Sam and I wanted to use some plane tickets we had to take a trip to somewhere warm...so we picked Aruba. It was quite the adventure getting there from Colorado. We flew out of Denver at 8:45 which was supposed to be 7:45pm and got into Philly at 1:35am. We then got to hang in the Philly airport for 6 hours until our plane left for Aruba at 7:30am. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep, but at least it was pretty quiet in the airport until the started cleaning the floors. But finally we were on our way and made it into Aruba. We go through customs and wait for our bags...and wait...and wait...and wait...yep...NO bags! Argh, so we have to fill out a form and they tell us that hopefully they have made on the next plane that will get in around 4 and will make it to our hotel by 6ish. We are pretty sure that in the INSANE amount of time we were in Philly our bags could have walked themselves over and made it on our plane, but US Airways didn't seem to think it strange...oh well we are just hoping it is not a sign of what the trip will be. So instead we head off to the hotel with no sunblock, no bathing suits but at least we had books and snacks! Since we are there before check in time we have to wait by the pool...poor us. So we get a few fruity beverages and lounge and read our books until...
our new little friend hops up on the rocks right next to us! A few days later this older guy came to the hotel and literally follwed these guys around taking pictures and tracking them. We were then more entertained by the guy than the geckos!
This is a picture of our place and the pools we spent a lot of time reading by. Since we had no suits we decided our first night we would just go for a walk down the beach and see what we could find. Well we found...
A RED SOX bar!!! Yes folks...a Red Sox bar in Aruba which was amazing because it was the Yankees/Red Sox series. So we plopped ourselves down with the owner (who went to UNH and graduated the year after me) and cheered on our Sox. We finally had to call it a night when they went on their second rain delay as we were anxious to see if our bags made it. They did! So early the next morning we played some tennis and then packed up and went...
down to our beach for some lounging and...
swimming.
The afternoon was spent back at the pool reading.
We found a great happy hour place that had a bucket of shrimp...my favorite. So we sat, ate some shrimp and watched the sun set.
A little friend joined us as soon as we got the shrimp...he's no fool! Even if we didn't feed him he stuck around making us look guilty so we figured we might as well give him a few.
This sign was a little out from where we were sitting and Sam started asking me distances to places. I kept getting them pretty close to the right numbers and he was amazed, until he realized I had memorized most of the sign...it was fun while it lasted.
On our walk we found some bushes full of these crabs, we almost stepped on some on the sidewalk because we didn't see them!
Of course when you are by the ocean you can never have too many sunset pictures!!
This sunset was right as we sat down to a fish restaurant on the pier.
The sunset was good...the food not so much!
We were entertained by feeding the fish our rolls and watching them all go for it, so that was good as well.
Our last day we went sailing/snorkeling.
For those of you that know me well you know two things. 1. I HATE salt water and rarely go in the ocean because I do not like it in my mouth 2. I HATE having things over my face especially when I feel like I cannot breathe. But apart from all that...I jumped off the boat with a snorkel and mask for my first attempt. I FREAKED! With the salt water coming in waves over and over and the face mask over my nose I was toast. I had Sam swim back and get me a life vest. Once I had that I didn't have to worry too much about swimming so I could relax a little more and finally figure it out. It was AMAZING!! There were so many fish below!
There was a HUGE WW1 ship sunk just off the coast (you can still see the mast above the water here) and we were able to swim right over it. We then swam closer to shore where I saw a huge starfish that one of the guys we were with picked up for me to hold and then saw an...
eel...yuck! (this picture is from the internet I did not have a camera but found this that looks exactly like the one I saw)
finally a few of our favs...shadow shots
the centerpieces were very cool!
