Day Eight: Tourism Day

Last day on the Island, and we packed it with things we would do if we weren't really trying to learn. It was also one of my favorite days.

We started with a changing of the guard ceremony at the Governor General's Manor. (I find it interesting that the Prime Minister doesn't have a mansion but the Governor General does.) This ceremony holds little significance except for another tourist attraction but it was interesting none-the-less. I'm told by the Conservatory kids that the band wasn't very good, and the guard was sloppy. I just saw a marching band play while some guys in uniform stood at attention. I find it odd that these traditions keep on even when they have no meaning anymore, but that's just me pontificating.

We went from there to the Cloisters Gardens on Paradise Island (Also known as the island Atlantis owns). We didn't spend much time here but the garden was truly beautiful. It was a grassy hill, which had broad steps carved into it, leading up to a stone parthenon type building. With the flowers in bloom and the blue skies above even I found myself thinking that destination weddings aren't such a bad idea if mine could be there. We didn't get much time here though, so I (fortunately perhaps) didn't have much time to entertain these thoughts.

We finished our  official itinerary with a trip to Atlantis Resorts. (again, the biggest employer in the Bahamas second to the government). We ended up having a tour of the entire grounds, not a behind the scenes like I was expecting, which actually turned out to be a better deal.  During our tour we visited the aquariums, which I LOVED, and the casino floor, which holds over 4 million dollars of glass sculpture and art. The entire building was opulent to the max. Things were gold plated, marbled, and generally tackied beyond belief. I think I'd go crazy trying to stay there from the omnipresent whimsical nautical theme. Seriously, it's everywhere, and it gets old. They also spend a lot of time trying to get you to buy into the Atlantis idea, much in the way Disney tries to convince you that you're in the future, or in india. I'd love to stay there, but I can't afford it. The rooms start at $500 a night, and nothing's really inclusive. I think they probably charge you $40 if you want to pee.

For Sarah, the art is huge glass sculptures weighting 20,000 lbs each at least. They are made with individually blown glass pieces from a prominent artist and each costs about 1 million.

We FINALLY got some sun time today (YAY!) We laid out on the beach for about an hour and a half until we decided it was waaayyy to cold and no amount of booze was going to make it better. We ended up watching Princess and the Frog in someone's hotel room until dinner. After which we passed the rest of our time in the hot-tub. Which is terrifying because I'm sure it's got more STDs than all of Radford University at the moment.

Closing thoughts on the Bahamas:

• I will definitely be back here. I want a real vacation to enjoy the colors, sights, and sounds that I only got to see in passing. 
• If you offered me a job here, I will totally take it. No lie, I'd even drag Brent down here with me. In fact, we should all move here.
• The drivers sit on the right hand side of the cars/ trucks. That means that the stick shift is on the left hand of the drivers. Which means!... that I've answered the age-old question: Just because the stick is on the left hand side doesn't mean that the gears are also reversed. First-Five gears are exactly where they are in the states. 
• That might have been the most important thing I've learned. 

And that concludes my trip. It wasn't quite what we thought it would be but I sure did learn a lot. And I will be back, you can count on it. 

Day Seven: Culture Shock

Which we will come to in a moment. Today was yet another busy day and the culture shock landed itself right in the middle. 

We started our day later (9:30 thank God!) to go to the National Board of Insurance. The Bahamas has a national health insurance program, which works very well. Since they don't pay income taxes the deduct a certain amount out of their weekly pay, which then goes to the government. They pay out for injuries, pension, maternity leave, workers comp, everything. And the system actually holds together, which is hopeful. Unfortunately it's rife with fraud, because there's no national credit bureau there is no way to track who is paying into the plan, who isn't injured anymore, etc, etc. Anyway, nothing else exciting happened so we're moving on.

