Time flies

Didn't I just move to California? Wasn't I just all worried about being able to handle and tolerate the city life and the big hospital? I feel like I just got to California. Hate to break the news, but I only have less than 4 weeks left in LA! That's crazy. Less than a month left. I do have to say, I know LA is not for me, haha. But I didn't even have to go to LA to know that. Living in LA makes me become someone that stays within a 3 mile radius of my apartment and the hospital. When I do branch out, bad things happen with me and traffic! No worries, no accidents or anything like that, just too much traffic and really bad road rage! I needed to go to REI the other day, the closest one is at Santa Monica beach, so I decided to spend the afternoon there, (which I will talk about more later), and it ended up taking me more than an hour to get back home. I didn't even leave the beach until 7:30 that evening, I thought I would have avoided the traffic, I was wrong. Definitely took away from the effects you get from being at the beach! Nice area though, for a beach in the city...need I say more?

I am staying very busy and enjoying my time even though I dont go too far too often. One thing I am sad I am not doing more of is hiking. There is hiking around, but it takes forever to get to anywhere decent and by the time I get back home thru the traffic I will just be frustrated again, not worth taking the hike. A few things still on my list that I hope I get to do include eating Korean BBQ (I have heard its amazing!), go to the Chinese Theatre, and go to San Diego.

Chinese Theatre

Middle of March mom and dad came for a visit. We had planned on going to China Peak Ski Resort with Luke and Jackie but then Luke got a very late notice TDY and was gone the whole time the parents were in California. It was really sad. So Jackie came to LA and spent some time with myself and my parents. First day we did a little LA exploring. We did the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Then we went to Universal City. Not Universal Studios, just walked around the city area. Had some yummy sushi for lunch! Then we drove around UCLA campus. It is a pretty campus, not as big as I expected, kinda crammed in a small area next to Beverly Hills. Mom couldn't believe I live so close to Beverly Hills. I can run to it from my apartment. I also run by the LaBrea Tar Pitts all the time, very close to my apartment and just down the block from my gym. I just saw a movie the other day that was so funny because the dad was asking his little girl if she wanted to go to the Tar Pitts or to the Farmer's Market, which I drive by all the time going to work. Very fun and good Farmer's Market. Not as tempting as I thought it was going to be, I have only gone two times, with Luke and Jackie, then with my parents. I should go more for the fresh produce, but again, I don't like battling for parking and all that stuff! Mom is very jealous of the farmer's market being just down the road from me! We also drove around and saw some of the houses in Beverly Hills. Most of the really nice houses you couldn't really see because of fencing and plant walls! Not cool! Some good views of the city though.

WALK OF FAME

The second day we went to Knott'sBerry Farm. No, this is not really a farm. Well it used to be and they still have the farm somewhere to grow berries for their jams, but it is a theme park. I never knew this until Jackie was telling me about it. Never imagined Knott'sBerry as an adventure park. It was fun. Did some good roller coasters. There weren't too bad of lines. Mom did a lot more rides than I expected her to. And dad and I did a coaster that goes from 0 to 82 in like 2.3 seconds. It was fast! You see everyone sitting in the coaster while your waiting in line, then all the sudden...their gone! They disappear so quickly!

The next few days my parents and I went to China Peak. It was a long drive there, but once we got into the Fresno area and headed up the hills, the drive was gorgeous. So many rolling, green hills. Didn't feel like we were headed to skiing. Made me want to go wine tasting or something! We made it to the mountain early afternoon so dad and I were able to get a few days of riding in. Then we went the next two days as well. We got free passes to China Peak with our Monarch passes, so it was a good deal! The motel at the resort was not good though. First, it was kind of set up like a dorm room, the more expensive rooms had bathrooms, but most rooms just shared a community bathroom in the hall. And each room had tons of beds. Kind of makes me think of a hostel actually. And there was nothing else at this motel, not even a hot tub! And to top it off, little selection in food. I haven't had a hamburger or chicken fingers in years, and I was forced to order each of these. Made my stomach hurt! The snow was very icy in the morning, had to stay on the groomers, and would get very soft and mushy in the afternoon. It was so warm. Probably the warmest I have ever rode in. Well, actually last year the second time I went to Mt. Hood in Oregon it was very warm too. We had to catch the few hours top of the day where the snow is soft, but not too mushy that you can't even move! We enjoyed it though. I think dad's knees were horribly sore afterwards. Of course, he is so tough he never said anything, but I know they were. My knees were even sore, of course his was. That thick snow is tough!

