the night a bust… So we went to St. Lawrence Gap, because we’d heard it was the place to go for drinking/nightlife…

And it was.

All the bars were popping. There were a bunch of outdoor bars, which was great.

The most memorable thing – I don’t even know if I’m supposed to say this, or if I’m gonna get in trouble somehow (but obv this guy’s nickname is not his real name, so it’s probably fine), but this guy walked up to us at one bar, and introduced himself as “The Pharmacist.”

Now, I had no idea what this meant and started asking genuine questions about what made him want to get into medicine, when Alex had to be like “it’s a code word. He’s a drug dealer.”

And the dude was like “yeah, I sell coke.” And then he asked us if we wanted to buy coke.

Now… I will say, Alex made a promise to me before we left that he would not let anything bad happen to me.

[I don’t normally go out and get drunk. I’m not scared of Barbados. I love the people there. But I was hit on a lot at that point, throughout the week (especially whenever Alex wasn’t around), and in general going to bars as a woman is dodgy. You always have to keep guarded and everything. But Alex was very much ready to be a protector, there for me, to be sure nothing bad would happen. He just nicely promised that before we left the hotel.]

I don’t really wanna do coke, BUT there was a small part of me that wanted to challenge him on his offer/promise to take care of me and make sure I got home safe.

“Oh yeah? Is that so? What if I start taking strange drugs from strange men in the middle of the night? You gonna be able to keep up with keeping my safe?” hahaha

But no, my desire to challenge him didn’t override my desire to not get caught up doing drugs in a foreign country. I was about to say my streak of never doing coke continues [which is true], but it’s hard to say it’s a real ‘streak’ when this was literally the first time in my life I’ve ever been offered the opportunity to buy coke.

Finally when I was drunk enough that I was doing the whole can’t-stand-straight/support yourself thing, Alex got us a cab and got us home safely.

It was the cutest cab ride. I’m sure the driver thought we were nuts. We were just being sentimental and telling each other how special we were and sharing random small secrets. It was silly and adorable… And of course I only remember pieces of it hahahahaha. And I’m sure it looked ridiculous from the outside, but from the inside living it, I loved it.

Off to bed we went, as the next day we had a day at My Gay Rum… Oh yeah, that’s correct. More alcohol! I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.

Welp, it wouldn’t be Barbados if I didn’t start out by talking about the alcohol haha.

When we were welcomed in, of course we were shown to the bar to wait. I was still hungry, but was worried we didn’t quite have enough time for me to order real food. So… obviously the smartest idea on an empty stomach is to drink some alcohol, as that’s gotta make you feel full right?

(Don’t worry. I didn’t get overly drunk (at Harrison’s Cave at least, wait until we get to St. Lawrence Gap, but that’s for later). So, everything was fine. But I did finally partake in the drinking! Scuba diving was over. I didn’t have to be responsible for anything else! So, I got a “green monkey tail,” and I think it might’ve been my favorite drink I ever had.

I wrote down the ingredients, but I have no idea about the amounts. But if you want to make your own Green Monkey Tail at home, it’s:

• Blue Curaçao
• Watermelon Liquer
• Mount Gay Silver Rum
• Passion Fruit Juice
• Lime Juice
• Simple Syrup (sweetener)

I thought it was ironic that once I finally started drinking, no one on this tour drank but me! I’d been to a number of events where people constantly had a drink in their hand. But not this one. Aye, aye aye.

[This was the only time this happened in Barbados. At every other place I mention (except scuba), just imagine everyone is drinking… though you probably won’t have to imagine it, because I will probably remind you.]

So, anyway, if you’re reading these posts, and you don’t know who Alex is, he is my Sky Team co-captain for life.

[The Sky Team is something we made up. It’s not a real thing. (I actually do think it’s a real thing, in the sense that Delta and Air France and all those airlines that work together call themselves the “Sky Team,” but we didn’t know that when we started using the phrase, and for our purposes it’s a made-up, not-real thing.]

All it means is that Alex is my best friend. And for many years, he’s done my “new birthday thing” with me. I like to do things in the sky. And many of the birthday experiences we’ve done together have been in the sky (e.g. hot air ballooning, bungee jumping, helicopter flying class). So, we are the “Sky Team” aka, Alex is my super adventure buddy, and anytime something can be more adventurous, I try to make it so with him, because I don’t know if I know anyone in my personal circles who’s more game for stuff/ready for adventure than Alex.