Lunch was at a native Bahamian cafe called Steve's. It's a cafeteria style deal, which is apparently popular places like here. They served chicken in various froms of cooked, the obligatory conch, and lamb curry. I had the lamb. I also had a dessert that's purley Bahamian called Guava Loaf. It's obviously guava fruit backed into a bread and then covered in a cream cheese icing. It's like a cinnamon bun, only replace cinnamon with guava fruit. 

The culture shock came with our visit to the hospital. There are two hospitals on New Providence (one public and one private), with multiple satellite clinics scattered throughout the islands. We were visiting the public hospital and I'm not sure I have the words to adequately describe how it was. We'll start with facts, then move to what I actually saw. The public hospital of the Bahamas is divided into public and private sectors within the hospital. Private costs more but you get better care and the rooms are better. In the public hospital they follow the Florence Nightingale style of care, this means that the treatment rooms are large open spaces with upwards of 20 beds all crowded in. Therefore, paying for private means you get your own room and nursing staff, much more like our hospitals here. Amazingly, the Hospital is a level 1  Trauma center (Which means they are equipped to handle the highest levels of trauma, they have a 24 hour surgical and doctoral staff). They also have an Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a Pharmacy, and dental and Eye care all included in the hospital proper. 

Now, onto my observations. Myself and the PA student on this trip were allowed to take control of the tour. Our guide was incredibly friendly and showed us around the hospital happily, answering our questions as best she could, and finding those who could when she couldn't. The first thing that strikes you when you enter, is the heat... the air conditioning does not work very well. The second, is it's dirty, not like slum or gas station bathroom dirty, but no where near the levels of sanitation you'd expect in a US hospital. The third, is it's crowded. There are people and families packed in everywhere. Because upwards of 20 patients can be in one room the rooms are barely navigable, and people can die en route to care centers when they code because of the congestion. Fourth, and perhaps the most astounding, is that they do not have privacy laws like we have in the US. Patient protection is a joke, we were allowed to walk the hospital, without name tags, and poke our heads into any wing/room/unit that interested us. We walked through the maternity wards and ER without any trouble. I could see patient names and charts out in the open. It floored me that the Bahamians are so laid back that they allow this to happen. 

We visited the entire hospital, but the places that stood out the most to me were the surgical waiting room, the pediatric wing, and the emergency room. (they have physical therapy in an outside building that we didn't have time to go see) The surgical rooms are a mess of families and patients anxiously awaiting their operations. Some are in obvious pain, others are frightened out of their wits. And they are all crowded together in a hot, dirty space. 

The pediatric center is home to all levels of children, some have been abandoned at birth and have become wards of the state. They must stay at the hospital until they can find homes for them. Some stay until they're 18 years old. Shea (PA student) and I also got to go into the NICU. This is my first time into ANY NICU and it hurt to go there. There were at least 4 babies to a room, each in their own incubator, and each so small; you watch them breathe and your heart aches for them. Some are under UV lights, some under incubators, and almost all have needles and tubes running into and out of them. They don't cry, it's silent except for the steady beeping and humming of the machines. The NICU is nice, it's the best in the caribbean, the success rate still isn't good simply because of the nature of the unit.

The emergence room was astounding. Again, it's hot, crowded, and people are afraid. It reminded me of shelters after natural disasters, the press of people and the feeling in the air of trying to survive and being fearful. The ER had 18 beds, all slammed against one wall with narrow walkways between them. People were piled in everywhere they could be, nurses and doctors had so squeeze through to care for the people. Our guide said that when someone codes they take them to a separate room, but they sometimes cannot get them out fast enough. There is no other way for them to operate however, they have no more space and a high volume of people coming through daily. 

The hospital is growing, and the government recognizes the need for more space and staff to accommodate the needy population. So hopefully these conditions will not last. I cannot imagine going to that hospital, or working there. It is unlike anything I have ever seen and I am grateful now for even the smallest hospitals (PCH).