The last day of their visit was girl's day. I took mom for a massage. We were actually supposed to massages, facials, and mani's and pedi's, but they could only do the massage. After the massage we went for tea. We had fun but were a little disappointed. Part of the LA disappointment. So expensive here, we couldn't even get different types of tea without paying for another full pot. Our favorite tea place in Oklahoma City you can try as many types of tea as you want and you get a muffin included in your meal. We like that place! All in all it was a fun visit with the parents! I am glad they were able to come.

So in the past month I have had appointments with a Neurologist and an ENT specialist. And neither of them could figure out what is wrong with me and getting dizzy every time I run outside. So frustrating! I hate it. I wanna just be able to go out for a run not dreading the feeling it is going to give me. Keeps me from doing things I want to do, like longer races! Good news is the Neurologist said my balance was fine, which I knew, and that there was no indication I needed any kind of scans, it didn't sound like I had any neurological problems or anything. No, just this really bad problem that happens when I run or hike too fast!! So annoying!

A couple weekends ago Luke and spent some quality time together learning to do a new extreme sport! Kiteboarding! He has been into learning how to do it for a while and talked me into it. It was something I was always slightly interested in because I would see all the boarders out on frozen Dillon Lake in Silverthorne riding on the lake with their kites and I though it would be fun to be able to do it. So Luke came out to LA and we spend the weekend learning. The guy we took the class with was really cool and into just expanding the sport. He ended up spending at least 3 hours longer with us than he was supposed to. The first day was spend just on the beach learning to manuever the kite. Which Luke picked up fast because he has a harnes and trainer kite that he has been practicing with. It's amazing how difficult the kite is at first, but once you start playing with it a little it is fairly easy to catch on to how it works with the wind. The trick is, you have to know the wind and be very careful. It is very easy to dip the kite into too much wind power...and off you go! We were watching a training DVD the night before and I knew I was just going to do tons of faceplants! I think I ended up only doing one actually, in the water.

So after day one on the beach, day 2 we were in the water, and supposed to get up on the board. This was really scary, and difficult. Not only do you have to worry about the kite and keeping it up in the air, which can be difficult to do, and if it falls it can be hard to re-launch. Then you add the board into the situation and have to learn to maneuver the kite with one hand while picking up the board and carrying it into the water. Before we got the board we learned body dragging in the water. This was so much fun! Just letting the kite pull you through the water! It is interesting how both Luke and I when it was time to get on the board, things we had learned with the kite kind of got forgotten. There is so much to think about! We had to learn to take our time and really concentrate. The kite has to be in the perfect position in order to even put your feet in the board. Then you have to get the kite through enough wind power to get you up and stay with enough power to keep you going. Luke and were a good team to learn together. Neither of us gets frustrated with the other and we both were moving at about the same time in our learning process, Luke slightly faster because he had more practice and naturally has a little more capability to pick things up faster, but I'm used to that! By the end of it I was able to get up a few times, once fairly well for a little. And Luke got up a few good times. It was awesome. Then to top it off, on Luke's last run, when he was up on the board, a couple dolphins came up behind him. It was amazing! Luke didn't see them of course, he was a little busy, but it was the coolest picture ever. Made the day for sure! I can't wait to go more and learn to get on the board better. And the ultimate goal...riding on Dillon Lake! Thanks for a fun weekend Luke, I highly enjoyed it! I love you!

I went to the beach the other day because like I said earlier I had to go to REI. I walked around a little and then went down to the beach for a little run. It was nice. The beach wasn't as packed as I thought it was going to be for a California beach, but the beach is also really big, very long and wide. It was a little more difficult to run on this beach than it was in Oregon because the sand wasn't as hard packed as far up on the beach as it was in Oregon. There is a big difference in how the beaches are in Oregon vs. California. The reason there is so much harder packed sand in Oregon is not because it rains so much there, but because the beach stays so shallow as you go out into the water, it doesn't ever just suddenly get deep. Most beaches you have shallow for so long out then you drop down and it gets deeper. In Oregon the tide changes so drastically due to this fact that the beach inclines so gradually. It makes for good running. Here I had to stay right up along the water line in order to run well at all. But I am glad I got to experience it, even though my run didn't last long just because I got sick, oh well. That is all for my beach experience while I am here that I know of. Not planning on going again. Unless Luke and I get to go out and kite-surf again soon!