All that to say, there used to be a tour through Harrison’s Cave where you could crawl around, do the tight spaces thing, swim, just explore that cave fully and get a full experience.

Alas, because of Covid (which I’ve been trying to gloss over, so it’s not remembered as a big part of this magical trip), it was deemed as too close of contact with people. So, for now, you can’t do that tour.

We did still get to go in the cave! We just had to ride a tram through it instead. (They always had the tram tour as an option for people who didn’t want to do the active cave tour. That’s not something that was started as a pandemic response, though that would’ve been impressive had they revamped all the cave stuff in such a short time.)

So yeah, we got a tour where we learned a bit about the cave and saw some parts of it. (You had to wear hair nets and helmets, so the pictures aren’t the prettiest anyone’s ever seen haha.) But it was fun!

So, I was sad I couldn’t do the version of the tour that lives up to his adventure level. But he didn’t seem bothered! Our driver was so funny and fun! It was completely a good time still! And it was fun to see how they were building things out. They’re making a ziplining course, and it seems like it’s gonna be a place you can do many things.

[Sorry I don’t have that much to write about the cave itself. but yeah, get yourself a green monkey tail. Mmmm mmmm mmm.]

[If we were to ever go back to Barbados for any reason, while I do feel like we saw the whole island and I’m incredibly happy with how things turned out, IF I randomly had the opportunity to go back, doing the intense-r tour of Harrison’s Cave would be toward the top of the list of things I’d do – and I’d do the zip-lining, and obstacle course, and whatever else they’re building. I think things would be a lot different by the time we got back!]

And speaking of alcohol, I’ll talk about Thursday night tomorrow.

So, now we’re up to Thursday, March 17th.

I started with my second day of scuba diving, which we’ve already talked about in another post.

But one little part I forgot to mention – we did our deep dive, we used this rope to help us descend. And as you can see, there’s a bunch of stuff on it.

As I went down, I accidentally cut my thumb, and it looked crazy, because if you pressed my thumb, weird green stuff was coming out of the cut, just bloop, blooping out since it was going into the water.

Ultimately, no weird moss grew out of me or anything, but it looked slightly crazy.

So, after scuba diving, I was fairly starving. I’d skipped breakfast. I didn’t want to be deep diving on a full stomach or anything. (I just wanted to make sure my stomach had no issues during an awesome dive.)

And then I’d gone scuba diving, which can be somewhat tiring, carrying your gear to the boat, doing the deep dive itself (and the shallower one afterward, etc.). So, I was happy that I was getting to the hotel with about 35 minutes, give or take, to spare before the van was coming for us (as Alex said it was supposed to come at 3pm).

I thought that’d be enough time – if I hurried – to eat pretty quickly, and change into something cute.

Now, for whatever reason, even though my phone is usually so reliable and wonderful, and usually works overall pretty great internationally, for whatever reason, it was failing me.

I forget if we’d noticed it the night before, or in the morning. Either way, we noticed my phone was just absolutely not working to save our lives. No service. No matter where I went. It was just kaput. (This was actually never really explained other than ‘things get weird internationally sometimes, and it was working a few days later.)

But anyway, since I couldn’t use my phone, he was unable to reach me, and I promised to come back right after scuba diving and meet him in the room, so we could meet up and have lunch and then go to this cave together.

And I worked out with the cab driver I had to scuba in the morning to to come get me at 2. And I told him if for some reason the boat is not back to please, please wait for me, and I’d pay extra. Because I had to leave as soon as I could to get back to Alex, and I had no form of communication on me.

(Obviously had the cab driver not pulled through, we weren’t far from a Hilton. I could’ve asked them to call a cab, or probably the scuba place would’ve. I could’ve used another diver’s phone. I wasn’t like in the wilderness. But I just wanted to make sure there was as little room as possible for error.)

Oh, also! A silly little cab story! So, I’d pre-booked a cab through the hotel, on my first day of scuba diving (Wednesday), to come at whatever time I needed it in the morning. And when I got to the lobby, there were approximately a billion people there. (I may be exaggerating a little, but you get it.)

And I was like “uuuuuh, do you by chance know where my cab is?”

