Diary of a Dive School Graduate

Just back from one of the best vacations ever thanks to a relatively last minute decision to join my friend Georgia on hers. I mentioned last month that even just back from the cruise, I was feeling in need of another vacation and luckily enough, an opportunity to take one came up.

Generally speaking, I'm the organizer bunny when it comes to travel (and pretty much everything really). I'm big on pre-vacation prep...loose itineraries, accomodation and travel arrangements and printing off info on activity options. This time around as the 'joinee', I had to step outside my comfort zone a little bit and just take it as it came.

Georgia's vacation destination was Roatan, Honduras. The largest of the Bay Islands just off the coast of Honduras mainland. To be perfectly honest, until I got her flight itinerary, I had never heard of the place. I managed to have a whirlwind converstation with G before she took off and booked my flight less than a week before departure. She was lucky enough to have a two week stretch off work so left 6 days before me to get down there and settled in.

On Saturday morning my alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 3:30am and after a connecting flight from Toronto through Houston, I arrived in Roatan to a blast of heat and crazy sunshine and the highway robbery of a $20 cab fare to the lodge. We stayed for the week at Mariposa Lodge, a charming, relatively inexpensive lodge owned and run by a couple of fellow Canucks. They've got a fantastic location (right in West End), clean good sized apartments and a fully stocked DVD library for guests (which allowed me my usual habit of falling asleep with the TV).


After enjoying a few beers on our deck we took a wander around West End and settled in for a pina colada and the first sunset of the week.

Activities for the week included taking a water taxi down to West Bay beach one afternoon and enjoying a very lazy long lunch at one of the resorts and an afternoon reading on the beach, as well as renting a (rather sketchy) van and driving around the island for the day through the small towns, hills and beautiful beaches around the island. Evenings were spent grabbing a bite to eat and wandering from bar to bar grabbing a drink or a dance as we moved along. One night we caught the NCAA final game 'old school style' on the radio at a bar with a generator when the power was out (which happened pretty much every day for a couple of hours).

But what I spent most of the week doing was getting my PADI Open Water diving certification with the gang at Tyll's Dive. Diving is one of those things I always figured I'd absolutely love but never got around to actually doing. I even went on a vacation with my friend Tanja a few years ago and spent the week drinking margaritas around the pool while she got about 10 dives in (but that's another story). With 8 days at my disposal and a very open itinerary I figured this would be the perfect time to give it a shot.

And oh my word, I am absolutely hooked. I started swimming lessons when I was 6 months old and have always been a water lover but this took it to a whole new level. Taking the tests and exam in the classroom sections made me feel like I was back in school and the first time you find yourself breathing underwater is a bit unnatural but it's all worth it for the first moment you find yourself hanging out on the reef. Over 5 dives I managed to see what seemed like a million fish, a turtle, lobster, moray eel and some pretty cool coral formations. I found it very easy to get a bit mesmerized and completely lose track of time...thankfully someone else was keeping track of me.

If you're looking for a place to dive in Roatan I can highly recommend Tyll's. They were great with a complete newbie like me and a more experienced diver in Georgia. The groups were small, equipment well cared for and the atmosphere relaxed. Tell them I sent you :-).

All too soon the week came to an end with a final sunset and beer and a day travelling back to the real world.

Now I just need to figure out how I get back underwater :-).

New York...the good stuff

Before the aforementioned travel debacle, the trip to New York was fantastically fun...here's what we managed to fit into four days...

Thursday

Late lunch at the Blue Fin upon arrival at the W hotel in Times Square. Every good vacation should start by drinking something blue. I don't think I'd want to stay right in Times Square if I was going to be in the city for any length of time but for one night it was quite fun. Comfy, sleep encouraging beds...cool lobby/lounge...Bliss beauty products...