So if anyone is wondering where I am going next, I do not know. Too early to know. I have personal travel plans to complete before I go somewhere else, but I will keep you updated!

Working in LA

North and South towers

Adjusting to working at this hospital takes some time, I don't think I will ever feel totally comfortable there before I have to just leave again. It is a busy place, I like the experience I am getting, but I don't think I could work here full time. It is difficult to really get to know anyone. Everyone is so busy doing their own thing many times you don't see someone that has been there the whole day until it is time to go home! I have been lucky to have mainly all very nice patients. The patient culture here is different than anywhere else I have been. More people here that are older, married, and have money. Many times I am working with patients that are younger than I am, single, and on Medicaid. This hospital allows a lot of autonomy, which is nice, but at the same time makes you hope you are doing everything like they like it to be done. The orientation is so short, you get a small snip of what they like, and then set you free, its nearly impossible to do everything like they want it done. And every hospital double charts, but this unit is especially bad. They not only have some paper charting but they have two computer charting programs we have to use. And you can't have both programs open at once so you have to close one to chart in the other, a pain in the butt! I did receive an encouraging comment the other day though. We were talking about one of the new travel nurses (which we get at least 2-3 new ones every week!), we were worrying whether she would be able to handle working at a place like this. One of the nurses said to me, "yeah, you fit in well here, you gotta get in there and be ready to work fast." I never feel totally comfortable, hard to as a travel nurse. And many times I have no idea where things are, what doctors want, or what to do, but I try. So it was really nice to get that comment. Since I have started working there I have definitely had at least one delivery, sometimes 2. I have had some emergency situations with just my patients in only a few weeks. The c/s rate at this hospital is 40%, sometimes seems higher than that. I am working with residents again, so that is kind of nice to have again. Most the time these residents seem to really know what they are doing.

Full hospital view

For some reason, the City of Los Angeles requires nurses to have fire safetly class. It is the only county that has this requirement. So we had to go sit through this all day fire class with this guy that I very passionate about teaching this. He would be a good teacher for an elementary school fire safety class, a little over the top for us. But we did get to go to the roof of a parking garage and put out some fires. I would have to say, much more informative than the normal computer tests we take for fire safety. Those don't teach you as well how to use a fire extinguisher than actually using the fire extinguisher!

Enough about work! More about California. I have to admit, I haven't done too much exploring. A couple things keeping me from that. First, I am scared of the traffic. Not really scared, just trying to avoid it because I know it will put me in a bad mood. I will explore with other people, I just don't think I want to face the traffic alone, nor the gas prices! Also there is so much just right around me I don't have to go far. There are many little cafe's, restaurants, and shops. I mentioned the other night to some people that this is an area that you don't seem to see too many Mexican restaurants. If you think about it, almost anywhere you go there are tons of mexican restaurants. There are so many other types of restaurants here they don't need much mexican! The culture here is so diverse, it is cool. My patient population has ranged from African-American, to Caucasian, to Hispanic, to Asian, to Philippino, to people from Holland, Russia, England, and Germany. One patient was skyping her family oversees right after she had the baby. One day I was in the locker room at the gym changing and tiny girl from Russia I think was talking to this Asian lady about how long she has lived in LA, why she likes LA, etc. She said that she is fluent in 4 different languages! It was cool, she looked like she was 18. People around here don't seem to be as star struck as everyone else in the nation are. Whenever we have someone famous on the floor, nothing changes. You don't hear everyone talking about them or trying to see them. Things continue just the same.

The weekend of the Academy Awards I was driving back to the city from my brother's house. The exit I normally get off on was closed due to the awards, so I took the next exit then turned back and could see that I was about 2 blocks from the awards. I was in this backroad with parking spots available so I decided to park and walk up to see how close I could get. I got right up to the red carpet. I was on the corner of the sidewalk where they walk out on the red carpet and get in their cars to leave. It wasn't crazy crowded with people or hectic. It was kind of surreal. At first I couldn't get any good pics, there was this huge fence in front of us. But as I was leaving I noticed there were people standing on the newspaper racks, so I climbed up also! And I got some great pics!!

