Jillapalooza

IM IN UR OCEAN. EATIN UR CARDZ.

Belize – Friday 12/7

Our first full day in Belize. I got up around 8 am and had breakfast at Rico’s restaurant with C & K. K had some waffles, C & I had banana pancakes. They were very banana-y. One of the ladies at the restaurant was feeding the birds (first restaurant I’ve seen do that). We walked over for a closer look. There were giant sea gulls and black birds that looked like pterodactyls with turkey gizzards. There were also a few eels in the water eating the scraps that the birds dropped.

**BIRD AND EEL PICTURES COMING SOON**

After breakfast the three of us rented a golf cart and drove to town to stock up on some condo necessities.

**VIDEO OF CURTIS’S CRAZY DRIVING ANTICS COMING SOON**

After that we got Nick out of bed and took a long walk up the beach. A really long walk. The weather was perfect. Temps somewhere in the 80s, partly cloudy. The beaches are nice. The sand is gritty, but it doesn’t hurt to walk on it. Only a few areas are good for swimming though. And the whole island seems void of travelers. There were probably 10 people in our pool and section of beach… including us. It seemed to be that way at all the resorts. We’re not complaining though, it’s nice!!

After our walk we lounged around by the pool and beach. Then we headed to the dive shop in our hotel to set up an excursion for tomorrow morning. We’ll be doing a one tank dive at a local reef called Hol Chan followed by snorkeling at Shark Ray Alley!! Hopefully we’ll get some good pictures and non of us will get eaten (don’t worry Cindy, no one’s getting eaten by sharks).

For dinner we ate at El Divino Restaurant at Banana Beach resort. Nick had some sort of meat on a bead of potatoes and I had a grilled snapper. Mmmm… best non-Hawaiian fish ever. Kristen was feeling a bit under the weather, so we headed back to our condo to rest up for the big day of diving tomorrow.

Belize – Thursday 12/6

There’s no internet connection available in our condo, so I will be typing up my Belize Blog and posting it when I get the chance. I feel so disconnected from the world, and we have to rely on paper maps *sigh*

Wednesday night: Nick and I were up most of the night squaring things away for Belize, with last minute packing, laundry and filling the Explorer with gas. I purchased some plastic clothing compression bags, not so much for saving suitcase room, but more so because I don’t like my clothes tumbling around and getting all wrinkly. We finally made it to bed around 2 am.

Curtis and Kristen showed up at our house around 4:30 am. The four of us were on our way to the Mpls airport shortly afterwards. Things started off really well. There was no traffic, we found a parking spot at the Park ‘n Fly and the shuttle was right behind us to whisk us away to the terminal. Once there we checked in at the self service kiosk and made our way to security.

As I headed through the metal detectors I stumbled on a candy wrapper. Sounds worse than it was. I think it hit my shoeless foot and it gave me a bit of a start. The guy at the metal detector was all serious and asked what I ran into. I told him and he laughed, then he said he said, “I thought maybe it was the ghost. We have one of those you know?” Then he said he was joking and chuckled. For how quickly security was moving, the guy running the scan machine was surprisingly anal. He asked Nick if he had a lot of cords in his bag and if he had an iPod. Then he said to me, “Do you have something rolled up in your bag? Why… is that a roll up hat??!? Wherever did you find that? My wife would love one of those for Christmas.”

**PHOTO OF KRISTEN AND ME AND OUR SEXY HATS COMING SOON**

No, not really. He asked me if I had nail clippers in my suitcase. I told him yes and he asked if he could have a look, which I thought was kind of strange because I’ve never seen the guy working the monitors rummage through anyone’s bag. Of course I didn’t realize when I went to pick up my bag that it was still unzipped. Nick did, but failed to mention anything until it was too late. I picked my suitcase off of the rollers and it opened right up, the contents spilling onto the ground. It wasn’t too big of a deal, as all my clothing was neatly packed into the compression bags. The black case that I kept all my bathroom supplies in was another story. Everything tumbled right out. With Kristen’s help I packed it all away and moved out of the security area. They looked in Curtis’s bag too, as the weights in his BC through them for a loop.

We got through security a little before 6 am, had breakfast at Axel’s and did some shopping at The Body Shop before heading to our gate. Our flight was scheduled to leave from at 8 am with about an hour layover in Miami. We boarded the plane and sat at the gate for awhile. Then the announcement came. There was something wrong with the hydraulic system. They told everyone it would take about an hour to fix and to leave their carry ons and exit the plane.

Needless to say we didn’t have an hour to spare so they ended up re booking our flight to the 9 am to Houston with a connecting flight to Belize… and that’s why we don’t check any luggage!! We would be arriving approximately one hour after previously anticipated, so of course we then had to rebook our charter flight to get to San Pedro.

Fortunately the flights from there out went smoothly. Our flight to Houston left on time. The guy that sat next to me was from Texas and obviously had no idea how to maneuver a winter jacket because as he was trying to stuff it in the overhead bin above Curtis the jacket kept flopping around on poor Curtis’s head. I could not contain my laughter. Then once in the Houston airport we saw this guy picking his nose. Right on the escalator, in plain sight of everyone. Just going to town too.

Of course our next gate was at the complete opposite end of the airport. Once we got there we grabbed a quick bite at Fudruckers, then hopped on the plane to Belize. It wasn’t completely full. Nick and I had the whole row to ourselves, so Nick used me as a giant pillow for the entire flight. There was a couple in front of us with two small children, but they were really well behaved, so that was good. When we got into Belize we had about a half hour to get through customs and to the charter flight. Our flight was re booked for 4:40 pm, but we ended up on the 5:15 instead. Their website and our travel agent said flights are every hour, but it seemed like they added flights as needed.