The Daily Show taping!!! We very thankfully had VIP tickets which guaranteed us entry and got us out of the long line outside in the sun. The warm up guy was a bit abrasive but Jon was as wonderful as ever for the pre show question period and the show was funny, funny, funny. The Gitmo piece was classic. Mike Myers seemed a bit disgruntled by the timing of his clip and the lack of setup but I don't think people would have laughed with the best setup possible...The Love Guru looks positively awful.

Dinner at Stanton Social in the lower east side...thanks for the reco Sarah!! Food was amazing and the atmosphere was great. We walked through what looked like a pretty big film shoot on our way to the restaurant but I couldn't figure out what they were getting ready to film. Took the subway back to midtown and hit Sephora to stock up on products that are still way cheaper in the U.S...what's with that??


Friday

I couldn't convince any of the other three girls to get up early for a walk so I made my way up to Rockefeller center to pick up an OJ at Dean & Deluca and catch Rihanna's performance for the Today Show concert series. After getting back to the hotel to find my friends slowly waking for the day we did some shopping on 5th avenue for the morning, checked out of the hotel and grabbed some lunch and spent the afternoon at Macy's on 34th street doing a bit more shopping.

After grabbing a quick dinner we went back to midtown to see In The Heights. It had just won the Best Musical Tony less than a week before and the place was definitely packed. It didn't blow me away and immediately have me wanted to buy the soundtrack (like Spring Awakening had last year) but it was a very good show. Amazing to realize that Lin-Manuel had started writing it while still in school and that it was his broadway debut. Then we made our way back to the hotel to pick up our checked bags and got a cab to take us out to Brooklyn...

Saturday

Our home for the rest of the trip was D's friend Gillian's place in Park Slope just over the Brooklyn Bridge. She was heading out of town for the weekend and very graciously offered us her keys. Trust me, we used the 'we're not paying for accomodations' excuse to allow us to spend money many, many times. On Saturday morning we walked around her neighbourhood and stocked up on Bath & Body Works products, shoes and some other shopping.

Saturday afternoon we split up and while Shawna and Denise went out to check out the mermaid parade at Coney Island, Mel and I went back into Manhattan to catch a second show. It was Boeing-Boeing starring Bradley Whitford (one of my many, many TV boyfriends), Gina Gershon, Christine Baranksi, Mary McCormack and Mark Rylance (who had just one the Tony as best actor). We had the best seats that I'd ever had on Broadway and were in the third row right in the centre of the stage. You could see the makeup smudge on the ladies' eyes and the sweat trickle down from Brad's brow (and there was a lot of it). The play was a farce and I spent a good deal of the 2 1/2 hours laughing. Afterwards we went back to meet the other girls on a patio, picked up some snacks and relaxed in the backyard(!) before getting ready to walk through the neighbourhood for a nice low key dinner at a restaurant that Gillian had recommended. Then we had to face the challenge of trying to fit all of our shopping into our suitcases as we packed up to get ready to head home.

Sunday

Got ourselves packed up and got a car back into Manhattan where we checked them at the Sheraton and then had a nice patio brunch. Meandered up to Central park to relax and wander which was a good idea until it started to rain. Hit a couple more stores on 5th on our way back to 30 Rock where we decided on the indoor activity of taking the NBC studio tour. It was fun to see a bunch of studios including Conan's and SNL's even if it did get kicked off with getting our flight cancellation notice while we were about to start.

All in all, the mess of the trip home couldn't spoil what was a fabulous weekend. The final tally included 7 pairs of shoes, sunglasses, a few shirts, Sephora and Bath & Body Works stock ups, and of course very sore feet and a need for some sleep.

New York to Toronto in 20 easy steps

First of all...New York was fantastic...but I have to save it for next time.

Let me tell you about the most complicated way possible to get from La Guardia airport to Toronto.

Step 1: Have your 6:30pm flight cancelled and receive notification around 2:15pm while in line to start the NBC studio tour.

Step 2: Immediately call Air Canada to confirm cancellation (which they do) and try to reschedule yourself (and your two friends) to get home that day.