The gym I work out at is just a few blocks down from here

Getting down with it! One of those random street circles of people dancing in the middle you see in the movies

Dance circle was in from of Ripley's Believe It or Not

Transition to Cali!

So much to talk about and catch up on! I am now living in Los Angeles! I have been here now for almost three weeks! That's crazy. Time just goes so fast. I still don't feel like I have had any time to really settle in. Definitely haven't explored the area much, the traffic kinda keeps me from doing that!

So I guess I need to catch up! After the cruise, we went to Miami beach to walk around. This downtown area is really cool. One street we walked on had tons of restaurants and shops. It was a fun place to window shop. Lots of sushi restaurants. If we hadn't just gotten of a cruise I am sure we would have tried one, but I was definitely not wanting to eat anything! On the way there I got to see the Miami Dolphins stadium. They are my second favorite team, after the Broncos, so it was cool to see the stadium.

Dolphins Stadium

Later that day, my friend from Oklahoma, Tiffany, flew in to Florida to hang out for a few days. It was fun having her there! We really didn't do a whole lot, but we relaxed, walked on the beach one night, played games. We got to catch up and talk a lot.

One evening we were walking on the beach and saw these jellyfish washed up on the shore. They were everywhere! And they were a clear bluish color. It was interesting. We decided that was not the beach we would want to swim in! It was too chilly there anyway though to swim in the ocean.

Don't touch!

The day before we were flying out I must have gotten some food poisoning or something because I was not feeling very good. Lucky me I had to fly home sick, that is never a fun experience having stomach issues and having to fly. It turned out ok though. When I got to Denver I was welcomed by Clint! This was funny because he lives in Oklahoma, but flew to Denver that morning and picked me up at the airport that night. It was cool. He picked me up, we went and saw his family, then drove to BV. He came out to Colorado so I could teach him how to snowboard. First I took him out snowshoeing and then to practice on the board a little. He enjoyed snowshoeing but discovered early how it can be hard work! Then on the way to go snowboarding, I was just driving and bragging about how great my car is when I get stuck in the snow! Bad stuck. We couldn't dig it out, luckily a truck drove by and towed my out. This still wasn't working too well and we had to dig down deep to the gravel in order to finally get out. My first stuck in the snow experience. Guess I had to really welcome Clint to the Colorado snow! It was fun, after my car was unstuck!

After the day, we walked out onto Cottonwood Lake. Clint's first time to walk on a lake!

The next three days Clint and I spent at Monarch. First day was slow of course being his very first day on a board. But I could tell he was picking it up quickly. And he was tough. Didn't complain after all the many normal falls of learning to ride. He was sore of course, but he stuck it out and rode hard all three days. He didn't even have to take many extra breaks. I was proud of him. And I think I might have made a snowboarder out of him! At least that is what he says. He says he really enjoyed it and hopes to get to go more often. Unfortunately that is a little tough to do in Oklahoma, hence the reason I left there as soon as I could and don't plan on going back. Sorry to all my friends there, it just makes for a great place to visit.

After unfortunately having to take Clint back to Denver I had one day to go back to Pueblo to move out of my apartment. It was funny because I left Pueblo like January 12th to go to Florida and then didn't go back until the 3oth just to move out. Didn't even spend another night there! That was ok with me! I was ready to leave. It was nice being there to get to go snowboarding a lot and see friends in BV and Denver, but as my life is right now, it had been three months, time to move on! My amazing mother came with me to Pueblo to help me move out! It was so great to have her help. I love her!

Then I was going to have a few days to snowboard and repack for California, but that was right when the storms hit and the temperatures were in the negative 20s at Monarch. I managed to go up one day for a few hours, but riding alone in that cold of temps, isn't the most fun so I didn't go as much as wanted to. Oh well.

