Hello from San Juan! I’m writing from a Notepad window actually, because the wifi connection here is SO flaky. Once I’m done writing I’ll try to connect again and again until I upload it.

Our flight down here was just fine. I had a chatty person next to me on the way to Fort Lauderdale. She was sitting on the aisle, and chatting with a guy across the aisle who had the whole row to himself - I have no idea why he didn’t just move over and take the window seat and let her have the aisle on that side. I managed to sleep for a great portion of the flight, fortunately, but toward the end I woke up and she chattered at me a lot.

The Fort Lauderdale airport is absolutely dismal. We were in Terminal H and the only thing I was able to find to eat that was timely, inexpensive, and not really bad for me was a granola bar. The flight to San Juan was fine, I slept about half the trip; this time I had the window so when I woke up I was comfortable and not next to some chatterbox. We landed uneventfully but had a hard time getting our luggage because the carousels weren’t properly marked. Once our flight’s luggage finally started to appear, ours came up fast and we got a cab to the Coqui Inn. The cab driver was a complete ass, though. We had spotted the hotel from a ways away, and we were surprised when he blew right past it, so we said something. He said “oh, well, you obviously know better than me” and then dropped us off in front of something else that was also labeled with our hotel name, but was actually a BACK entrance. We had to drag our suitcases back down the block to the door we had gone past in the first place…the cabbie was an asshole and didn’t deserve a tip.

Our hotel is really cute and charming, there are murals everywhere that I will have to take pictures of! Our first room had a slow leak in the toilet, though (I discovered this before using it, fortunately), so we had to switch. We ended up in a slightly nicer room, and unpacked all our stuff. I did some school work (despite the crappy wifi) and we ordered pizza and watched X-Files. Then we decided it was too late to catch the A-5 bus to Old San Juan - it was 6pm when we were thinking of leaving, and the bus only runs till 9pm; after that you have to take a $20 cab back. So we decided we’d just walk to a nearby grocery store instead. It rained part of the trip but we found safety in a bus shelter and chatted about things. We continued on, and bought a bunch of stuff. I had to get a new bottle of continous spray sunscreen - we’d accidentally left it in the carry-on, and it was more than 3oz, so they threw it out in DC. We also got some diet champagne cola soda, which is impossible to find back home - you can get the regular kind, but never diet! We also got a $7 bottle of vodka and some juice to mix it with, plus some snacks, and then we came back to the hotel.

We were hot from walking, and A beat me into the shower to cool off. Unfortunately, while in there, she discovered…there was no hot water in the shower. So she went to the front desk and they offered us a couple of other rooms, one of which had better wifi than this one, but the rooms overall weren’t better. So we’re still in the room with no hot water in the shower, but it’s a nice room and very Caribbean-feeling. (One of the others we were offered felt like a dorm room.)

I think tomorrow we are going to the Arecibo radio telescope, assuming we can get a rental car. I was surprised that there was no public transportation out there, but I guess it’s too far. I am going to have to take stock of my schoolwork tomorrow too; today was long and hectic but tomorrow I want to make sure I can keep up with everything. It’s essential that I keep up.

I have a connection at the moment, so I’m going to upload this. I’m pretty tired anyway! Tomorrow I will be taking pictures even though I didn’t today. Oh my god, A just went to get up from the bed and said “Oh, a nasty roach!” This hotel may be charming but it’s a little scary! So now we are making sure all food goes in the fridge!

Yesterday we went with A’s parents to the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, & Zoo. Despite being three facilities in one, it’s still quite small and you can tour the whole thing in a couple of hours. You start out in the aquarium, which has Bermudian sea life including a moray eel, a pufferfish, and an octopus. After the aquarium, you are directed through the gift shop to get to the museum and zoo. After passing the harbor seals, we chose to go to the zoo next. They have a section for local Bermudian animals, but the rest of it is peacocks, golden lion tamarins, and other critters in an Australasia exhibit. Our final stop was the museum, which is three rooms of information about Bermuda. There is a fancy projected movie about the geological history of the island, and some artifacts from earlier times. That’s about all there was to the entire place!

Today was a sea day. We slept late, skipped the disembarkation talk, and got a couple of raspberry daiquiris at the poolside bar. Then we went back to our room to read, but A was sleepy and I figured I’d join her for a nap.

At 2:30 we went to a “wine and food pairing” seminar. Our sommelier had promised to have a vegetarian plate made up for me, which turned out to involve skipping the plain chicken and pesto chicken, and increasing my portions of chocolate, cheese, and black olives (I still only had two cherry tomatoes). So the whole thing was a bit of a waste for me, since I don’t like wine anyway (my favorite of the four was the Chardonnay) and I wasn’t getting the same lesson as everybody else.