And some wires had accidentally gotten crossed and the cab wasn’t there. But then the hotel was like, “it doesn’t matter. Take any of them. Everyone is going to the game, so you can jump in one of these vans with other people.”

It felt hilarious to be the one person not going to the cricket game. And when they realized, “oh you’re not going to the game?!”, they immediately got to scuba just fine, and all was right with the world… But that was kind of hilarious to me.

(We’ll get more into the cricket game later.) So, back to where we are now on Thursday –

I jumped in the cab after scuba. I went straight to the room. And Alex was like, “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I thought it said the shuttle was coming at 3, but we are supposed to be there at 3.”

No worries!

So, we skipped the food. (It’s all right. We could always pig out later!) I literally just threw a kind of flower over-wrap dress thing over my bathing suit, so it looked like I was wearing somewhat normal clothes as there was no time to change.

We whatsapped the cab I’d just been in, asking him to come right back, which he did. We booked it to the front to meet him.

And then we got to Harrison’s Cave. And we ultimately did have time once we got there, but it was a race to do it!

And Alex’s prediction had come true. The one and only bump in the road we ran into was handled like a team (the Sky Team, as we call ourselves). And we were indeed very chill. And we made it!

And I’ll talk about Harrison’s Cave tomorrow!

(I know everyone always says don’t give out free feet pics on the internet haha, but I didn’t take a ton of photos on the cruise, so here’s one of our feet.)

So, anyway, we got to have a nice, long boat ride back and watched all of sunset, which was beyond gorgeous.

We spent most of the time together, and he told me some stories of his childhood I didn’t know, which was nice to learn.

We also spent some time talking to our new friends (me with the girl, and him with the guy), and Curtis showed me a little about navigating the boat.

It was just so calm, and the ocean air felt great, and the views were beautiful. It was, like most of Barbados, perfect in every way.

And THEN, as if the day couldn’t get any more perfect, to get back to the hotel, we got to ride the party bus!

And it was really just so special and magical. Perfection. (Sorry, I know I use a lot of the same flowery words and phrases. I just loooooved Barbados so much.)

So, anyway, we get on this party bus. Everyone is slamming rum, because… it’s Barbados!

I’m still taking it super easy, and didn’t even drink 1/4 of a drink on the boat. (I’ve gotta get up early and go scuba diving the next day! So, I’m trying to be responsible, plus, I’m not a big drinker to begin with.)

But it is fun and cute to see everybody loving everything so deeply, and everyone just singing the party songs so loudly.

And Alex and I had talked about this adorable family that was there, having so much fun, and he kind of talked wistfully about how cool it would be to be one of those kids, having such a laid-back super-fun time with your parents.

And as we’d been talking about how fun it would be to be on this trip with your family, as we looked at each other, while we were singing and dancing at/with each other on this bus, I realized… I am here with my family. He is family to me.

And so this silly little party bus just meant so much.

[I didn’t post the video of us singing to each other, because you gotta keep some things private haha, but there he is looking out the window when there was a break in the singing.]

So, anyway, there was another absolutely perfect day in Barbados, and then we roll into the next one!

Outside of scuba diving [which is obv only for people with a specific hobby] (and a VERY special surprise you’ll hear about toward the end of the week), this is the number one like “normal” thing I’d recommend doing in Barbados.

It was SO fun. There were a million highlights of the trip, but this was a huge bright spot, and if I could only do one “normal” thing, it’d be this.

[Just to keep orienting us, this was Wednesday, March 16.]

So, we got on the boat (the Tiami Sunset Dinner Cruise), and we could already tell it was gonna be amazing, because the vibe of the people was amazing.

He came from the cricket game that he went to that morning, since I was scuba diving. And… I’m sure you’ll never be able to guess what happened as soon as got on the boat.

(Alcohol. Obviously alcohol. It’s always alcohol in Barbados haha.)

And the boat partied and had a good time until we reached the first destination for a swim.

They gave people snorkel masks (but I already had mine, since I’d just come from scuba diving). The first swim was cool, and chill, just a little fun.

I thought that was gonna be our only swim. And it’s funny because everything I’d read/seen said there were ALWAYS turtles and you would see turtles. But we didn’t. And I didn’t think too much of it, because animals can’t be guaranteed. But it turns out, we absolutely DID see turtles. We just had to wait ’til the second swim.

