Fish Heads After 16 Hours of Travel

where do i even start?! i suppose at the beginning would make the most sense. we left last wednesday and traveled about 16 hours to reach the beautiful destination of nassau, bahamas. traveling is always an adventure. our first flight from portland to san francisco was delayed about an hour so that was a less-than-fun-run through the airport once we landed and heard ‘final boarding call for newark.’

we thankfully made it but of course there was no room left in the overhead bin so ravery had to check his carry on and i had a mini-panic attack at having to shove my oversized backpack under the middle seat. lucky for a me a very nice man shuffled some things around in a few overhead bins and it fit!thank you nice stranger.

we flew through the night and i think i slept maybe an hour but ravery can never sleep on planes…so he gets a little crazy. we had a 2 hour layover from newark to the bahamas so he opted to sleep on the disgusting airport floor while i protected his head and read.

i felt like a winner because i sneakily slipped him a valentine’s day card when we got breakfast at 6am that morning (3am our body clock time). he took me to the bahamas to valentine’s day so it was the least i could do. the next flight was the first time we didn’t get to sit together on a plane! i did a good job not freaking out too much. because there were so many families on the plane, no one would switch with us.

ravery was very accomodating to a few other families and because he was flexible he eventually ended up in the emergency exit row (which is so good because someone who is 6’4 has incredibly long femurs). i learned that apparently the bahamas are very ‘kid-friendly’ because our flight was about half full of children. guess how often kids have to go to the bathroom? all. the. time. how do i know this? i sat on the aisle seat from the second to last row so they just kept lining up. i would like to take this minute and appreciate not having to travel with children at this time in my life.

then we finally maaaade it! and we made it to the longest line i’ve ever seen at custom. it took 1.5 hours to get through.

they did have a live bahamian band playing so that helped everyone chill out a little but i’m not going to lie…after 16 hours of travel, no sleep and hanger (hungry-anger) setting in…it was a little rough. and then i reminded my stomach, brain and sleep-meter that i was in THE BAHAMAS so everything would be fine.

our favorite jamaicans (currently living in the bahamas) picked us up from the airport-deanna and sashane! we met them back at the world championship of public speaking and deanna was actually in the same semi-finals as ravery. she was hilarious and totally made me sweat because her speech was excellent (side note: semi-finals 9 was the toughest and best competition and if a number of those speakers had been spread through other groups…i totally believe at least 3 would have made it to the world stage). they took us to the famous fish fry in Arawak Cay (i figured i should capitalize this so you would know it’s a place).

here comes the fun part…we tried some things that have never entered our tastebuds before. we started out with some conch fritters (yes like the conch shell) and they were delicious! now normally deep fried goodness would not be on our 50 day challenge…but it would have been rude not to try them (that’s how we rationalized it). and would we later regret eating a little something that wasn’t allowed or regret not trying something the bahamas are famous for? exactly.

ravery ordered the snapper and was then shocked by how many little itty bitty bones were inside of it. we are very accustomed to prior bone removal before eating most fish in the united states. this got a very good laugh from everyone we were eating with. he did a good job though. i ordered chicken because i don’t like seafood (blame it on the landlocked state of colorado). this also got a good laugh. even though i don’t like to necessarily eat seafood, i have no problem playing with hit.

here is what i learned about fish heads: some people LOVE them (no one at our table did but their family members do), some people will fight over who gets to eat the eyes and those teeth, when all fried up, are actually really crunchy. i can personally attest to none of this.

we had a great time laughing and eating with these wonderful people. then they took us to our hotel so we could get a little rest before heading back out for the evening! the view from our room was outrageous.

even though i was about to pass out from exhaustion, i had to get my feet on that sand and body in the fading sun! we quickly ventured down and enjoyed the last 30 minutes of sunshine before sunset and it was marvelous. pure happiness right here:

after some walking and jumping up and down because we were in the bahamas, we ventured back upstairs for a 2 hour nap before we headed back out to visit a club. i set the alarm, ensured it was correctly set for PM and allowed us at least 40 minutes to wake up and get ready before we had to be downstairs at 8pm. fast forward to 7:53pm when i wake up, glance up at the clock and have a mini-panic attack. we have 7 minutes. we race through the shower (no way could i get away with my hair after traveling forever, beach time and then sleep time) and hurriedly get ourselves together. i’m pleased to say we made it downstairs by 8:09pm (yes still 9 minutes late but that pretty impressive for including a shower). i later discovered the the CLOCK itself was set to AM instead of PM.

we visited club 1600 and i have to say it was one of the liveliest meetings i’ve ever been too! there was lots of laughter, pounding fists on the table for approval and agreement and lots of heckling. my kind of place. they even made ravery an honorary member of club 1600, with an official pin and everything!

that just about wraps up how we spent our first half day in the bahamas. the internet in the hotel lobby wasn’t always working so my apologies for lack of posting while there. stay tuned for some glorious pictures of the prettiest water you’ve ever seen and more of all the fun times we had with the great people in the bahamas!

life lesson: long travel is totally worth it when you’re destination includes excellent people, beautiful beaches and sun!
bonus life lesson: ensure you look at ALL aspects when setting an unfamiliar alarm clock.

questions:

1) what are you travel essentials for passing time on a plane?

2) would you ever try a fish head?

3) anecdote about a time when your alarm clock didn’t go off correctly?