Having taken a fairly long vacation, I'm recording this for posterity: 

Cons:

• You have to make plans before leaving work.  Going away for a few days, things can wait till you get back.  But two weeks?  You need alternate contacts and contingency plans.
• You have to kind of clean out your refrigerator and make sure nothing could go horribly bad and make the house smell like rotten cabbage.
• If you're in charge of something like a Bible study or social group, you have to make sure it'll continue for two weeks without you.  For one week away, you can just cancel or do a social, but two weeks needs an actual plan.
• If you have pets, you have to have some serious stores of pet food and supplies.
• You have to make sure bills that might be due during that time are paid before you leave.

Pros:

• You don't commute to work, so you save money on gas.
• You don't heat your house or use the appliances, so you save money on energy.
• You don't buy normal groceries, so you probably save money on food.

That being said, I probably won't do a long vacation again.  Not that it was awful, but 10 days seems to be a happy medium. #travel

The Ouroboros is "an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle."  It represents the idea of a futile process where all that is achieved is ultimately destroyed. 

The new website Autocomplete Me points to a Google search suggestion that asks, "If I ate myself, would I become twice as big or disappear completely?"  Hilarious. #technology

Poindexter is an American surname meaning "right fist," which is probably the coolest thing ever in the history of anything. #language

This will likely offend someone.  As much as I would hate having a bunch of loud, rude, socioeconomically different foreigners coming to my town in a giant group, clogging my streets, taking pictures of stupid landmarks, waving money in my face, and leaving their garbage and tracks all over the place, I don't think it warrants the pushy annoyingness exhibited by Caribbean natives.  When I say I don't want to buy your jewelry, and I don't want a taxi ride, and I don't want a tour, I mean it.  One guy in Barbados, after I said "no thanks" to his offer of a bike taxi tour, got in my face and angrily assured me his spiel would merely take a minute of my time.  Maybe I'm used to cold, harsh cities like New York, where you have to go out of your way to get somebody to notice you.  Or maybe I'm right in thinking that "no thanks" is the internationally agreed-upon code for "no thanks."  I realize that many of these islands' economies thrive on tourism, and that the locals wouldn't offer these products and services if they didn't work at least some of the time.  Either way, the best way to completely convince a person like me to thoroughly reject whatever offers you throw my way is to get all up in my face and be annoying.  You could offer me a million bucks and my own private island, I'll still say no. #travel

Cruise companies exist to take your money.  It's something that's easy to forget.  They try to make it seem like they want you to have a good time, what with all their food and music and fun things, but really they just want your money.  It's not like they do this stuff for the good of mankind.  Here's how they do it: 

1. You pay for the cruise months before you leave, so by the time you step foot on the ship, you can't really remember how much it cost.  This is good and bad.  Good because you don't have to worry about how you'll afford things, because you already paid for it.  But bad because you easily forget that you already paid many hundreds or thousands of dollars, so you don't think twice about all the little add-ons mentioned below.
2. You pay for excursions, which aren't a bad investment because the cruise people plan everything and take care of the details.  But it's an additional, often substantial, cost.
3. They charge for things like soda, alcohol, and fancy restaurants on the ship.  These charges can be avoided, but what's a vacation without at least a little alcohol?  And they have these silly little drink specials where you can get 6 beers for the price of 5 (at $5 a beer) and a margarita discounted from $12 to $8.  In other words, they have crappy drink specials, but you're not allowed to bring your own alcohol on board, so what can you do.
4. Auto-gratuity is a cute little word that shows up on the bill for drinks that simply means "forced tip."  You don't have a choice.  They take it automatically, for your "convenience."  How thoughtful.
5. When you check out on the last day, you find out that you're required to pay a daily tip.  They "conveniently" tack that onto your account, and at $12 per day per person for a 14-day cruise, that suddenly becomes a significant additional charge.  My thing is, I'd rather be charged up front than in the rear, and the double meaning of that phrase is not lost on this example.  I just think it's very shady to convince people that their entire vacation is already paid for (minus drinks and fancy restaurants) and then, BAM, you owe us a ridiculous tip too.

Ah, capitalism. #money

First there was a recap, now this is the review and commentary. 

Overall, the cruise was pretty awesome.  The weather was nice and sunny the whole time and the water was warm.  It rained one day, but it was one of the days we were at sea, so we just watched movies and read inside.  Cruising is a good way to see groups of islands or port cities that are relatively close together but otherwise too expensive to travel between.  And cruise ships are giant floating vessels of comfort.  I would say a cruise ship is like a floating hotel, but it's more like a floating city, with restaurants, pools, spa, gym, library, movie theater, and entertainment.  And the duty-free shop on board had free liquor tastings, which was fun. 

