Day 13

St. John’s, Antigua. Today was pretty easy. Most of us met for breakfast and decided to head into town on our own. We were at an actual pier today so it was easier to get on and off the ship. St. John’s had a lot of shops and a cool little public market near Heroes Park (pics to come to flickr). Deanna and I walked around on our own. We ended up getting massages and I got some shopping done for our upcoming Secretest of Santas.

There are a few things you can always count on when we port.
A) there will be at least 10 guys right outside the pier gate with laminated maps asking if you need a taxi. The map is theirs, but they can show you places on it to get you on a cab.
B) there will be someone selling necklaces and jewelry…usually the same jewelry you’ll see on every port and definitely multiple times in that city.
C) there will be women offering hair braiding. Someone will always get their hair braided in a port before coming back on the ship.

Let’s talk about hair braiding, shall we? It’s pretty much corn rows. Lots of little braids with beads on the end…ala Bo Derek in “10”. The braiders will try to get you in to braid your hair. If you say you don’t have time they will say they can do a partial…this is braids from the front of your head to the crown/back of the top of your head and the rest left alone. So, someone will get this done…it is nature’s law. Someone else will see that person and decide for some reason that it is a good idea and they will get their hair done as well. Today, while we were sitting at a coffee place we saw a lady from our ship. She is overweight, in her 60s, and was in a Rascal…with braids. On the one hand I feel like she might not have made the best choice. On the other hand, when will she get a chance to have her hair braided in the Caribbean again, right? She is living it up. No shirt, no shoes, no problem. I want to get a single braid at some point.

Tonight we did a few things. We watched Wii bowling from 7-7:30. I caught Edge the juggler (object manipulator) teaching a workshop to a bunch of people. If you ever are somewhere like a ship or Vegas and you see that Edge is doing some sort of juggling show…see it. He is great. We then saw the JARs show Country Gold. It was pretty entertaining considering I might have known one song they sang. They looked like they were having a blast up there.

After that we went for a walk and I saw a cool moon reflection. There were scattered clouds. One was blocking the moon so that we couldn’t see it, but we could see a silvery reflection on the water way out at sea. As if the moon was trying to tell us where the treasure was.

We have a lot of ground to cover to get to Barbados tomorrow. Jen said the ship would probably be moving pretty quickly and would probably be rocking more than usual. Right now it is, and I’m a little queezy. Luckily it is bedtime and I’ll hopefully sleep through it.