I'm backkkkkk....
Not only from a blogging respite but from a real respite -- nine days and eight nights in Aruba! John and I were there for our honeymoon ten years ago and we decided to treat ourselves and go for our tenth anniversary. We're so glad we did!
In the wee hours of the morning (3:45 to be exact) on Friday, September 13th (Friday the 13th -- YIKES!), we arose and made our way to Logan Airport in Boston. We had an early morning direct flight on JetBlue, so knowing that we'd be in sunny Aruba by lunchtime was enough to make getting up early not so bad.
We had an uneventful trip to the airport, parked the car, and made our way to the terminal. Turns out that Aruba is big for destination weddings, as we had a wedding party in front of us in the check-in line at the airport (and saw a few other weddings on the island). My first thought was, "Wow...that's a cool idea." Then, as I started to see more people arrive that were in the group, kids whining because it was so early and the line was long, bride getting charged for overweight checked luggage, I quickly changed my thought to, "Um, not so cool." (For me, at least.)
I won't spend too much more time on this bridal party that was ahead of us in line and on our flight, but I have to say that they all had wedding themed clothing on. A few things is fine, but in my opinion, this is a bit much:
Moving right along.
Our flight was uneventful (we dozed on and off). When we landed at Reina Beatrix International Airport in Aruba, it was raining and somewhat gray, but we did not let that get us down. We collected our luggage and made our way through customs (again, uneventful). Cabs were waiting to scoop up the tourists emerging from the airport and we got one quickly.
As is common with Arubans, our cab driver was very friendly and immediately asked us if it was our first time on the island and where we were from. When we said we were from Boston, the cab driver immediately professed his love for the Red Sox and talked about Xander Bogaerts, a much lauded Red Sox rookie from Aruba. He also told us we'd be surprised at how much the Island had changed over the ten years since we'd been there.
He wasn't kidding.
As we pulled up the high-rise section, where our hotel is, we were amazed by the malls, the restaurants, and additional hotels. Time did not stand still on Aruba while we were gone!
We checked into our hotel, the Radisson (where we'd stayed ten years ago) and made our way to our room. By this time, the weather had mostly cleared up. View from our room:
I'm relaxed already...are you?
Once we'd unpacked and settled in, we made our way down to Gilligan's, the beach restaurant at the Radisson.
Almost everyday we were there ten years ago, we ate a bucket o' shrimp and frozen raspberry margaritas for lunch. John went that route the first day (they changed from a bucket to bowl) and I had a sandwich, but we wasted no time with the margaritas!
After lunch we got changed and headed to the beach.
Oh palapa, how we missed thee!
We lounged and swam for a few hours. Ahh, yes.
As the Aqua Grill was within walking distance (and yes, we'd gone there ten years ago), we decided to go there for dinner.
We started out with Roasted Corn & Red Pepper Gazpacho. Good, but only in small doses.
John had fried shrimp and I had grilled swordfish.
I'm sure we had yummy drinks, but I'm not remembering.
Ahh...love. Happy 10th anniversary, dear. :)
The next morning, John got up and claimed the palapa we'd reserved the previous afternoon (you have to "claim" your palapa by 10AM by putting towels on the chairs.) I followed shortly thereafter.
On my walk to the beach, I took these photos of the Radisson's pools:
More relaxing. Can you stand it? (It's only day TWO!) Palapa 101 was our home that day.
As my friend Sabine would say, "The view from my seat!"
The view down the beach in the high rise area:
It's not easy being green! These lizards are everywhere! Green, aqua, or gray. Small, medium, large.
Since we'd done some walking around the area the first night, we decided to go to a local casual pub type place that had tapas for dinner.
On our walk over to the restaurant, I took this photo of a statue on the hotel grounds. I really like it:
The restaurant we went to is Salt & Pepper. It's very casual and cheap (the latter being hard to come by in Aruba). We sat outside and ordered tapas, which we love.
For cold tapas, we ordered antipasti (John's fave) and S&P Dip (not so much.) For hot tapas, we ordered meatballs, loempia, and one more thing... (mozzarella sticks?). John had sangria and I had an appletini.
It was fun sitting outside, as the restaurant is in a busy area with other restaurants and shops AND an outdoor performance area. Let's just say it was ::ahem:: amateur night? The guy had a VERY short list of songs he could do and let's say that they were NOT impressive. Totally hilarious and fun, though.
Still having fun and smiling!
Up next: more relaxation on days three & four!
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