I’m back from the cruise, and I had a blast! I didn’t end up doing the tequila tasting in Cozumel – instead, we went to a beach resort called Carlos & Charlie’s, where the waiters were super fun and boisterous. After a few frozen drinks (the Dirty Monkey was fantastic!), they even convinced me to get up and dance the Cha Cha Slide with them 🙂
That night, I took it easy since I had run a half marathon that morning – ended up going to bed around 10pm with nary a drink in sight. I liked having the freedom to do whatever I wanted by traveling alone! Plus, it meant that Sunday, I woke up around 6am and got to enjoy a really peaceful breakfast on the deck while watching the sun rise over the Caribbean – gorgeous. I spent the day mostly relaxing on deck while catching up on some reading and magazines, and then enjoyed one last Eurekatini at the martini bar before going to bed. Lovely!
Unfortunately, my trip home was not so lovely. I discovered a few hours after leaving the ship that I was one of the lucky few who was susceptible to “mal de debarquement”: basically a weird illness where you feel the rocking of the ship even though you’re not on it anymore. It wasn’t bad at first, though, so I didn’t worry too much about it. However, the big mishap came while on the flight up to DC, when I was trying to get work done: my laptop screen broke suddenly. It was the oddest thing – I wasn’t pressing on it or even touching it, but all of a sudden, a white glow spread up from the bottom right corner of the screen, expanding up until there was a long schism running diagonally across my monitor. At first I thought it was a virus because of how it came on, but I then realized that if I touched the screen, it got worse – definitely a hardware problem. Really put a crimp in my day – I had a ton of work to catch up on, and no way to replace the laptop till I got home!
Fortunately, I was able to make it to the office by 5:56pm – just in time to catch the IT guys before they left at 6. They quickly popped out the harddrive of my computer, slid it into a brand new shell, and just like that, I was good to go. Nice and easy! I headed back to my apartment intending to now make up for the work I had missed, but unfortunately my “landsickness” flared up even more once I sat down at my computer and started working – to the point where I thought I might pass out. Not good! Early to bed it was.
I hoped that I would wake up this morning all fine and dandy, but no such luck – I’m better, but still a little out of it. I decided to work from home today so I could stay in bed and recuperate, but I’m sad I didn’t get to go in and show off my new tan 🙂
All this is to say that while the getting home sucked, the trip was awesome. I’m already thinking about doing another in a few weeks – this time on Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas, which goes from Miami to Cococay (the cruiseline’s private island) and to Nassau before returning. Could be fun! Anyone up for an onboard marathon/half-marathon with me? 🙂 December 10-13th, drop me a line in the comments if you want in!