The charter plane was a really small 14 person plane and we had to check our bags. On our way to the plane we even saw our luggage ready to be loaded. There was my little purple suitcase and right next to it was Nick’s little orange suitcase. The flight was quick, about 15 minutes. When we got off the plane we followed signs to the baggage claim, which was a roped off area about 10 feet from the plane.

**BAGGAGE CLAIM PHOTO COMING SOON**

They unloaded all the luggage and what do you think happened? No orange suitcase for Nick. They told us we should wait 15 minutes for the next plane. Half an hour and 5 planes later Nick’s luggage finally arrived. We caught the next taxi to the Banyan Bay Resort which is about a mile from the airstrip. Our condo is very nice. From what we can see in the dark, the entire place is nice. It’s pretty much a ghost town right now. According to the kitchen manager, next week will start the busy season. The pool is great too, it has a swim up bar and no hours so we will be able to enjoy late night swimming!! :bigsmile: We had dinner at Rico’s restaurant, just a few steps from our front door. Very tasty. It’s almost 10 right now and we’re pretty beat. It’s off to bed for now!!

**CONDO PICS COMING SOON**

London Pics in Gallery

I’ve put our pictures from London in the gallery. Disappointingly there aren’t very many. Must have had something to do with the 48 hours give or take that we were there. Not to mention a faulty camera battery that was holding it’s charge for about 7.5 minutes, which is what is to blame for the crappy blurry quality of most of the photos. Oh well, better luck next time.

Cheers.

Look at all of the pictures here.

Things I learned in London – Updated 11/22

London’s not all that different from home, but there were a few things that seemed to stand out.

  • Portion sizes in restaurants are manageable. I’m told even the largest fast food meal is only equivalent to a medium here.
  • If you ask for water, you’re going to get a bottle of water. A glass bottle.
  • You have to ask for the check. You could sit there all night if you wanted to, you still need to ask for it. Unlike Aruba, they actually bring it in a timely matter after you ask.
  • All the restaurants have wireless hand held scanning devices for your credit card. They scan your card and print the receipt right at your table.
  • When they ask you if you want cream in your coffee, they mean actual cream. Not coffee creamer, half & half or milk. It’s actually quite good, it makes the coffee all frothy.
  • The converter they sell there only converts your electrical plug, not the voltage.
  • People there aren’t fat. The country isn’t built for larger people. I’d imagine it would be difficult to travel there if you are of large stature.
  • The Cinemas have assigned seating.
  • Wear a scarf, you’ll fit in better.
  • London is a very busy place. There are people on the streets at all hours. Except Sundays when the place is a ghost town. Most shops aren’t open either.
  • There are bums in London, but I didn’t see them bothering any one like they do in the US. I only saw them at night too. They also looked normal, no missing body parts or deformities.
  • Not only do they drive on the left and sit on the right, but they can park in either direction on the side of the road, and sometimes on the walk.
  • The television commercial breaks are longer, but in a 30 minute show there is only one of them. In the hour long shows there are a two or three. You can see the spots where the commercial should be, just like watching a DVD. Awesome.

I’m sure there are more things that I’ll think of, and I’ll add them as I deem fit.

Leaving London

Nick and I left our hotel at 10:30 on Sunday morning, just shy of 48 hours from checking in. This time we arranged for a car to bring us to the airport. At $60 it was expensive, but not as expensive as the taxi*. It was a luxurious ride in a fancy BMW. Nick sat behind the driver and I sat next to Nick on the left side (get it? get it?).

Once at the airport we learned that we could only carry on one item. Not a carry-on and personal item like in the US. We reluctantly checked our suitcases and finished the security marathon. The flight seemed to go quicker than the first flight. Probably because we didn’t have to wait in the airport for 9 hours before hand. Getting back to Chicago was a bitch though. First we had to go through immigration. Then we had to pick up our checked luggage, go through customs and recheck our luggage. Not too big of a deal I guess, would have went smoother if we didn’t have to check anything in the first place. Then we had to go through security again. The whole long lines, no liquid, shoes off security experience. I guess I just assumed we’d stay in a secure area of the airport and that we’d be able to pass effortlessly through to the gate again. Somewhere along the lines there was this freaky guy with large breasts and wearing a helmet who asked me where the blue line was. I told him I didn’t know. Then he got behind Nick and me on the escalator and said “you have a tattoo.” Well that wasn’t awkward. We quickly fled from him when we got off.

It was quite obvious that we were back in the states. The wide aisles. The large people. The flight home was quick, but it was irritating knowing we were so close. We drove ourselves to the airport, so fortunately we got to leave quickly after getting our luggage.

I enjoyed my time in London, I think Nick did too. We agreed we’ll go back when it’s warmer (potential diving), the American dollar is doing better (1 GBP = 2.25 USD sucks) and when Christian Slater is in another play.

*The London Black Cab is the official taxi service of London. The drivers have to go through a rigamorrow of training, which means they actually know where they are going. They also have to buy the special black cab, which runs around 129,000. USD or GBP, I’m not sure. Either way, that’s friggin’ expensive. But they are their own boss and apparently are paid very well. I would believe it, considering what we paid to get to our hotel.

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