In terms of the destinations, Curacao was by far our favorite because of it's beautiful scenery, non-pushy people, and European feel.  Barbados was by far our least favorite because of its overly pushy taxi drivers.  More on this another time.  In general though, many of the port cities were similar, with a bunch of people trying to sell you stuff or offer you a tour, while you walk past and look at a few nice buildings before getting to the tiny, run-down shacks everyone lives in.  It's kind of crazy how poor people can be and still survive, while all us rich white folk walk around their cities and take pictures of their old churches.  It's sad in a way, but it is what it is.  Also in terms of port cities, I feel like it's unfair to judge an entire island nation and its people based solely on the experience of a port city.  It's like judging New Jersey based on Newark.  However, based on a bus tour of St. Lucia, the port city was just like every other city and town on the island, so it actually was a good representation of the whole. 

The snorkeling was excellent all around, but I think the best place was in Dominica, where we were in crystal-clear, volcanically-bubbling water filled with huge coral formations and tons of sea life.  At one point, the coral stopped and there was a 70-foot drop off into nothingness.  It was awesome.  Some people on the ship asked us something about how often we went snorkeling, as if saying, "Haven't you had enough?"  No, not really.  I could probably snorkel every day, seeing the same kinds of fish doing the same kinds of things.  It's good every time. 

The underwater pictures were taken with a Canon SD870 in a WP-DC17 underwater housing.  In other words, it was a standard point-and-shoot camera in a waterproof case, and it worked surprisingly well.  The camera has a setting for underwater pictures, and whatever color corrections it did seemed to work great.  It was sometimes hard to get close enough to the fish, and it was hard to not move around with the motion of the water, but it's like using a machine gun:  If you shoot enough bullets, you're bound to hit the target eventually. 

I have a feeling the shore excursions we did (i.e. the somewhat expensive land-based activities planned and organized by the ship) had an influence on whether or not we liked a destination.  For example, we didn't do anything in Antigua or Barbados, and our opinions of those islands are pretty negative.  But we did stuff in St. Thomas and Dominica, and we liked both those places.  In other words, it's all very subjective. 

In the irony of ironies, we actually met up with a couple on the ship whose wedding we attended a couple years ago.  It was fun to hang out with some people we knew, but then it was also good to say, "See you again in a few days."  While I like people, I also like to do what I want, which turns out matches up quite nicely with what Wendy wants.  And to add to the subjectivity of liking or disliking destinations, the couple both agreed they like Barbados the best and Curacao the least, which was exactly the opposite of what we said. 

And while it was nice to get away for a while, it felt really good to be back home with our indoor wildlife and our comfortable bed. #travel

For the past 14 days, I've been floating on a giant ship in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean, soaking up 85° sun and stuffing my face with food.  Hey, somebody has to do it.  As such, the next several posts will be loosely related to this experience. 

First off, some quick facts: 

• Countries visited:  7
• Last time I wore socks, before yesterday:  October 31
• Pounds gained:  -4 (somehow, magically, I lost weight -- thanks for the genes, mom!)
• Books read:  3.5
• Movies watched:  11
• Days of sunburn:  1 (not bad for a pale person, eh?)
• Number of times I said, "No thanks, I don't want a taxi ride":  35,489

The Norwegian Dawn sailed out of New York City on November 1, visited a bunch of islands in the Caribbean, then sailed back into Miami on November 15.  It's called a repositioning cruise when it ends up in a different port than the one it started in.  That means we had to fly back home, but flights from Miami to Newark are plentiful and cheap.  A couple we met were taking a train home, while another, older couple were simply spending the winter in Florida.  Must be nice to be retired.  Before my recap gets out of hand, here's a run-down of where we stopped and what we did: 

Day 1-3 - At sea - Food, books, movies, pool. 
Day 4 - Samana, Dominican Republic - Took a boat ride to a tiny private island called Cayo Levantado, then laid on the beach and snorkeled. 
Day 5 - Havensight, St. Thomas - Took a cab to Red Hook, then took the ferry to Cruz Bay, St. John, where we hiked to the top of a mountain, then hiked down and swam at a gorgeous little beach. 
Day 6 - St John's, Antigua - Walked around the poor, dirty town, then went back to the ship and laid around the pool. 
Day 7 - Roseau, Dominica - Walked around the slightly less dirty, poor town, then snorkeled at Champagne. 
Day 8 - Bridgetown, Barbados - Walked around the closed-down town (it was Sunday) while being hassled by taxi drivers, finally getting a ride to Brighton Beach where we laid around and swam. 
Day 9 - Castries, St. Lucia - Took a bus tour of the west side of the island, stopping at a few small fishing villages and mountain overlooks before reaching a mildly active volcano, at which point we took a boat tour back to the cruise ship, stopping off at a little beach to snorkel and swim. 
Day 10 - At sea - Food, books, movies, pool. 
Day 11 - Willemstad, Curacao - Walked around the clean, European-esque town, then walked to a nearby hotel's beach and snorkeled. 
Day 12 - Oranjestad, Aruba - Walked around town, then took a bus to Boca Catalina Beach and snorkeled. 
Day 13-14 - At sea - Food, books, movies, pool. 
Day 15 - Miami, FL - Took a bus to the Everglades for an airboat tour and alligator park. 

Pictures: more »