on Jamaica

We'd long envisioned getting married on a beach, and the appeal of a beach in a foreign country was strong. We ended up picking Jamaica for a couple simple reasons: it was relatively cheap, and we had a friend who goes on an almost yearly basis, so we could (and did) harass her with whatever questions we thought up.

We stayed in Montego Bay, which is on the north end of the island and the second-largest city after Kingston. Jamaica is a huge tourist economy, but the season is November - April, so prices were much cheaper for us in June, and we didn't run into hardly any parties of frat boys (and no hurricanes, either).

On our friend's recommendation, we stayed at the Royal Decameron Montego Bay, and after seeing several of the other resorts, were glad we did.  For about $175 a night, we got a beach front room and all of the food and drinks we wanted (all the resorts we looked at were all-inclusive). The food was overall very good (local dishes and their take on other culture's cuisines - lots of fresh fish, lamb, chicken, steak), and the drinks were decent - and given what we drank while we were there, our liquor bill alone would have been at least that much anywhere else. My favorite drink was a dirty banana - blended rum, creme de cacao and fresh banana - but we had everything from straight rum to coffee with amaretto to old fashioneds (we had to explain how to make it, but they were game). You're also not expected to tip, and most people don't, but we found that leaving a dollar here and there got us significantly better service. While some of the other resorts were nicer, they were much further from town, and what we could have afforded would not have gotten us anything close to a beach view.

The trade off was that our room wasn't as nice - the bed was slightly hard, there was a water stain on the bathroom ceiling, and the water pressure in the shower was iffy - but we were fine with that given how great everything else was.

The food was served buffet-style, with many different options available. Colin hates buffets and he was fine with this because the food was so good. We ate with a beach view at every meal, a luxury that should not be underestimated. There is also a sit down restaurant you can make reservations for.

We found about a hundred different ways of doing pretty much nothing at all, which is exactly what we wanted. We'd wake up leisurely, meander down to breakfast, bring coffee back to our room, go down to the beach and read or swim for awhile, eat lunch, take a nap, spend more time on the beach, shower for dinner, eat more delicious food, get happily tipsy, fall asleep at the unheard of time of 10 pm, and do it again the next day. I finished three and a half books while were there and swam for at least an hour every day. Having nowhere to be and nothing we had to do was glorious. We would have had to pay for WiFi at the hotel, and there's no 3G access, so we had a nice break from electronic distractions as well.

We did about one thing differently every day, starting with a couple's massage in a cabana on the water, which was lovely.

We wandered into town a few times, which was easy to do on foot. The half-mile or so of the main road by the hotel is called the "hip strip," and its filled with tourist shops and bars, including a Margaritaville. The locals are very aggressive sales people - they call out to you from across the street to come into their stores and will keep pressing if you waver at all. Our friend had warned us beforehand, and a firm "no, thank you" worked just fine. We were disappointed in the cheesy made-in-China wares that most of the shops were selling, although we did find a good price on Appleton rum and Sangster's rum cream (like Bailey's, but even more delicious) in one of the little grocery stores. Also, if you're white, it's pretty obvious that you're a tourist, and you are therefore an easy target for less-than-legal substances. The second time we went into town Colin and I bet how many times we would be offered pot -  he bet 5, I bet 10 - and it was 7 times total. Again, "no, thanks" worked just fine. Margaritaville was fun for the kitsch factor, but we didn't stay for more than a drink, as the appeal of  free drinks back at the resort was too strong. They also offered yacht rides with loud 90s dance music, if that's your thing.

We asked one of the taxi drivers what we should see if we only saw one thing, and he recommended Dunn's River Falls, which is a long waterfall over 600 ft or so of rocks that you can climb. It was beautiful, but had been so mined for tourist purposes that we were somewhat disappointed. They had us climb the falls in long chains of 20 or so people, which was a pretty dumb idea, all things considered (and was frustrating for us, as we could have scaled it without help in about a third the time). They'd scraped the rocks of moss and carved footholds into some of them, and it was so swamped with people that it was hard  to enjoy how pretty it was. I don't have any pictures of it - we didn't have a waterproof camera, and opted out of paying for their photos.