We finished our day shopping on Bay Street and I am happy to announce that I have finished shopping for everyone! I still haven't managed to make it to the Marley Resort but I hope to soon! Tomorrow we go to changing of the guards and on a tour of Atlantis. Then hopefully (Please God Please!) we will have the rest of the day off for the beach after 1:30! Finger's crossed! 

Day Six: School Day

I will never be a morning person, ever. I can't even try to be. I say this because it's been the second in a string of days we have to be up and out of the hotel by 6 am. Today we left early enough to get through the traffic in downtown Nassau to get to Queens College School by 7:30 am. Apparently if we left it any later we would be in traffic for 2 hours and perhaps starve. They never really specified. 

Queen's College is a private school for kids from ages 3- 18. They have an early learning center, a primary school that's for grades 2-6, then a secondary school for 7-12 all on the same campus. It's an amazing campus. The schools are separated into three buildings, one for each center. They all face inward on a giant open atrium that keeps everything breezy and cool. All the children wear uniforms in green and white. I found yself wishing that we had had uniforms because that would have cut down on a lot of the awkward in high school, 

Queens College is really successful academically. They must take standardized tests in 9th and 12th grades that are the culmination of all the subjects they have learned. These kids can usually take these early and pass first try. In fact, we met a boy who had managed to get the highest grades on his 12th grade exams in the country, and he was only in 11th grade. The schools also operate in the British system; they have prefects, and head boys/ head girls. The teachers are really invested in the kids, who are polite and disciplined. If I could, I'd send my own kids there. 

We had lunch at local fish fry, which wasn’t anything special in particular. I passed on the conch salad, I’m sorry but there are some things I just won’t do. We then visited the College of the Bahamas. They were currently in some turmoil because of a election ploy of the student government. They had forced their president, who is brand spaking new as of January, to take open questions on their equivalent of a lawn. They were grilling her the entire time we were there and most of the administration had come out. Therefore we didn’t have anyone prepared to give us a tour. We did end up with a really nice gentlemen that had the best intentions, if not the best tour skills. We received a haphazard tour of the college, which made me realize that all colleges share a common network theme. They’re just about the same wherever you go. So nothing exciting or different to report.

The best part of the day was after we got home from the schools. Myself and the other students, 7 of us in all, decided we would take a taxi downtown and go exploring on our own. It’s by far one of the best times I’ve had here. We got to poke around the shops and downtown on our own time, we could speak candidly with each other, and downtown was lively and a nice distraction from the organization this week has been dictated by. We went to the straw market, where I got overpriced presents that I managed to heckle down only a few dollars.  I don’t think I’ll be going back tomorrow. The straw market is a giant flea market type deal where local vendors come, set up stalls, and sell their “home made” wares. Mostly it’s all the same stuff and the sellers are really pushy. I got tired of having to reject people every 10 seconds so I wound up watching the cruise ships leave the bay from the docks.

We walked home, enjoying each others company and feeling refreshed after the long day. Tomorrow we are going to the National Insurance Board, a local café, Princess Mary’s Hospital (yay!), the historical society, and some final shopping. Here’s hoping for a good day!

I wasn’t feeling funny today, see the first sentence for why. 

Day Five: Finally Out in the Sun (Sort of)

The theme for this trip could be, "spend lots of time traveling from site to site and not spending much time at the sites. " I think this partly because of the layout of the Bahamas, where little towns dot the islands with narrow stretches of road between, and partly because our schedule is jam packed.

Today we spent the entire day on a day trip to Eleuthera Island. (Pronounced El-Lu-Thra) Eleuthera is on the far eastern edges of the islands which make up the Bahamas. It's shaped like a capital I and is the home of the original capital. The Capital was moved because of the general inaccessibility of the town, the bay is really shallow and there is something called the "Devil's Backbone." This is a long spine of reef that projects from the water when the tide is low and make navigating into the harbor in the daytime really tricky and at night nearly impossible. Therefore the capital was moved to New Providence.