Packing to drive out to California was so much nicer than any other time so far because of my new car! It's great to have a bigger car and not feel totally jam packed inside it! Since I was headed to California, I took advantage of the opportunity to go up to Salt Lake City to visit Brea and Tom. A little out of the way, but totally worth it! Just spent the evening with them, but anytime I get to spend with them is always a good time. Then the next day I left early to meet up with Luke and Jackie on base. Luke works at Edwards AFB now about 2 hours outside of LA. Luke and Jackie came with me to LA to help me move all my stuff in. Man, it's so nice to have help! I didn't even realize at first that I would have them close by to help me, but having them there to help made a huge difference. Usually I arrive somewhere like the day before I have to start and I am rushing around getting everything done that needs to be done that it is at least a week before I feel like I am somewhat organized. With Luke and Jackie helping this time, everything was moved in and organized in less than two hours! Thanks Luke and Jackie! Left us with lots of time to explore the area and have a little fun.

My new apartment kitchen

View from my porch. Yep, that is the Hollywood sign in the background

That afternoon after getting everything moved in we went to play frisbee golf. We found a park that has 27 holes. That's a lot! We only played 18, that's enough for me. Luke was ready to keep playing all night if he could! But Jackie and I were ready to be done. We played Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon the park we played at was along a side of the hill. Made it more challenging and more of a workout with the risk of your frisbee rolling all the way down the hill.

I tend to enjoy climbing trees when I play frisbee golf. This tree looked fun...it was!

I was driving around the park and noticed this sign. Just cool to see a sign that says Buena Vista on it. Guess this is a Buena Vista rec area, there were a lot of Buena Vista signs

View of the Los Angeles hills

Downtown LA

Saturday night we went to the Santa Monica Pier. This is a famous beach; if anyone has ever seen Private Practice, the lit up ferris wheel you see all the time on that show is the Santa Monica Pier. So we walked around and took a ride on the ferris wheel. Cool place to walk around. Not sure if it is somewhere I would chill on the beach for the day though. It is a very large, busy beach. The houses along it are cool, just very close together and skinny!

The Pier. Can't really see the ferris wheel, but its there!

Sunset on the beach!

Luke and Jackie left Sunday afternoon to catch the end of the Super Bowl. I settled in and explored the area a little bit more, then got ready to start my busy week of orientation at my new hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. If anyone has never heard of this hospital, it is right in Hollywood. It is where many of the stars go. It is actually a Jewish hospital. They even have a whole Kosher section in the cafeteria! But orientation was the longest orientation days I have had yet. Very boring and a lot of it was a waste of time. I figured out right away that this hospital has a lot of travel nurses. There were 6 new travel nurses just in labor and delivery starting with me, and more to start soon. I guess their labor and delivery unit has had a lot of changes lately and lots of nurses leaving. They were in desperate need of some help. But the whole hospital has somewhere between 250-300 travelers, and most these travelers are all with the same company! It's crazy. That's a lot of travel nurses. So I met some people right away! One girl that I have gone to the beach with once and hung out with a few times lives in the same apartment as me. Another nurse on my floor I figured out lives right next door to me!

It took some getting used to how things work here in the city. Actually, correction, I don't think I will ever get used to it, just took some time to get oriented to how things work. For example, we have to pay $50 a month for parking here, all employees have to pay that, and staff don't get this reimbursed! I get it reimbursed through my company but I think it is ridiculous that if your staff there you have to pay that much just to park to go to work. Not only that, but every day when I get to the parking garage I have to get a parking ticket, then before I leave I have to go to the cashier and get my ticket verified. EVERY DAY!!! It's crazy. I don't want to have to wait in line every day after getting of a 12-13 hour work day. I just want to go home! Such a waste of time. You have to pay to park everywhere you go here. You get a parking ticket everywhere you park. Now I can relate whenever I see on TV or a movie about people getting their parking tickets validated. If you park somewhere for a store or something like that, many places validate the ticket so you don't have to pay to park if you are a customer. You figure out that process quickly living here. Sometimes it is interesting just figuring out where to park when you go somewhere. Kind of frustrating. I got my first LA parking ticket within the first week. I was going to the gym, couldn't find a parking garage, so I parked on a side street. Didn't see a sign anywhere saying I couldn't park there or needed a permit. But apparently it was permit parking only so I got a ticket! Lame.