As the falls are near Ocho Rios, we did get to see a significant portion of the coastline and more rural areas as we went there and back, which was nice. We also stopped at a place near Discovery Bay that had absolutely fantastic jerk chicken (possibly the best of the trip, although to be honest they were all so good that it would be hard to rank), and would have been worth the drive alone. It looked like they were smoking it on wood poles underneath a sheet of aluminum. (I had my camera on the nighttime setting or something, so apologies for the poor quality.)

After using the snorkels provided by the hotel and being amazed at just the little reefs in the water by the hotel beaches, we decided to take a glass-bottomed boat out to one of the larger reefs off shore.

I had trouble with my mask and didn't enjoy it as much as I could have, but Colin loved it. The reefs weren't as colorful as the pictures of the ones you see in Australia, but we saw a lot of cool coral and a bunch of different fish, and the water was incredibly clear. We were also surprised that it went so far out and was only about 10-15 feet deep, and when there aren't reefs (or the wake of the boat), you can see straight to the white sand at the bottom.

The water itself was incredibly beautiful. We spent most of our time on the furthest south beach, as it was the quietest. I didn't get over that perfect turquoise blue the entire time we were there. The sunsets were incredible, and the resort faces west, so we had a perfect view. The weather report told us it would be thunderstorms that week, and although it did tend to get cloudy toward the evening, we got sprinkled on for about five minutes once, and most of the daytime was clear.

Cultural notes: our experiences with the local culture were admittedly quite few - restricted to those working in the tourist trade, and whoever happened to be walking down the hip strip when we were (still mostly part of the tourist trade). Almost 20% of the island is living below the poverty line, which was fairly apparent when we drove through the more rural areas. I wish I had read up more on the country before we went - I didn't know until after we came home than Rastafarian is a religion (and not actually a big one - the island is very religious, but mostly of the Protestant variety - only somewhere between 1-5% of the population identifies as Rastafarian). The locals speak patois as well as English. There is definitely a cultural difference between what Americans would consider polite and what the locals do, but it's easy enough to get used to - and once it's clear you're not just another asshole tourist, they're more friendly.

Our total cost for the vacation portion (read: non-wedding) was about $3300 (flights, hotel, taxis, non-hotel food, massage, excursion, souvenirs, etc). At least in the touristy areas, you can use Jamaican and American money interchangeably. They say the rate is  10 to 1, but it's actually 100 to 1 - 1000 Jamaican is 10 USD. We changed over about a third of our spending money into Jamaican. We also waited longer than we should have to buy our flights, which ended up costing us more than we planned - buy them early. Southwest also started flying in to Jamaica the day we left (we're pretty sure we saw the first plane come in), so there are probably cheaper options now than what we had. We decided to play it safe and get the CDC recommended shots beforehand, which was an additional $370 we didn't originally plan for.

To sum up: Jamaica is awesome and beautiful, and we are so glad we went.

p.s. I am working on a post on the wedding stuff for A Practical Wedding, and if they publish it I'll link to it here.

the world through a wine glass

"blizzard" in tucson

Tuesday afternoon Colin (along with half the city, apparently) got a notification on his phone that there was a blizzard warning for Wednesday. Facebook blew up with people laughing about it - someone, somewhere, clarified that it was for Mt. Lemmon, not the valley.

I had to force Joley to put on a long-sleeved shirt that morning. She'd been running around outside in short sleeves for at least a week.

By midday Wednesday, we weren't joking about the possibility of snow anymore, and instead there was that sort of tingling in the air - everyone kept peeking out windows at the frigid rain, hoping it had changed into flakes.

I happened to be standing by a bank of windows overlooking the cafeteria when it changed over. The kids went from huddled miserably under awnings to dancing in the open, taking pictures of themselves making silly faces with snowflakes on their heads.