The only way to get to Eleuthera is by airplane, or by a ferry. We took the Ferry which involved a 2 1/2 hour voyage across the Caribbean Sea. I spent the majority of my time on the observation deck watching the water slide and spray past while humming alternately the Pirates of the Caribbean (which annoyed a few people) and Gilligan's Island (which annoyed everyone.) It was a happy time, there wasn't much to see but at least I was out in the sun and the sea is beautiful.

Eleuthera is one of the oldest colonized islands. It gained most of its popularity/ population during the revolutionary war when Loyalists wanted to get the hell out of the states and found the nearest English Colony that looked like it wasn't going anywhere.

During our tour of Eleuthera we drove through several small villages. These aren't as nice as the homes in the capital but they hold a certain charm. Eleuthera is also a place where lots of high profile stars build homes. It's remote enough that they can be left alone apparently. We drove past Lenny Kravitz's recording studio (anyone who knows me will understand that I am probably the only 24 year old who'd be excited about that). But other stars that frequent the island are Mariah Carey and various NBA stars (namely Bron Bron and Magic Johnson.) It's also the backdrop of several movies, the most recent being "Why did I get Married too", and that movie with Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson.

We visited several natural sites for about 10 minutes each (let's not go into how frustrated that makes me.) We enjoyed 2 minutes at a pineapple farm. Eleuthera actually started growing Pineapples in this hemisphere, they then shipped them to Hawaii where they flourished. We spent 10 minutes at the pink sand beach, where coral and shells crunch up and gather throughout the sand to give it a pinkish hue. We spent 5 minutes at the glass window bridge, where the Atlantic and Caribbean sea run into each other. On one side of the bridge is the Atlantic, in its usual deep blue, crashing and seething against the cliffs; on the other is the Caribbean sea, which is is calm and a startling aqua marine. We finished with 10 minutes in Preacher's Cave. This is a large cave carved into the limestone bedrock of the island. It served as a shelter for a shipwrecked captain and crew in the early 1700s, then became an actual church some 50 years later. The church part is particularly interesting because seats, pulpits, and a baptismal font have been carved into the rock of the cave.

One other thing worth mentioning was lunch. We ate at a local deli that served only Bahamian food. This means for lunch I wolfed down fried grouper ( I'm not a fan of fish but this was good), fried conch (Yes the giant snail thing, it's manageable with ketchup), and beans and rice. The meal was excellent which I was very pleasantly surprised by.

Tomorrow we spend more time indoors. We are visiting two different schools, a private primary school here, and the College of the Bahamas. Hopefully we'll be done early enough to have some free time. There's a resort down the road that was built by Bob Marley's widow and has a Marley theme. I'm dying to check it out.

Happy update: I finally got some color on my face and arms!

Day Four: Humid Country, Dry Day.

Not the weather, the weather here is beautiful as always. Partly cloudy apparently means an intermittent cloud every 10 minutes.

No, what I refer to is the content matter of today's outings. Which involved a lecture from Central Bank of the Bahamas, a lecture from a large retail chain called John Bull, lunch at a greek restaurant (where the highlight of my day was the amazing Dolmades I had), a lecture from the Bahamian Parliment, and a lecture from the Main Post Office.

Again, I won't bore you will every little detail, I'll just make another list of each site and what wasn't interesting about them but what I can remember. There wasn't a lot interesting today, I apologize.