In between the two swims, we met this cool couple, that we later had dinner with on the boat. They were fun and nice and interesting, and it’s always lovely to meet people, of course.

Also, in between the swims, when I was offered alcohol again (always, there’s always rum in Barbados) by one of the crew mates. I thought I’d have just a little.

When he was telling about the special rums they had, and asked what I wanted with the rum I chose, I said “I don’t know? What goes well with it?” He reached out his hand and said “Hi, my name is Curtis.”

(Get it? He’s what goes well with it.) I thought that was so funny.

(Also, this was my first experience having Mt Gay rum, and it really was delicious. I don’t really drunk rum, so I don’t have a ton to compare it to, but I believe the people of Barbados that Mt Gay rum is great.)

So, we went on the second swim and saw the turtles! It was magical. I was so happy.

I didn’t wear my fins, since it was just snorkeling and no one else was. (Even though one of our new friends suggested I do, and just be fun and different – and he was RIGHT.)

I was fine, but those turtles get pretty close to your feet, which is VERY cool, but their little snapping mouths get a little scary! So, if I had fins I wouldn’t have been doing my silly push/pull of getting close to them to see them up close, just to sneak away to try not to get bit.

After the second swim, we got on the boat and had dinner. They had SO much food. You could definitely get full on it.

Also, I wouldn’t think of Barbados as like the French dressing capital of the world, but the French dressing was PERFECT. Amazing. Probably the best French dressing I ever had.

Speaking of the best sauces in the world, I could not get ENOUGH Barbados hot sauce. (We’ll get to that tomorrow, but it was so very awesome.)

And since this post is getting a little long, I’ll pick up here with the rest of the perfect sunset cruise tomorrow!

So obviously, if I was going to an island, I needed to go scuba diving!

[Sadly, Alex is not certified (though I hope to convince him one of these days).]

I looked around for scuba places, and luckily, I found a great one!

Oh my gosh! Also, this is the part I found super cool!!!

So, I got my Open Water and Advanced certs done by a woman (Chrissy). And I thought it would be super cool if all my certifications from here on out are done by women!

Women are the minority when it comes to scuba divers, and it would be cool to sort of swim on the shoulders of women in the field.

So, I thought it would be cool, but it wasn’t an absolute requirement. And when I was calling around to dive shops most of them had male instructors.

And even this one I thought I might! I wasn’t sure exactly who my instructor would be, but when I got to Barbados Blue Watersports… it was Aimee!!!

And then began the two-day journey of getting my scuba certification!

Wednesday and Thursday morning, I headed out early to dive.

I chose to get a shipwreck specialty, because if I’m going to be diving anyway, I really want to rack up some more certifications!

So, when I was looking up the best/most interesting certifications to do in Barbados, shipwrecks was the thing! Every book/website/etc. said so!

And they were right. We started in this bay full of shipwrecks, looked around, and did the basic shipwreck stuff (mapping it and that kind of stuff you have to do to get your certification).

When we left the first day, we were told that if conditions were right(!), we’d get to check out the Stavronikita, and the conditions were right!!!

I was so happy the stars aligned. We got to dive down to this deep ship, and even go inside! It was a little scary, but in a fun way.

Boom. Certification done.

So, Wednesday, after the first day of diving, I headed over to the Catamaran Cruise to meet up with Alex!

I did have a little time in between, so I walked about Bridgetown a bit, stopped and walked around a mall, and asked a cab driver what’s a good truly local place for food (since I didn’t plan on doing much eating outside of the hotel, but there wasn’t quite enough time to get all the way to the hotel and back to the Catamaran Cruise, plus the expense of getting there would’ve been more than stopping for food).

But while I was out, he took me to a little hole in the wall place, that didn’t even have a sign/name, or I’d drop it here. My favorite local Barbados cuisine was macaroni pie (which is probably the most American thing of the local Barbados cuisine, but what can I say, I have the simplest palette of all time).

So, after the quick stop off, it was time to meet up with Alex, and that’s where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

Okay, for whatever reason, I’m having trouble with the media, so you may not be able to see that video, but trust me, it is magical haha.

So, we hop in the cab, and the driver tells us a bit about life in Barbados, and points out some things like a famous statue we pass and everything, until –

Something like 24 hours from when we arrived at LAX we arrived at the Barbados hotel (on March 14)! The Club Barbados. Everyone was SO nice.