So far everyone on the floor have been nice and friendly. Its so busy that sometimes it is hard to find anyone to help you out, but my patient assignments havent been too bad. One weird thing here is we do self assignments, so in the morning we walk in and decide what patient we want. That is a little strange, but hasn't been too bad yet. Just sucks when you pick a patient and the baby ends up being a bad baby requiring lots of interventions during labor. In normal language this means that the baby's heart rate during labor is not reassuring so we have to continue to make sure the baby is doing ok by doing different things with the mother. I have had decent patients though. They have in general been nice and appreciative, that is always a nice thing to have! Can make a big different on your work week. And they try harder here to make sure you get your break, that is really nice! So besides feeling completely lost in just how they do all their paperwork and technical stuff here, things have been going fairly well!

Last weekend I went to Luke's house and we went snowboarding at Big Bear on Friday. It was awesome!!!! The snow was decent, but the best part was that this resort is made for snowboarders. It is a very small resort, but they have tons of rails, boxes, and jumps. It's crazy. So fun to ride down the mountain and have so many options of things to do! Plus it was just tons of fun to get to go with Luke and other people he works with. I go so often by myself, it was fun to go with other boarders, especially with Luke. I love snowboarding with him! By two o clock a storm rolled in and the snow started coming down hard. So by the time we left, we were soaked! It was a great day though.

Luke was supposed to be taking a picture of us, apparently he likes himself because he only got a shot of himself! Silly, would have been a great pic!

Luke and I are training for a triathlon (I talked him into doing it with me!) so Saturday we did a little training, but that was after he introduced me to some kiteboarding. As a beginner, you have to get used to kite on land first before you take a board and kite out on water. So we took his kite out to the field behind his house. We spent a few hours getting me used to the kite. It was fun. I enjoyed it, now I am ready to try it with a board, but very nervous. Not looking forward to the many face plants I am sure I am going to have in the water!

Saturday night we headed back to LA so we could go to Magic Mountain on Sunday. It was a chilly weekend but it was great to go to an amusement park and not be dying of heat while waiting in line. It was busy, but the lines were never to terrible that we had to wait extremely long for any ride. We ended up doing lots of rides. Magic Mountain has tons of roller coasters. That is all we did except for the spinning ride that you just lay on the wall and it spins in a big circle really fast. I was nervous to do this at first thinking it would make me really dizzy, but I was ok. Most the coasters we did were big and fast! It was fun! Not sure if I have ever been there before. I don't think so because nothing looked familiar.

This week at work, we had two famous people on the floor. I can't say who, it is against the law. But I can say they were not having the baby, they were visiting the couple having the baby. It wasn't crazy on the floor having them there. Everything was normal except for the two bodyguards they had standing outside of their door. I expected it to be a little different when there was someone famous on the floor, but I guess it was good to know things don't go crazy when this happens! I still kind of hope I don't take care of a famous person though, it is a little nerve wrecking!

I invite anyone to come visit me in Hollywood! We can go experience the LA life!!!

Cruisin Part 2

Day 5 we ported in St. John’s, Antigua. This is a pretty port overlooking the island. Here we drove down to the south side of the island and saw where Christopher Columbus landed and discovered this island. There are not as many fancy houses here as there was in BVI, but the economy is definitely better here than in the DR. We have come to find that most schoolchildren wear uniforms in most of these Caribbean islands. They are free, provided by the government. I don’t know about other islands but I know that in Antigua, the population pays 7% of their income for health care coverage. And the individual only pays 3.5% of that; the employer pays the other 3.5%. Then if they have to go to the doctor or hospital, they get their treatment and don’t have to pay anything. I think that’s kind of a good system! I mean if you think about how much we pay in premiums, and then add deductibles, we pay a lot. But I don’t think this would work as well for us because of all the people that abuse healthcare (like going to the ER for a cut). But maybe if everyone had to pay for health care coverage it would be different, instead of having the opportunity to get free treatment without paying anything else! I guess we will see how the new Obama plan works out for us.