Step 3: Receive an alternate routing home with a 5:30 flight to Montreal and a 9:30 flight to Toronto arriving at 11:00pm. Feel kinda crappy about getting home so late when you were hoping to have time to unpack and relax but figure it'll be ok to be a bit tired for work on Monday. Proceed with your tour.

Step 4: Rush out to the airport for the 5:30 flight thereby missing your planned excursion to pick up cupcakes before heading out of town.

Step 5: Arrive at the airport to find that the 5:30 flight to Montreal has also been cancelled and join the line of people trying to figure out a way to get home.

Step 6: Get rescheduled on a 7:55 flight to Montreal which moves your connection to 11:00pm and gets you into Toronto at midnight. Be thankful that using the mobile Air Canada services and getting notification early means that you were fast on the draw to get rescheduled through Montreal in the first place, unlike many others in the line who are being handed lists of local hotels.

Step 7: Decide screw it, since you've now got another 3 hours before your flight you'll take a cab back into Manhattan and pick up your damn cupcakes...which are absolutely fantastically delicious.

Step 8: Have your 7:55 flight get delayed until 8:35

Step 9: Have the flight get delayed until 8:55 and start worrying about making your 11:00 connection

Step 10: Have the flight get delayed until 9:25 and realize that there's now a snowball's chance in hell that you're getting to Toronto that night.

Step 11: Arrive in Montreal at 11:15 looking for attendent who was supposed to be waiting to rebook connecting flights for people as per announcement made en route. Find no one in the Airport from Air Canada because they all took off at 11:00.

Step 12: Book it to the Hilton while on hold with Air Canada to confirm seats on the 7:00am flight to Toronto.

Step 13: Spend 45 minutes on hold

Step 14: Confirm 7:00am flights for all three of us

Step 15: Sleep for almost 4 hours

Step 16: Get to airport to check in for 7:00am flight. Can't use kiosk to check in, deal with confusion about reissuing ticket (which is already an old fashioned carbon handwritten paper) to fly out that morning.

Step 17: Stop to grab some food with your two poor pregnant friends who need to eat something.

Step 18: Get to the gate having everyone already boarded and the sign already changed for the next departure to Winnipeg and the gate agents saying that there is no one else on the flight to Toronto that's about to pull away from the gate. Then they look at our boarding passes and realize that they had just took us off the passenger list because they assumed we made the connection the night before. Thankfully make our way on to the plane.

Step 19: Arrive in Toronto...pick up luggage (which makes it with duty free booze thankfully intact since it had to get checked after we missed the connection)...grab cab to head straight to work to arrive 15 minutes late for your 8:30am Monday meeting.

Step 20: Try to figure out how long you need to put in at the office before you can go home and crawl into bed.

Vacation(s) aftermath

So now what?? I've travelled from sea to ski in the past two weeks and now it's back to the real world with seemingly nothing else to look forward to.

Ah, but let's relive the memories shall we??

Ships & Dip III was truly fantastically fun. We arrived in Miami at about 1:00am on Saturday and checked into our airport motel (just couldn't justify spending the money to stay on the beach when we were heading out on a cruise). And while we had some thoughts of heading to the beach or doing some shopping on Saturday we ended up spending the day having cocktails around the pool and enjoying the sun. Am almost (almost) embarrassed to admit we ate both lunch and dinner in the hotel bar. But sticking around proved to be the first of many good decisions on the trip as we connected with Fin to get the shuttle schedule for the morning, got to say hello to Alan and Sean (of GBS) as they arrived and promptly copied our mojito order and reconnected with a bunch of people we had met on last year's cruise over appetizer dinners in the lounge.