I stood later in the library and watched it come down and tried to capture it on my phone. It was too wet to stick, then, and I won't subject you to those pictures, with the florescent lights suspended oddly in the sky from the reflection of the library windows.

It stopped and started perhaps four times throughout the day. These pictures were taken when I got home. The whole thing was rather surreal and magical - I've seen snow in Tucson before, once every few years or so, but never this much.

The cold rather killed the remaining oranges, though.

I'm forever fascinated by snow-lined branches and the patterns they make. It was always my favorite part of snowfalls in Flagstaff.

Sign of the imminent overheating of the earth or not, it was a lovely day.

weekend decadence

Peach-rum-soaked fresh strawberries; freshly whipped orange cream + vanilla bean ice cream topping; powdered cocoa garnish.

(forgive the flash-y picture; it was too late at night to get a clear shot without it)

Spent a lazy Sunday afternoon listening to the rain fall outside my open window and watching the clouds attempt to consume the Catalinas.

duality

Dark:

“This is not my life. These are not my cobwebs. This is not the darkness I was designed for.”

-Colum McCann

Bright:

On Monday night, I went out with two friends to B Line for wine and food. I had tortilla soup and half a tuna sandwich and they were amazing. And we sat and talked and commiserated for a few hours, and then wandered downtown half-tipsy to go see the cavernous space my friend is thinking of renting to show her clothing line. And we went to Congress and got more drinks and I had the best Manhattan I've had, and we wandered into the end of a concert and stood in the back, drinks in hand, lost in the music of a band I mistakenly assumed was local. It was a guy switching between guitar and keyboard and singing with a girl on a keyboard harmonizing, her bangs long in her face, and another girl with a platinum bob on the cello, and two guys on guitars and the drummer, and almost all of them sang along with the guy in front even though they didn't have mics.

And then he said, oh so casually, I'm going to invite Ingrid Michaelson onstage for this next one*. So we slipped through the very small crowd and stood eight feet from the stage, and I hugged my glass next to my face like I do, and stood with my chest full of the music, simply happy for the first time in as many days as I can remember.

*He turned out to be her husband. His name is Greg Laswell. He was awesome and we saw him for free.

house atreides

There's a Harris hawk that's been hanging around our house lately. He came and sat on the balcony railing one day when Colin was out smoking, and Colin's been in love with him ever since.

The last few days we've seen him several times. Colin went on the balcony today to discover that the two patio chairs had fallen over backward, the cushions had been shredded, and a single brown feather had been left. It appears the hawk tried to sit on the back of the chairs, which fall over if you put even the smallest amount of pressure on the back.

After much deliberation, Colin's decided to call the hawk Atreides.

Hopefully I'll be able to get a better picture of him soon. He's huge and brown with red patches on his sides and a yellow beak, and he caws almost like a crow.

cowboy cliché, pt. 2

I take a lot of pictures of the sky on my cell phone.

a sunday dinner

Insalata Caprese; prosciutto, salame, and capocollo; kalamata olives; garlic and thyme bread. Accompanied by the Arizona Stronghold Site Archive '09 Sangiovese (only 99 cases made).

autumn grows, autumn in everything

Everything feels autumnal, lately. The weather has obligingly cooled off, and I am craving the color orange.

Luckily, that's not so hard.

Second fire of the season.


Crackling fire accompanied by pumpkin pancakes, applewood smoked bacon, maple syrup, eggs over medium, Arizona Stronghold's Tazi, and coffee with a dash of Bailey's.

I'm going to say this only once, so pay attention: Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pancake and Waffle Mix is divine. Bless yourself and purchase it immediately.


And Tak, who is gorgeous in all seasons, but seems especially so now, given how she matches.

all souls procession

This is my second time at the All Souls Procession in Tucson. It is based on the traditional Mexican Día de los Muertos processions, and honors the spirits of those who have passed away. It has been put on every year since 1990, and is one of the largest in the US (at least, that's what I've been told. I can't find any sources that support that). There were 20,000 people at the one last year.