Along our drive we drove through a rainforest, which was different just in the amount of trees around us. Didn’t start raining on us or anything like that. Kind of reminds me of going through the “rainforest” in Costa Rica, it’s not like the Amazon Rainforest or anything, which is more what I think of when I think of what a rainforest is. But we drove by some people ziplining through the trees, looked fun, but probably not something I would want to pay for. We drove by some gorgeous bays and beaches; and we saw some beautiful (and pricy looking) yachts. We stopped at one beach for about an hour. Had two hard rainstorms go by during that hour. Each time I had to bolt it for cover so my camera wouldn’t get wet! It was kind of funny. After driving around we walked around town for a while. I found a store to buy some tennis shoes, so now I can run again! I don’t think I enjoyed Antigua as much as I could have because I was dizzy feeling the whole day. Not sure why. We docked at about 8am today so I decided to try running around the ship since I didn’t have to deal with a moving ship. I got dizzy at the end of my run, but then got over it eventually. But then, not that long after we got off the ship and started walking around I got dizzy again. And it was bad all day; so weird and very annoying. By the end of the day I was even holding my brother’s hand to keep my balance! I have decided to try the scopolamine patch. We will see if I can tell any difference!

Day 6 we visited Barbados! I had wanted to rent a scooter or motorcycle on one of these islands, and we finally did in Barbados! Nick and mom went off and did their thing and my dad and I rented a motorcycle. Barbados is 8 miles wide and 21 miles long. We were able to drive around most of the whole northern half of the island. The northeast coast was gorgeous! Drove along with views of the beach and the cliffs. It is a fun little island to ride around on. The people here are very nice and helpful. One guy let us follow him in his car so he could show us to this hike we were looking for. Another guy who made sure we had a helmet saw us later on and stopped to make sure we were doing ok and knew where we were going. Not the best day weather wise for riding around on a motorcycle! It poured down rain on us twice throughout the day. It wasn’t that I really cared about whether or not I got wet, it was more having to keep my camera from getting wet. Luckily we had these awesome looking rain ponchos that we put on and protected my camera. We looked awesome let me tell you with our nice yellow ponchos and helmets! Fun times. Barbados is pretty, lots of roads and small towns. There are a lot of people on this small island. It is mainly flat, not too many big hills or mountains. And they don’t allow any camping on the island; so much hiking with camping is out of the question. We saw a lot of police, didn’t seem like they were as strict with rules and the law on the past islands. A few tips for Barbados, don’t wear any camouflage colors, and no smoking in public areas.

Dad looking cool on his tiny Harley!

Cute monkeys at the Wildlife Refuge! They were friendly!

Dad modeling the poncho!

Day 7 was our last port day and we went to Basseterre, St. Kitts. This was my favorite island. It is a volcanic island so there aren’t as many white, sandy beaches. There are some black beaches as well, but the scenery is amazing. There is one volcano and the black beaches are more on the northern and western sides, the volcanic sides. The south and southwest part of the island is gorgeous, definitely the place to be for hanging out at the beach. We did a tour of the whole island then spend a little while at the beach. It was not soak me through with sweat hot either, good temperatures. One place we stopped called the Caribelle Batik had gorgeous handmade Batik. This is a type of drawings on cloth using wax for white areas, and then dipping in dye to make the colors. My mom and I got some pretty headbands there. The dresses were gorgeous but a little too pricy. Looked like a place people would get married at.

There are many small towns we drove through. Like other islands, drivers use their horns a lot; here it seemed even more so. Everyone honks his or her horns to say get out of the way, watch out, or hello. So it can be positive or negative. The beach we stopped at was gorgeous, excellent views of the beach against the cliffs and mountains. This island reminds me the most of Hawaii. There are two sides of the island, the Caribbean side and the Atlantic side. Apparently the Caribbean side is the better side, it wasn’t recommended to swim on the Atlantic side (I guess rougher seas or something).

Our flirtatious tour guide

The changing room! No peeking!

We got back on the boat just in time to watch the sunset from our room. Gorgeous! Best sunset yet, actually the only one I have really been able to see. Either it has been too cloudy for a good sunset or I have not been outside at the right time. For dinner, my mom and I sat outside to eat dinner listening to some Caribbean music. Afterward, there was the chocolate buffet. Oh boy, too much chocolate for us chocoholics. It was amazing! We got some chocolate dipped apples, many different types of cakes, mousse, and fondue. My favorite was the chocolate banana bread and mousse. Now we have two days at sea, and then back in Miami. Now time to relax…maybe!!!!

Can you see the rainbow?