(And they handed us welcome drinks. This is the beginning of a long line of everyone offering us drinks all the time.)

We had the BEST room. It was incredible. We could open the door and be ON the beach. And we were just steps away from the bar and dining room. Wanna be drunk at 9am? or midnight? Or really whenever you feel like it? Great news. Take 10 steps and all the free alcohol you could ever want is at your fingertips.

The hotel also gave us a calendar of all the little things we could do everyday! It was pretty cool.

Wheel of Fortune gives you $500 as spending money for your trip, and you absolutely could’ve gone to Barbados, stayed busy completely never leaving the resort, and gotten by on that $500, since the resort was all-inclusive, so it just would’ve had to cover tips [and like airport transport] for the week.

But alas, we didn’t do any of the hotel stuff, because there just wasn’t time! (I mean, maybe there was time that very first day, because you’re about to hear how lazy were were on night one haha, but overall, we had a lot to do!)

Basically, we just unpacked, showered, changed clothes, ate dinner, and then fell asleep at like 7:30 pm, or something insane (after all the travel and time zone hopping – especially, obviously for him, and staying up all night [even though we did sleep some on the plane], etc.).

We did spend a small bit of time at the pool before dinner, and it was really lovely and sweet. And we were playing this question game on my phone. And when one of the questions was what are 3 things you had in common, one of his that came quickly to mind was he thought we were both very chill about everything on vacation and we wouldn’t run into any issues (and boy was he correct). I don’t think of myself as a chill person, but perhaps I’m chill in times, or perhaps I’m chill with him. But it was a chill, amazing week.

The dinner on the first night was amazing! It was the HUGE buffet with everything you could ever imagine. And there were outside stations of people cooking various meals and deserts. It was so decadent.

I truly loved everything about everything – Barbados, the hotel, the room, the food, Alex, the workers the hotel. It was magical. And it just keeps getting more magical after that. So, stick around for part 4!

So, we sat in JFK and made our itinerary. We actually ended up being thankful for the random very long layover [which originally, we weren’t even supposed to have. The flight for some reason was moved way up and was going to be landing not until 6am, so yay for changes and our layover], because it just took a long time to kind of go through everything and sort out what we wanted to do and compare when various tours and stuff were available vs other places, so we could puzzle piece it all together.

I don’t need to lay out the itinerary for you right now, because you’ll see it as the week unfolds!

As we were completing the itinerary, we had some breakfast – breakfast strombolis, to be exact – which were delicious.

Then we walked around a little, waited for our flight, played some more word games online – any iteration of Wordle we could find, including the math one.

And then it was time… to fly to Barbados!!!

Which… I slept through. (And I think he did too.)

Here comes the part that was most hilarious to me.

Barbados was very strict about Covid entrance requirements. The place where I normally get my PCR tests done didn’t even qualify. I forget exactly why, but like an actual doctor had to do it or something… Whatever the stringent requirements were, I read them very carefully, and I confirmed about 8 million times that I was getting the correct test at the correct place, and it would work.

And Alex asked me a bunch of times if I was sure I was getting it done correctly. He’s been living in Singapore for most of the pandemic, so he made this big deal about how strict international travel is during the pandemic, and I really needed to be careful, etc.

And I was like “I would never mess up our trip to Barbados. I have checked this a billion times.” And then I told him, like “hey, I know you know what you’re doing and you’ve travelled internationally during the pandemic. So, I don’t mean to question you… but… You’re definitely getting the right one, right? Because in reading the Barbados requirements, they are strict. My normal PCR place doesn’t count, and it’s a legit setup with nurses, and it’s good, and accepted by my workplace, school, and doctors offices… but not Barbados. So, it’s tricky.”

And he’s like “I have it under control. Don’t worry.”

And he even made some jokes on the way there about what if I’d messed up.

Well, as you perhaps have guessed from this story, HE’S the one who had a test they didn’t take hahahahaha. It was… so funny to me.

So, he had to get a test done at the airport. So, he was taken to an area I wasn’t allowed to go to, for people who didn’t have the correct test (to get it re-done). So, in the meantime, I went ahead and picked up the bags and started walking around the airport.