I first went to it two years ago. We took Joley and just watched the parade go by, our faces unpainted. I took some awesome photographs, and loved the entire experience. Because J was so young, though, we didn't say around for the finale.

Last year, I was so busy we completely forgot about it. This time, I was determined to go and see the entire thing.

I thought that especially my out-of-Tucson readers might enjoy a bit of a montage and explanation, so that's what you're getting.

Preparations. I decided to go with a more realistic depiction because those have been my favorite ones in the past; plus, the lack of hair made doing a full skull too cool of an idea to resist.

It was a bitch and a half to try and do the back by myself, though (and an unanticipated problem when I dreamed the thing up).


These are good examples of how artistic and colorful other people's renditions can get.


Something about the attitude of this woman I loved. She walked behind us for quite awhile.


Kites in honor of the 116 transgender deaths this past year (presumably to violence).


She had a little maraca that looked like a skull.


So beautiful.


This girl was so gorgeous, standing on the railing on the side of the tunnel and leaning against the pillar. She'll be my inspiration next year for a more artistic rendering of the skull face paint.


My friend Diana, who we were walking with, told me that going through the underpass was always her favorite part. I didn't understand why when she said it, but she was totally right - something about being able to hear everything, and the intimacy of it, was really cool. You could also, when standing on either end, see the mass of people before or behind because of the curve of the road; even though it was just a fraction of the procession, it seemed like an immense number of people.

I had a couple clearer pictures of the crowd, but I really like the blurry ones - it makes the figures look so much less human.


The moon as seen while emerging from the underpass. It was obligingly half-hidden by clouds the whole night.


Puppets.


Cowgirl dead.


I love this picture. There were two little girls, and I had to run to catch up to them to even get this shot - and they were even more ethereal from the front.

You'll notice that there are no ropes, no police to keep the crowd on the edge of the route from merging with those walking. It's an incredibly peaceful event; I didn't see anyone acting raucous or disrespectful, and there was something significant about the unpainted alive merging with the mass of walking dead.


Love.


A giant silk puppet. The simple skeleton ones are my favorite.


The dancing dead.


A Joley skeleton and a Mommy skeleton, at the finale, before I realized that I wasn't strong enough to hold her on my shoulders until something decided to happen.

I held her on my hips for nearly the entire finale once it started, though. It took place in a giant dirt field at the end of the parade route, and there were thousands of people there.


The urn. It had a metal frame and what appeared to be semi-sheer fabric sides; people put prayers and things they wanted to let go of into the urn. Before the performance started, when the crowd was waiting for things to get set up, someone got on the mic and asked that if anyone had anything else to add, if people would please pass the prayers forward through the crowd.

I loved that.

Beneath the urn is a Mariachi group from a local middle school, and stilt walkers with torches.


I don't know how this shot came out so perfectly.

There were three women (I believe) on that ladder + silks apparatus, being swung back and forth by the crane about 100 feet in the air (or at least, that's my imprecise guess). Shortly after this shot, one of them climbed down onto the silks and started doing those impressive drops they do. The other two were on the circle just above the silks, balancing her out.


Prior to this, the urn was unlit. You can just barely make the dancer out halfway down the silks in this shot; it appeared that she dropped something down into the urn to make the whole thing catch fire.


After the urn ignited, there was a ton of incensed smoke. Down at the bottom are the stilt walkers, who were dressed in bird costumes (they were Joley's favorite part).


The beginning of the long walk back: Amanda in the Tunnel of Questionable Enlightenment.


This wasn't the angle I wanted, but people kept walking between us.


A very sleepy bitsy on the way home. The flowers were given to her by a man standing behind us in the crowd at the finale. She was a pretty good sport - she walked almost the entire length of the two-mile parade route on the way back before Diana picked her up.

I love the halos on the people in the background.


It was an incredibly good experience. The energy in the air, although there was something strange and otherworldly about it, was positive. This parade is one of the reasons I am going to really miss Tucson, if I ever get around to leaving.