• Central Bank of the Bahamas
• Central Bank (CB) operates like the Federal Reserve, they don't deal on a personal level. Rather, they deal with other banks and companies and manage investments of both domestic and foreign persuasion. 
• There is no income/duty  tax in the bahamas. Goods are usually cheaper here because of this. Also because of this lots of foreigners bank with the Bahamas to save themselves the taxes they'd otherwise build up. 
• Tourism accounts for 50% of the GDP here. Because of this the Bahamians have a saying, "if America gets a cold, the Bahamas catch the flu." Meaning that when we take a turn for the worse, the Bahamas are going to take because we stop coming there.
• Americans make up 88% of the tourists coming to the Bahamas, and most of them arrive by cruise ships. 
• I got a 15 cent piece. It's square.
• They also gave me some Goombay punch, which is a soda and is like Mountain Dew on crack. Think Surge levels of sugar and caffeine... as in 54 grams of sugar per can. 
• John Bull
• Absolutely nothing of interest or value happened here, it's basically a department store with a bunch of expensive brands that I care nothing about. 
• I did get a free thing of perfume that smells like someone set a floral shop on fire. 
• Parliment
• The Bahamians just copied Britain for their government structure. They have a House of commons, and an Assembly. 
• The House of commons is made up of 40 members from two different political parties. They make most of the legislation and run the country
• The people who lose the Commons elections get shoved into the Assembly, which is analogous to the House of Lords. They get better digs but have no real power and the pay isn't that good. (They exist mostly because of political patronage issues, also it's probably a good idea to keep the people who ran against you nearby so you can keep an eye on them) 
• The current prime minister is into his 3rd term. He's known as a "common man" who speaks his mind to a fault and side-steps the general perks of office. He's known to juke his drivers and drive himself places. Apparently this really gets on everyone's nerves who are close to him. 
• If the Queen visits the Parliament while it is in session, she never goes into the house of commons (For the same reasons as she wouldn't in Britain). She always addresses the Assembly and they must stand while she's there. This is their penance for lopping of King Charles II's head when he tried to convince them he had divine right. 
• The House of Commons is green, like police station green. The carpet, however, is forest green, and the cushions are jungle green. The impression is that of someone who was told to make the room green and decided to scatter bomb the color scheme to make sure every green was accommodated.
• Lining the walls of the HoC are pictures of previous speakers. They wear the robes and the obligatory one-size-doesn't-fit-anyone wigs. They also switch from white people to black around the mid 1900s.
• The Assembly is lined with full portraits of previous Monarchs, included the ignoble Charles II. I think this is a nice touch personally.

• Main Post Office
• I was zoning hardcore by this point and it's honestly a lot like any other post office...
• ... except that it's all manually done. They don't have anything automated so a lot of manual labor goes into the mail system
• Also Bahamians don't have mailboxes, they must come to the Post Office to collect whatever mail is for them. Some have P.O. Boxes but others just walk up to a window and ask for their name.

That sums up my entire day. I'm sure I'll think of some other points of interest but for the moment, I'm still zoning out and Dinner's coming up soon. I should not that I got back to the resort at 5 today when it was beautiful and sunny. I rushed up to change and rushed to the beach just in time to watch the sun sink below the resort. It's almost heartbreaking. 

Tomorrow is an early day. We'll be heading to North Eleuthera by ferry and spending the entire day there. I really hope I can be outside for most of it because I'm sick of just looking through the window at a beautiful day. 

Hungry Suz shouldn't write blogs. 

Day Three: All Things Nassau

Today was a tour day. We have a guide named Lambert who runs his own touring company through various resorts in the Bahamas. How do we know he runs his own company? Because for a good 2 hours he was off and on his phone chewing out various employees for some calamity that was occurring. Other than that, he's a great. He knows everyone and has tons of connections throughout the islands. That's been exceedingly helpful when we're meeting people and experiencing things off the beaten (tourist) path.

We toured the entire island. It's 7 miles by 21 with a population of over 210,000. That being said we covered waaaay too much to go into detail. So from here out I will be using a bullet format of general observations that I myself made, and interesting facts that I can remember. I will be leaving things out, we were gone from 9am to 6pm today. We did some driving around downtown, into various development neighborhoods; both rich and poor, through marshes and national parks, and through the tourist area.