Then I found a little Chefette, which is the fast food restaurant of Barbados. (They call KFC Keep From Chefette, because Chefette is the thing out there.) I’d read about it in tourist books, so since I was waiting anyway, figured I might as well go get some Chefette. And it was totally fine. Nothing to super write home about (even though in some ways that’s what I’m literally doing right now), but certainly not bad! I was glad I got the random chance to try to the Barbados staple.

Soon enough, Alex was out of Covid jail. We had a big ol’ laugh about it, but I didn’t want to rub it in his face too much. I wanted him to laugh, not be annoyed or feel embarrassed, so we had a laugh, forgot about Covid tests, and hopped in cab to go to our sweet hotel!

Oh my goodness gracious!!!!

I’m gonna tell every little detail because I care too much, and sorry because I’m sure none of you care as much as I do, but for you, you can just skip to the parts strangers might find more interesting.

So, anyway, I’ll start by saying, I never took a traditional “spring break” in all of college or young adulthood, etc. So, it was really cool that this lined up with spring break!

Originally, I was supposed to be flying from New York, but forget that. Blah, blah, blah many reasons, but also, I wanted to fly with Alex, so he didn’t have to be alone for 6 hours!

We were texting on the way to LAX, like “What time do you think you’ll get there?” “What time do you think you’ll get there?”

And then I thought we weren’t on the same schedules, that I’d just meat him at the gate, but I was checking in, he came up behind me and I wanted to cry!

He’d been trying to throw me off slightly, so he could surprise me like that, because he’s quite literally the best.

It felt like forever since I’ve seen him, and when I turned to see who was tapping me, and saw him, my eyes got SO wide, and I gave him the most giant hug.

We checked in for the flight and headed to the gate.

At LAX, we just kind of caught up a bit. We walked around.

We went into the F.A.O. Schwartz there and saw the most GIANT stuffed animal – which was like over $1,000.

I’m think it might’ve been LAX where our Wordle/Octordle/etc excitement first happened. (We definitely played in New York when we had so much time at the layover, but we’ll get there.

So, anyway, we headed to first class, baby!

[Wheel of Fortune did not pay for first class, but they did fly us Jet Blue(!) without us even asking, which was amazing because it’s my favorite airline for life. And your girl has 80 billion points, so I upgraded myself and Alex, because I wanted to surprise him and have this trip be absolutely perfect, and I’m glad because a perfect trip did indeed start of perfectly.]

The pilot came and talked to us! He told us all about where we’d be flying and the weather looked great and all that. We felt like celebrities. Neither of us had ever had a pilot come just say hi for funsies on a flight before.

We talked a little at the start of the flight – especially with some ideas about what we were gonna do in Barbados, and ultimately, we fell asleep for the end of the flight, because we knew we had a long night ahead of us in NYC, and I’m sure his body was super confused about what time it was, since he had come from Singapore and was on his way to yet a new time zone.

We got to New York around 1am, and our next flight left at 8am.

I actually had an apartment in midtown because of grad school! So, we shortly considered going there, but because of how long we thought it would take and the expense, and how much time we’d actually get to spend there, it didn’t seem worth it. So, we stayed at the airport.

I had to pick up my bags, since I tacked on the LA > NY flight, since I told Wheel I wanted to go from New York [because that’s what I thought at the time].

Then there was this HUGE hours-long line forming for people to check their bags. We heard from someone the ETA was something like 3 hours. But thankfully we did not have to wait in it, since we got to go straight to the Jet Blue Mint (first class) area, and they re-checked my bags immediately with no hassle. Boom. Taken care of.

(Seriously. I love JetBlue. They don’t sponsor me in any way, but man would it be great if they did.)

Then security for some reason opened earlier than normal (maybe just because of the sheer amount of people there on apparently a very busy travel weekend). So, we went through and set up shop at a table and chairs to plan out the next week.

(Yes, perhaps we should’ve done this before, but we were both mega busy and on different timezones, so this was the easiest time to do this together, and thankfully we’d both done a fair amount of independent research, so we were ready to combine forces and figure things out!)

And this is where I’ll pick up next time!

It’s time for the trip I won on Wheel of Fortune!

I am taking my best friend in the world, Alex.

I have no idea how busy we’ll be, if there will be time to blog. So, I’ll just posting random nonsense on autopost while we’re gone, and on the 21st… get ready for all of the tales!!!

I’m beyond excited!

Spring Braedos. Here we go baby!