Sorry that I didn't blog yesterday; we were supposed to go to Great Stirrup Cay and swim with pigs, but the wind was so strong that it wasn't safe to send the tenders out to the ship, so we just had another day at sea. Those aren't too interesting for you readers to hear about, I suppose, although they are very fun to experience. Travalon and I spent some time lounging in a hot tub, then we played some trivia games, and in the evening we listened to a band playing Earth, Wind and Fire and other soul and disco hits. In the evening we docked in Nassau, so Travalon and I got to go ashore and explore. There were a lot of loud tourists at Señor Frog, but we found a quiet bar patronized by natives where we had the local beer, Kalik. It is very tasty!
Today we took a boat tour of the Nassau harbor, then we took a bus tour of the city. For some reason it stopped at the Atlantis, a big soulless resort that we didn't find too interesting until we found a pool full of baby sea turtles. Also, the staircase down to that was made of stone full of fossils. After that we found yet another place off to the side that was patronized by natives rather than tourists, called Captain Vinny's, where we had conch fritters and cracked conch, which was delicious. A conch is some kind of big mollusk, and they eat it prepared all sorts of ways and carve the shells into jewelry; Travalon bought me a necklace and earrings of conch shell carved into sea shells. For some reason it is pronounced "conk," despite the way it is spelled. Then we went to some shops to get free trinkets, and at the Straw Market Travalon found a T-shirt that says "Kalik Beer." For some reason he could not find one with a map of the Bahamas on it. The other big thing to eat in the Bahamas is a dessert called guava duff, and we found a stand that sold it, so I got to try that too. So good!
This first picture is from last night - we got some sort of puppy dog for a towel animal!
Here is a shot of the band playing Earth, Wind and Fire at our favorite bar in the ship. Right now they are doing karaoke up there, but I am skipping it to blog.
Here is a shot from our boat tour of the pastel buildings in Nassau.
This is one of the baby turtles that was at the Atlantis.
And this is the floor made of stone full of fossils.
Here is a shot of the little back alley where Captain Vinny's is. If you go to Nassau, eat there. Don't even bother with Señor Frog - it's just loud and full of tourists.
The Nassau harbor is just full of boats! The closest one might be the yacht we found out was owned by Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team.
This is a shot of the Bahamian Parliament building, which might be the closest thing to a Capitol building that they have:
More pastel buildings! And I love the architecture. Look at the pink building with all the arches.
We wanted to have lunch at this bar out in the water, but they didn't have conch fritters, and Travalon said you really shouldn't go to the Bahamas without trying conch fritters. He is right about that!
Lighthouse in Nassau's harbor.
In this shot you can see the lighthouse in the foreground, the ginormous Atlantis resort on the left side of the photo, and where the cruise ships dock on the righthand side. There were five of them there! I took a shot of that too, but it's not that exciting.
You can kind of see my seashell earrings and conch necklace in this shot, as well as the free bamboo lei I got at one of the shops. I also got a free conch charm and a free butterfly necklace. (I thought it was supposed to be a flamingo necklace, but how can you complain about something that's free?)
As we were pulling out of the harbor, we saw this rainbow!
When I walked to another part of the ship, the rainbow looked like it was going right into the sea next to us!
After we had sailed away, Travalon took lots of cool photos of the sunset and a passing sailboat with his really good camera. I will try to post those at some point. Also, because we had participated in so many games during our days at sea, we got a prize: a Norwegian Cruises pen. Then when I came back to the room just now, I found this... polar bear?
Famous Hat
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