- Nassau is not the name of the island, it is mearly the capital city of the Bahamas. New Providence is the island. (Fact)
- The people of the Bahamas have adopted most of their infrastructure from the British, they only gained their total independence in 1973. As such, they have a parliment and prime minister. (Fact)
- The prime minister is the head of whatever party was elected. He calls the next electino whenever he wants, but he must do so within a 5 year span. That means the prime minister can call basically a quarterback sneak and hold an election when things are going well for their particular party and the other party isn't ready. (Fact)
- The Bahamian population is very invested in their politics. About 85% of the population votes; compare that to the average US turnout, which is usually in the low 60s. (Fact)
- There are a TON of stray dogs on the island, and very few cats. (Observation)
- There are very few homeless Bahamians, the government has made sure there is affordable housing for everyone. There are also no slums. (Fact)
- Road rules are very relaxed throughout the island, and they drive on the left. (Observation/Fact)
- Tourism makes up 60% of the industry in the Bahamas, with Atlantis Resort being the largest employer in the entire nation. As such, Atlantis has a HUGE say in what goes on as far as laws and regulations. (Case in point, they had two roads completely switched as far as direction they ran. They were one way, running from east to west and the other vice versa. Atlantis didn't think this was good for business and had them reversed) (Fact)
- Most of the "Bahamian made" goods come from China (Observation)
- Government buildings here are painted specific colors. The schools are yellow with red stripes, the post offices are a tanish yellow. And the police stations are green... like cheap resort green. Like is that teal or is that a fungus green. For Top Gear fans, it's the same green that Richard painted his police car.  (Fact, unfortunately)
- There have been plenty of movies filmed here, most notable being a mortal hellton of James Bond movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Jaws: Revenge (I mention Jaws because we actually went to the beach where that was filmed. See my pictures) (Fact)
- License plates are given out sequentially here. Meaning the number you see on the plate is a record of that particular car on the island. There are over 200000 cars by my count. (Fact)
- Since the earthquake in Haiti, there are over 30,000 illegal immigrants pouring into Nassau. Most go to jail, which apparently is an improvement from life in the Bahamas. (Fact)
- The national past time is not soccer like you might think... it's actually cricket. Thanks again English. (Fact)

I'll also take the time to mention a few of the places we visited. We went to Fort Fincastle, which was built on the highest point of the Island and "Never saw no action." Seriously, don't say it did, because it didn't. There was an interesting thing at the Fort called the 'Queen's Staircase' This is a 90 feet by 50ft gap carved by over 600 slaves leading to the fort. It was used for supplies and to serve as an evacuation route from the action that the fort never saw. We had lunch at a Bamboo Shack. This is a popular restaurant chain in the Bahamas that specializes in "Chicken in a Bag" Which is basically deep fried chicken, you can also get fish, and some fries all covered in ketchup.

 The last stop we made for the day was at an ollllld plantation from the 1600s. This was an amazing place, we visited the ruins of the main house, carriage house, and slave houses. Most of the structures are the original 300+ year old stone, and some things have been reconstructed. The history behind the entire property is intense, and involves over 100 years of slavery. There is also a natural made staircase leading up from the water to the bluffs. It's speculated that it was carved either for pirates use, or for a quiet, discreet way to bring new slaves to the plantation. Again, see my pictures for more information. Our tour guide for the plantation was an amazing source of knowledge, especially about the various herbal remedies they've come up with on the island. I find this fascinating and I also don't understand how they figure out what cures what... seems like a very dangerous trial and error game to me.

This is the main house ruins

And these are the slave houses

My personal favorite place of the day was a Junkanoo shop and museum. The man who showed us around has been involved heavily in Junkanoo for his entire life (40+ years) He loves it and the culture. He's made his life into building elaborate floats and displays of Junkanoo goodness. The process to make the costumes and floats is amazing, you cannot use paints, cloth, or too much pre-prepared materials. Everything must be hand made and usually is out of styrofoam and cardboard. They are colored by feathering crepe paper and sticking it all over the costumes. The foam may be painted but only to a certain extent. The detail going into these creations is amazing and I could not get enough. Here's were you really need to see the pictures, they're truly something.