Sunday's boarding was quick and uneventful. After strolling the ship and trying to get our bearings (trust me, this was much more difficult than it sounds, I ended up as the group navigator for the week and managed to get us pointed in the wrong direction only a couple of times) we got ourselves a beer and waited for our luggage to arrive. See, when you go on a cruise you tag your luggage and have to leave it with the porters as you arrive and then wait for it to be delivered to your cabin. It's like checking in at the aiport with the added anxiety of getting stuck on a ship with nothing to wear for the duration of your stay if your luggage goes astray. My little suitcase was there within about an hour and I was able to unpack and get organized pretty quickly. Mom's got dropped off sometime during the sail away concert so she could finally relax ;-). The mandatory muster drill (punchline: where's the ketchup) brings up thoughts of Titanic as you report to your station with your life jacket and hear about what would happen in the event of an actual on board emergency. And then we were off! 5 days of music and partying on the ocean.

I'm not sure I will never be able to enjoy a 'standard' cruise after the party that Sixthman puts on. In 5 days I think we saw 20 concerts and about 5 comedy sets, with full days in Grand Cayman and Jamaica in the middle there somewhere. I knew that the BNL and Great Big Sea shows would be great (and they were!) but all of the artists put on a great show. I enjoyed the smaller, more intimate sets by Jason Collett, Brian MacMillan, Joe Pisapia, Lori Cullen and Jason Plumb. And after missing them last year, I got to a Guster and Thinbuckle show. Mostly, it was just really cool to see really talented people jump up on stage and perform with each other spontaneously.

So to share a bit of the cruise, here are my two new fav GBS songs

Walk on the Moon...Thurs night Lido deck



Straight to Hell...Songwriters panel


And my other "new" find on the cruise was Boothby Graffoe who I managed to catch 1 1/2 times while on the boat. Funny, funny, comedian/singer/songwriter from the UK...and I'm not just saying that because we shared a seat on the shuttle back to the airport in Miami and I felt like I got my own personal 30 minute set ;-)



I've got to say, there's no way the John Mayercraft Carrier (which was getting ready to take off on the same boat on the day we got back) could have been half as much fun.

Mom and I also managed to make our way off the boat for a very fun excursion in Grand Cayman. We got to SeaDoo 4 miles out into the ocean to Stingray City, where we fed and held giant stingrays. Having never driven a personal watercraft on the ocean I was a bit unsure what to expect, only that it would likely be much different than taking off on our mostly calm lake. I think I got the hang of it after a while and developed a technique where I tried to ride through the waves like ski moguls but I also felt like I got a complimentary sea salt facial with the ride. The next day we spent a day on a beach in Jamaica drinking Red Stripe beer. And somewhere in all of that we managed to catch a few hours of sleep ;-).

We flew back into Toronto in the midst of a snowstorm, which was a reality slap in the face. Thankfully managed to get in with only a couple of hours delay. I feel like I'm tempting fate by even saying this but I've had nothing but good airline experiences recently.

And then I spent a whole 5 days back in the real world before heading out west for the weekend with some friends for what was supposed to be a ski outing. Not for me, of course, cause I may be the most inept person on the planet on a ski hill. My plan was to join them at Lake Louise, do some skating or just walking in the morning and spend the afternoon at the spa. Well, the best laid plans and all that...

Calgary/Canmore/Banff was cold this weekend. Seriously freeze your eyeballs cold.

Here's what Lake Louise can look like in the winter




Here's what it looked like when we were there

Not quite what we had planned :-). But we had a fun long weekend of relaxing, eating good food and drinking great wine. And at least managed to take the road trip to see Banff and Lake Louise...though I'll clearly have to go back and see it at it's best.

And that's what I've been up to for the last few weeks!

Come aboard...we're expecting you

It's vacation time people. As of tomorrow I'm leaving the snow and cold behind and heading south. Plans include, but are not limited to, seeing the Barenaked Ladies, Great Big Sea, Sarah Harmer, Harland Williams and others perform, visiting Stingray City, and having a number of umbrella drinks on board, in Grand Cayman, Jamaica and anywhere else we manage to find a bar ;-). Have a good week or so while I'm not around to keep up with the news on the interweb...