Pretty much the rest of the day was spent with a drink in hand. Before dinner I put $1 into a slot machine and walked away with $5.85, and after dinner we went to the Friends of Dorothy party and chatted with a gay couple there. They had late dinner though, so we only chatted for 30 minutes before the party broke up. Then we had another drink and came back to the room to pack - we have to leave our bags outside the room by midnight.

Went to the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, & Zoo today. Too tired and residually drunk to write much more. Set sail for New Jersey at 3:00pm…not looking forward to this vacation ending.

First, yes: I really do think I ruptured my eardrum while scuba diving. I haven’t had this medically confirmed because a consultation with the onboard doctor is $113, but air is moving through my ear in a most unnatural way.

Today our ship went back across the island and docked at Penno’s Wharf in St. George. We went walking with A’s parents; I quickly picked up the cache at the Deliverance, petted a stray tomcat, and watched the celebrated wench-dunking in the town square. Next we walked up to the Unfinished Church, and then came back down the hill. A took the tour of the Bermuda Perfumery with her parents while I read outside; next we did some shopping before heading back to the ship for a nap before dinner.

My hearing has been diminished all day and I’ve asked people to repeat themselves a million times. The perforation should heal up in a few days, but I will probably see a doctor when I get home anyway. The “Cruise in Review” video is already playing on flat screen TVs outside the photo gallery. We are in it, but I decided to just wait for our bit and film it on my own camera. The DVD is $35 which is just insane. I also brought home two photos. The first was $15, and the second was supposed to be $25, but…um…well, let’s say I feel two for $15 is a more realistic price to expect people to pay.

I can write normally again. I trimmed off the nails and removed the color; now I just have to fuss with the remaining adhesive.

Just a quick update, which will also be interleaved with the journal I’ve been keeping by hand. I successfully went scuba diving yesterday, but I think I ruptured my right eardrum. Something is very wrong with that ear, at least. The scuba diving was interesting though…

Today I went scuba diving for the first time in my life. We took a cab out to Robinson Marina, adjacent to Somerset Bridge - the world’s smallest drawbridge. We signed our waivers and collected our equipment: fins, mask, and BCD (Buoyancy Control Device). We got onto the dive boat and set out for open water, with the lesson being given on the way. We learned about clearing your ears as you descent, and what to do if you have a problem during descent, as well as a few hand signals - “fine/ready,” “problem,” “going down,” and “go up.” We also learned about the “giant stride” entry, which is just a big step off the boat’s platform - you have to go wide enough that your tank doesn’t hit on the boat. Once we got out there, we learned we’d be seeing the Constellation/Montana wreck site which was featured in that fabulous late-70’s movie “The Deep.”

When I took my giant stride off the boat, I was surprised by how much I could see. But the BCD had been filled with air, so I bobbed back up and made my way to the place we were told to wait. We kept our faces in the water and practiced breathing through the regulator. I was supposed to keep an eye on A, who was wearing a -4.5 prescription mask even though she needs -9, but I was so scared myself that I stayed busy practicing my own breathing pattern. Eventually an instructor came over and asked if I was ready to descend, so I said yes. Even though I tried to equalize on the way down, my right ear popped painfully, and I panicked and begged to go back up. The guide brought me up partway, and I managed to calm down and gave the signal that I was ready to try again. This time I made it to the bottom successfully, but I was having trouble staying there, so the guide clipped an extra weight onto me. But then I couldn’t get off the ocean floor, so she took it off again - and I began to rise. She chased after me and put it back on, and for the rest of the dive I was always barely above the bottom. It was difficult breathing through the regulator, but I settled down and it got easier - though never like breathing on land, because I always felt short of breath. I knew A was still at the surface with an instructor, so I remained focused on my guide and followed when it was time to follow. I figured the other guide knew A would be nearly blind, and would take care of her - little did I realize how wrong I was.

But meanwhile I followed my guide through the wreck and the reef. I could easily distinguish living things from manmade, but it was very hard to figure out what ship parts I was looking at. The fish were completely unafraid of us and swam right by; at one point my guide pointed to a fish and indicated it was yummy! I had no way to say “uh, I’m a vegetarian,” so I let it go. That’s one thing that was hard for me - resisting the urge to use sign language to communicate! I couldn’t even use “fish” or “boat” because no one would have understood.

This came back to bite me in the ass when the guide signaled “something-something OK?” I foolishly indicated “sure, OK” in reply, and was surprised when she started leading us (that’s me and another guy) through a tunnel. I figured I’d try it, and I was dismayed when my left ear popped painfully. Okay, “dismayed” isn’t right…I panicked! I told the guide I had a problem with my ear, and she signaled to the other guy to proceed out of the tunnel. She came back and pulled me out, and I tried the equalizing tricks we’d learned topside. By the time we were out of the tunnel I felt a bit better, and indicated I was okay.