These are all made out of cardboard, crepe paper, and sequins. They're my favorite

The theme for that year was india, again all of this is hand made. About 50 human hours when into this float.

Still from the India theme, this is styrofoam painted and sequined. 

As you can tell, we didn't get our afternoon off for one reason or another, which is enormously disappointing because I wanted to see how much frozen drink I could put into my system. Ah well, we've come back and settled for the night, dinner will be soon and I'm enjoying the buffet lifestyle immensely. Even if I'm not enjoying the Spring Breakers so much. Tomorrow we'll be visiting the banking system (I'll try not to explode with excitement) and go on a walking tour of downtown. So, more fun and interesting facts to come.

Day Two: Things Suzanne Likes...

Loud noises, colors, and lots of movement. And my past 24 hours have had plenty of all those things.

Let's start with last night, during which time we went to a Junkanoo Rush Out. Junkanoo is a Bahamian tradition of a HUGE parade with dancers, floats, and music. It's amazing. The costumes are outrageous, they're in bright oranges and greens, they have sequins and feathers, and most extend some 3 feet outside of the wearer's personal body. The people in the parade jump and dance and smile for as long as they can hold out. I, personally, want to live down here so I can take part. There were also fire eaters/dancers, and one amazing limbo guy. Apparently this is all a part of island culture and I, for one, am a fan.

I passed right out at 12 am, which is lucky because there are 3 girls in the next room who are loooud. We woke at 9:30 to go to the Evangelical Temple for Church. It was a lot like magazine street church for the Pulaski peeps. There was a 30 person choir being backed up by a full band singing mostly songs I knew. I got to sing along, which is something because I don't like singing in new churches usually. It's also a really involved church. Whenever the pastor started to pray everyone in the congregation would start up with him. All saying their own little prayers. Often, I couldn't hear the pastor for the ongoing litany behind us. We were special guests and were seated in the front two rows and everyone was super friendly. For me, I loved the people there. They were involved in their worship in a way I've never seen. They danced, and clapped, and sang as loud as they could. I'm fairly certain an associate pastor was fist pumping while most of the choir was dancing to their own syncopation. It actually made me really miss my dad, he loves that kind of stuff and everything I saw while I was there would have been right up his alley.

After church, and stuffing my face with Bahamian pumpkin soup for lunch, we went to the Zoo and Gardens of the Bahamas. (Quick aside, I've come of find that if anything is calling itself Bahamian anything just means that they've put red peppers and other things in them to make it spicy, I like it) The gardens aren't a huge project. They're just a collection of a bunch of native animals of the Bahamas, South America, and other islands. Which meant, a bunch of tropical birds, smaller jungle cats, and a crap-ton of flamingos. I particularly liked the flamingos, they're colorful and you could walk right up to them. I also spent a happy while watching a small white-faced monkey eating a fig while he watched me right back. It's neat to see how they work their little fingers that are just like ours and still so strange looking. He seemed as interested in me as I was in him. Then he got distracted by a passing jet overhead, which I also thought was neat, most animals wouldn't even react. We finished up with goats, who I think are funny because of the noises they make and the way they stick their tongues out when they do so. I also got to feed a bunch of parrots an apple, and got a kiss from a cockatoo, and got to be part of a flamingo march. All in all, a great day.

I'm going to add this just because it'll make Sarah, and probably mom, proud. For dinner I had Seafood Paella and Chicken Curry. Obviously not at the same time but I'm enjoying the all you can eat inclusive buffet. Also, dessert was Bahamian bread pudding. I have no idea what made it Bahamian but it was delicious.

The evening's been uneventful. The spring break melee is in full swing here. A bunch of 19 year olds excited about being able to drink and making awful decisions. I would wax nostalgic but that was never me.  Tomorrow we're going on a full island tour of nassau, finishing at 2:30. Hopefully tomorrow I can work on my tan and drink more daiquiris than can possibly be good for me.

Further bulletins as events warrant!