Bahamas day one: Jan 7th, 2011.

So it’s the morning of my first full day in Nassau. I got in at about 5:30 last night, and Ben (an SAS kid from Montana) was waiting for me at the airport. We stayed there for about an hour to wait for the other guy we are staying with, Tom. When he came through the gate, he was wearing a SAS hat. This is such a good idea! Everywhere we go, we see college-aged kids and wonder if they are doing SAS or not. If we walk around with Tom though, everyone knows we are doing it! So I got literally no sleep last night... I hate sleeping in a new place, but I'll get used to it. When we got to the hotel, we met up with a few other SAS kids, Bruno and Kayla, and Tom’s (non SAS) friend Alex. We put all our luggage in out tiny room, and walked around the city trying to find a place to eat. It was kind of fun walking around not knowing where we were going... we just looked for bright lights and walked towards them. The locals are so friendly here! This guy Matthew took us under his wing and walked us to all his favorite restaurants and told us what was good and what wasn’t. We ended up walking in circles, and finally decided on eating at this place called “Goldie’s.” They have “Barracuda” on the menu, and Matthew said to “eat at your own risk, man” He told us that some kinds are poisonous, but they are the sweetest fish in the sea, so you have to take your chance and try it anyway. Bruno, Tom, and Alex were going to try it, but they were all out. We ended up all getting fried snapper, but mine was the only one that had the head cut off. We had this awesome waitress that taught us how to eat the fish head, and everyone pretty much devoured the whole thing, eyeballs and all! I don’t think I’ve ever even eaten fish, I’m not going to eat the head on my first try! The fish was actually really good, but I wasn’t too hungry. We walked around some more after dinner and came back to the room by like 9:30 and talked until 1 and went to sleep. So far, I love the friends I’m making! The boys are all really nice, and Kayla is so fun! Bruno is absolutely hilarious. He is from Brazil, so he doesn’t speak perfect English and has a very strong accent. He always says “Bruno likes this” and the entire group of us just laugh. Actually, pretty much whatever he says is hilarious and he has us almost crying with laughter. It’s 8:30 in the morning, and Tom and I are the only ones awake. We’re about to go wake the others up so they don’t miss the free breakfast in the hotel, and then we are going to try and find some sort of grocery store to buy bread and pb and j... food here is really expensive, but everyone serves the exact same thing... you just have to try and find the cheapest place. All the restaurants have the prices outside on big menu boards... but once you are inside and get the real menu the price is jacked up. I’ll try to keep this blog up as much as possible, but internet on the ship is limited. I think I’m going to write out a bunch of blog posts on word, and then post them all at the same time. Maybe country by country? For now though, here’s my first post!

Ben eating a fish head

"Bruno liiiikes thiiiisss"

ps. I left my little camera at home. Mom and Dad are bringing it out when they get here on Monday, but for now, my phone will have to do! haha