So we looked around a bit more, with me trying to keep from sitting on the bottom the whole time. Eventually it was time to return topside, which was when I noticed A treading water at the surface, with no scuba gear on. I made my way over to the dive boat, anded over my fins, and climbed up the ladder. I staggered over to where I could take off my gear, and stripped everything off. Then I went over to the platform and called out to A, and she swam over and climbed aboard to join me.

I only found out later, at dinner, how bad her experience was. Nobody had checked to see if the prescription mask fit her face, which it didn’t, meaning it kept filling up with water. She managed to descend to the bottom, but her mask filled repeatedly and she asked to be taken topside. She was offered another mask, but was told that by that point it was too late for her to try descending again. She was told that she could just snorkle, but nobody gave her a snorkle. So she was just going to swim around, but she slipped on the boat and fell down, which was the culmination of a bad experience. Once she regained her composure, she did swim around for a while, which was what she was doing when I returned to the boat and called out to her.

Back in the office, she asked for a partial refund on the basis that no one checked to see if the mask fit her properly, and as a result she did not get to dive at all. The kid she was asking adamantly refused to refund any of the $110 cost, so I will be e-mailing the company owner to notify him that I intend to take it up with the credit card company. I had snagged a copy of the waiver we’d signed, and the way I interpret it is that my ear pain, which lasted all night, was covered by the waiver, but A not getting to dive because no one fitted her mask was not.

So we were pretty upset leaving there, and we were going to try for the Dockyard and a ferry back to Hamilton. We ended up taking the bus all the way back, but not before encountering a very sweet, very talkative kitty who begged for pets and sat on both our laps. So that made us feel a bit better.

We got back in time for dinner, though I was 15 minutes late for the Friends of Dorothy party and people were leaving. I said we’d schedule another one for the sea day going back, so I hope that will work out.

Today we docked in Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda. We arrived about an hour later than scheduled, but we didn’t have any morning plans so we didn’t mind. When we got through customs I called the dive shop on a pay phone, but they said the trip would probably be canceled due to lack of enrollment. She said to call back in an hour, and so we wandered around shops near the passenger terminal. When I called back she confirmed it was canceled, but said that they already had the minimum signed up for tomorrow, so we switched to tomorrow’s dive.

Next we took a ¾ mile walk to find a geocache, which was not actually easy to find. On the walk back we stopped in the gift shop of the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, but we didn’t take the tour. We also went into a grocery store to see if they had anything we couldn’t get in the U.S., but there wasn’t anything interesting. We also went into Tattoo Pirates, who we’d seen ads for around the terminal. I was seriously considering getting a tattoo as a souvenir of Bermuda, but the guy mocked my idea of a hibiscus (yes, they’re cliche, but I’d just seen some walking from the geocache) and A said he was adjusting himself a bit much (ew), so I may not go back after all. I couldn’t get anything before I go scuba diving anyway, so that was how I begged off from him.

We did a bit more shopping, and stopped into an Internet cafe for a few minutes. Then we came back toward the terminal, and A wanted to go into a perfume shop. I went too, and ended up buying a cute purse and a wallet that’s much more practical than the Hello Kitty one I’ve been using for a couple of years. Next we came back on the ship for a very late lunch, and I turned a blind eye to the veggie burger being cooked on the same grill as the meat and handled with the same tongs. I am a strict vegetarian, but some battles just aren’t worth fighting…but I won’t be getting a veggie burger again.

Today was a sea day. Carnival calls these “Fun Days At Sea” but for us they are sometimes boring and sometimes relaxing. After breakfast we went to the Cruise Critic get-together, which was very poorly attended. The cruise director speculated that people were probably feeling sick because the seas were so choppy. I asked him about a Friends of Dorothy meeting (we’ve seen a few women who might be gay, but nobody we’ve said hi to) and he said he would add it to the schedule. Unfortunately it wasn’t in there when the schedule was slipped under our door for tomorrow, but that’s okay.

After the CC event we went to hear the cruise director (peppiest person on board) talk about Bermuda. It was interesting but I was falling asleep anyway, and I snuck out halfway through for a nap. A stayed for a bit more and then went to some jewelry event, then she came back to the room and joined me.

When I woke up I wasn’t hungry, so I was going to go to the library to use a computer to look up some info I forgot to bring for geocaching. A woke up too and said she wanted lunch first, so we had lunch and then went to the library. Unfortunately I spent 20+ minutes and failed to get anything useful, because the connection was slow, the printer didn’t work, and JavaScript was blocked. So I went to the front desk and explained, and they removed the $11.50 charge from my account. After that we wanted to relax and read, so we brought our books up to the top deck, which was temperate, windy, and shady. Unfortunately the pool was right below (it always is, no matter what ship you’re on) and the activities there were loud, so I was having trouble reading. We were going to find a spot inside to read but nowhere suited us, so we read back in our room.

