Honeymoon recap

Ahhh, the Bahamas.

I think we would have really, really enjoyed it had we not already been "away from home" for a week (Tim) or two (me). Or if we hadn’t just made the 16-hour drive from Ohio to Florida over two days. Or if we hadn’t arrived home at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, unloaded the car, did laundry, packed our suitcases, took naps and headed out for a 3.5-hour drive to Fort Lauderdale. Or if we hadn’t needed to be at Port Everglades to check-in for our cruise at 6 a.m. Or if the cruise hadn’t been windy and cold. Or if the few days we were there weren’t ridiculously windy, cold and often cloudy. Or if the water service hadn't been interrupted twice during our last 18 hours there. Or if I hadn't been battling a cold the whole time. Maybe, just maybe, we could have ended on a good note if our next-door neighbor’s smoker’s cough didn’t interrupt any hint at silence in the resort.

But alas, instead of heading home when we were supposed to (Friday afternoon), we packed up, checked out and waited by the pool for an hour … before finding out that for the second day in a row the cruise ship was not making it’s scheduled trip from the Bahamas back to the States. The day before, guests were flown back to Florida. On Friday, we were told the cruise line was paying for us to spend another night at the resort. Fantastic. We know, we know: There are worse places to be stranded than the Bahamas. But we wanted to be home. We were tired of living out of suitcases. Tired of paying $5 for 15 minutes of internet access. Tired of not being able to get “normal” ESPN. I had hoped to use Saturday to relax, do laundry, grocery shop, watch college football and try to organize all of the stuff we dropped off in the condo a week before. I returned to work Sunday and would have loved a day before getting back in the swing of things.

But we stayed Friday. We enjoyed lavish buffets, drinks on the beach and another night of 9+ hours of sleep. Being pampered and not *having* to be anywhere was great. Mixed drinks at my disposal? Thankyouverymuch. Not having to do dishes? Why, of course. (But it must be noted that we were put back in to the same room - with a bathroom that we shared with tiny ants - we'd been in all week. And our smoker's cough neighbor? She was on our cruise, too. And checked back in to the exact same room. Sigh.)

While we were on the beach on Friday afternoon, the water went out. The bar couldn't serve mixed drinks because there was no water. You couldn't rinse sand off before getting in the pool because there was no water. We worried about how dinner would be prepared with no water. Somehow, water service was restored in time for dinner. (By Friday, the resort was noticeably more crowded, so I can only imagine fixing the problem was at the top of their priorities.) We found out the next day that some work was being done to a building damaged in a recent hurricane, and the workers had hit a water main. Oopsie. On Saturday morning, we woke up to no water. We went to breakfast - where they handed out bottled water. I took some back to the room to make coffee and checked the sink every 10 minutes to see if the water had come back on. As we were lugging our suitcases out the door, the water came back on. This might all seem like lame background information, but I'd like to add it because it meant we got no showers that morning and were gross. Disgusting. A mess. Icky.

On Friday night, we enjoyed dinner with two of the performers in the nightly theater acts at the resort. They’re from Canada, and we had seen the woman in a Latin dance show the night before. We weren’t sure what the man’s role in the shows were. That night, we found out. He's below on the right, pointing at us. The resort's theater performers put on a modified version of Pirates of the Caribbean, and the woman performed some of the most impressive aerial dance moves we’ve ever seen. She dangled from ropes, performed with elaborate ribbons, flipped, climbed and juggled, too. The finale of the show featured our dinner companions in a trapeze act that was absolutely amazing. He used impressive strength to support her as they swung, clung and flipped on the trapeze. We think he was about 45 years old, and he had amazing strength. It was obvious that they've performed together for a long time.

That last day (Saturday), at lunch, we were fortunate enough to see them again. They joined us for our "last meal" and we were able to talk to them more about their history – as performers, as a couple, as world travelers. The male (we think his name was Ennis) liked to talk a lot about politics and religion. JC, the woman, had a constant stream of kids coming up to her and saying hello. It was probably the best end to the trip's extension that we could have imagined.

After lunch, we caught a taxi to the port. We arrived before they'd even let us on the boat. While we waited, we texted folks in Ohio to find out the score of the OSU/Michigan game. Then we got on the boat. It was cold. And windy. But we didn't care - we were going home! But then the boat didn't leave as scheduled. We were supposed to leave the port around 4 p.m. We left after 5:30 p.m. We ate dinner on the boat, played some Bingo and waited - FOREVER - to get back to Florida. When we finally docked, we were dismissed by the color of our luggage tags. After almost an hour, we were left on the boat with a handful of other people. We soon realized that the group left on the boat were actually the people who were supposed to cruise back on Friday. Does it make sense to have us get off the boat AFTER the regularly scheduled Saturday travelers? No. And was I in a good mood after standing in a parked cruise ship for an hour, wondering why I couldn't get off the freaking boat? No. It's a wonder Tim didn't throw my whining body off the boat, but we FINALLY got to get our luggage and had something go right for the first time in 48 hours - we were U.S. citizens! (Woohoo!) So rather than wait another 1-2 hours in line for customs, we got in the shorter, faster line and were finally free. But then we still had to travel 3.5 hours back to Bradenton.

We finally got back around 3:30 a.m. I think we got up around 11 a.m., grocery shopped and then I headed to work. Needless to say, I was useless for the whole week. It took me almost 10 days to fully "catch up." My cold hung on for another week or two after we got back.

But now we're settled back in. We're back in a groove - a married one :-) Tomorrow is the only day off together we have all month (yes, the whole month of December), so we've got a lot to do. On Saturday I got the marriage abstract from the Franklin County courthouse, so today I applied for a new Social Security card and got a new license with my new name and address. For the last three weeks, I've essentially remained my maiden self, but now I'm able to start making the switches to assume my new identity :-)