Eventually it was time to get ready for formal night, so we got dressed up. A helped put up my hair in a nice way, and we had dinner with her parents. Unfortunately it wasn’t very enjoyable, so I only ate half my entree…but I’d had an appetizer, soup, and salad already, so half was pleanty! I had coconut and rum sherbet for dessert. After dinner I convinced A to get our formal portrait taken…not sure yet if we’ll buy them. Then we went to the theater for the Broadway-style show; the only bits I knew were from Gypsy and Chicago. They also did Mamma Mia, Wicket, Les Miz, Hairspray, The Producers, and Thoroughly Modern Millie. I just love those Broadway-style shows…production numbers are my favorite, and that’s all those shows are!

That was it for the day…we came back to our room and got out of our fancy clothes. So that was our day at sea! No bingo, no casino, no swimming (they only filled the small pool), just reading, napping, and relaxing.

Today did not start well. We were on the bus by 7:40 but it did not leave at 8:00 because some people hadn’t shown up. The dispatcher finally gave the driver authorization to leave at 8:30. I saw that we were heading out of the city, and then I dozed off. I woke up 20 minutes later and went to the bathroom. As I walked there I noticed the bus was on some serious curves, and I wondered “What part of I-95 has these curves?” When I got back to my seat I looked around and I saw we were on the DC Beltway approching I-270! That seemed odd, but I knew we had another stop so I figured we needed to go up 270 to get there. And then…we drove past the exit for 270. I ran up to the driver and said “Are we supposed to be going south?” She said her directions said 95N to New York, and the only sign she saw was 95N to Baltimore. I said “uh…that’s where we needed to go.” And then I went back to my seat…but we kept going south!

I went back up to the front and said “Do you need help getting turned around?” So I guided her onto River Road…and she tried to go left instead of right as I’d indicated. So she backed up on the roadway and then went right. She had mentioned she was supposed to take exit 6 to Wilmington, and I explained how she needed to take the left side ramp before the Delaware Memorial Bridge. When I got up to go back to my seat, a guy sitting up front whispered “can you come back for Wilmington?” I laughed, and he said “no, I’m serious.” So I stayed awake all through Maryland. A tried to call the cruise line and the bus company but got nothing helpful. At that split, I was back up front but didn’t say anything. She made it okay on her own, but then I had to direct her to the bus station too - and I’ve never been there! She had a terrible time negotiating turns, and drove up on the curb a couple of times. This woman was clearly in the wrong job! Fortunately one of the people we picked up in Wilmington guided her to the New Jersey Turnpike and from there she was fine…except for missing a turn trying to get to the port in Bayonne.

After all that, check-in was a breeze. We slipped our “water” bottles (one with vodka and one with rum) past security and got on board. I led us to the rooms and we sat down for a bit. Next, we took a bit of a walk around, then came back to the room. Just as we were taking a short nap, an announcement came on for the muster drill. So we put on our lifejackets and went to our muster station, etc. Then we came back to the room to finish our nap.

Dinner was fine. It took a couple of minutes to get my vegetarian menu, and it took a long time to get my soda. (I got the “soda package,” which is unlimited sodas for $5/day…they are $2.50 each and I usually drink at least two a day, so it’s a good buy for me.) For dinner I had a fruit soup, a small plate of fruit as an appetizer, some salad, and very tasty tempeh in peanut sauce. I got two desserts - cheesecake, and lychee ice cream which I shared with A.

Next we went to guest relations and complained about the bus. They’re going to follow up with us after they tell the head office. So we went back to A’s parents room and shared some champagne and conversation before bed. Then I took a shower (in our room, of course) and got water all over the place - the shower head kept wanting to point out into the rest of the bathroom. I didn’t know the hose was twisted, but when I got out I told A and she fixed the hose. So now I’ve been writing this, and I’m going to bed - oh, before I forget - lots of motion on board, very noticeable rocking of the ship no matter where you go.

I am back at the Seattle airport, behind security; my flight leaves in about two and a half hours. I have spotted several RSVP passengers; a few have Oosterdam tags on their carry-ons, a few have the ugly olive messenger bags we were all given (I have mine too), and a few - well, let’s just say the gaydar meter is off the scale. I am waiting another few minutes until the Qdoba Mexican Grill restaurant starts serving lunch, and then I will buy a vegetarian burrito to have for lunch on the plane. I already got a giant Diet Coke from Wendy’s because the tiny cup of coffee I had at breakfast (which was at 7am; it’s now 10am) was not enough. After I have acquired my burrito I will start making my way over to the south satellite terminal, which involves a short people mover ride.