If you know the enemy but not yourself, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat….

Such was the case with anatomy.

The exam did not go well.

Gouyave

For the uninitiated, Gouyave is a fishing town in Grenada popular with SGU students because of Fish Friday. Fish Friday, as its name suggests, is when most of the fishmongers and restaurateurs in the area get together and sell their stuff. It’s a lot of fun because there’s a huge crowd there, tons of food, music, and dancing. Getting there, however, is a different story.

Gouyave is accessible in two ways: by bus or by ferry. The bus is the more sensible route because it’s a bus – sit for an hour and a half and get there when you get there. The ferry is a different story: think bunch of stressed-out medical students meets lots of cheap and freely-flowing alcohol. Yeah….

So the first thing that had me a little apprehensive about this trip was that the ferry picked us up from the beach. Not from a dock, mind you, but off the beach itself. The boat literally came up to the shoreline, dropped a ladder, and my fellow CFP-mates and I had a grand old time wading through the water trying to get on a gently-rocking boat without getting cracked in the head by the crossbar that was in front of the ladder. The ladies met this with some resistance because a lot of them had spent a fair amount of time getting ready and were dressed nicely…. No matter though – when you’re on an island water and sand are a fact of life.

the trip to the island was supposed to take an hour. It didn’t (TIG)…. Apparently about three hundred yards away from the drop-off site (the jury’s still out on this) one of the boat’s engines decided to quit, so we spent an extra hour drifting. It wasn’t all that bad, because the alcohol was still flowing – although personally I was getting kind of sick of the boat by that point and I would have happily enjoyed that extra hour on land instead.

The boat drop-off was another adventure because, like the pickup, we weren’t dropped off on a dock but on a beach instead. Kinda hard to get out of a rocking boat in the pitch black but we all managed, somehow.

My CFP-mates and I spent two hours at Fish Friday, sampling all sorts of local cuisine which was all extremely cheap and incredibly tasty (hell, all the fish was fresh caught!), enjoying the music and dancing and just enjoying the vibe. Leaving the island was another experience in itself. Alex (a friend of mine) and I took the lead on rounding everyone up at 9:45, when we had a 15-minute walk back to the boat drop and they told us that “We’re leaving at 10, with or without you.” The problem with this is that we didn’t know that several people had elected to take the bus back so at about 9:50 we’re running back in to Gouyave trying to find everyone who I didn’t see until we finally realize “Fuck, they took the bus!” So Alex and I execute this Black Hawk Down-style (vis a vis the Pakistani Stadium scene of the movie) sprint to the docks, board the boat, and head home.

Leave no man behind, man.

 

 

Mexico Trip (Days 5+6)

I’m writing this a couple of days late so bear with me. Esssentially, day five of our vacation was a trip to the Islas Mujeres. Pretty relaxing, considering that the day before we’d traveled 3 hours to Chichen Itza and back. We basically hired a cabbie to take us around the island and see what the island had to offer, then went back to our hotel.

Day six was heading back to the States. Traveling always sucks, and this was no different. We ended up getting delayed for about an hour and a half and consequently got home much later than we intended. I felt sorry for my father, who had to go to work on less than three hours of sleep.

Mexico Trip (Day 4) – Chichen Itza

The trip to Chichen Itza made for a very long day. Waking up at 6AM after staying up till past midnight the night before and staying up till 4AM the night before the night before is difficult. Thankfully, I managed. My little brother, surprisingly, also got up early enough (6:30 AM) to ensure everything ran smoothly, and my little bro is someone who hates mornings. Then again, he did get up early enough on the 24^th to make our trip to the airport go smoothly, so he deserves credit…

 

Breakfast at 7AM in the hotel restaurant, and then a little bit of finagling on my dad’s part because apparently we’d booked the Chichen Itza tour but hadn’t paid for it? Or something? The matter was quickly resolved though, and my family and I were herded onto our tour bus.

 

Our tour bus didn’t consist of just people from our hotel but picked up a few other people. I wound up sitting next to this family of four from the Westin hotel, a mother and her three kids, and we passed the three hour bus ride to the ruins quite nicely with conversation. I made the mistake of initially jumping to the conclusion that she was divorced, because I didn’t see her husband there, but I found out on the return journey that her husband was actually in England visiting family who he hadn’t seen in almost two decades (which is reason enough to go). Her three kids were David, John, and Bella, ages 8, 10 and 14, and Bella was surprisingly mature for her age and held conversation quite well (and looked older than 14 too). I found out that the mother, Lisa, was from California and that she and her husband were both lawyers (so a really high-powered family). Bella got plenty of ribbing from me about Twilight (Edward + Bella + sparkly vampires, for the uninitiated), but she took the jokes well and thankfully agreed with me that vampires don’t sparkle. I also recommended that she read Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, the ORIGINAL) for a taste of what vampires are really like. She and Lisa and I talked about virtually everything as well: Lisa gave me the standard synopsis of her life and career and I did the same. David and John spent the whole time sleeping. Thankfully the conversation made the trip to Chichen Itza go by quickly.

 

Everyone on the bus was also introduced to our guide, Santos. This guy was genuine: pure-blooded Mayan and full of pride in his heritage, earnestly attempting to help his people in whatever way he could by trying to “sell” Chichen Itza. I give the guy more credits because English was his third language (first tongue Mayan, second tongue Spanish), and despite the language barriers he spoke it really well. The bus ride there he bombarded us with almost every single fact it’s possible to know about the Mayans and Chichen Itza, as well as a stop to a Cenote we made along the way (more on that later). The synopsized version of what he told us: one, Mayans were totally dependent on rain because the Yucatan peninsula has no rivers. Consequently, virtually every single temple erected had something to do with Kukulcan, the principal god in the Mayan religion and the deity the Mayans believed helped in supplying rain. Two, the Mayans had a knack for noticing all sorts of patterns in the natural world and held numerology in high regard. I’m not sure if the interpretation of these patterns is genuine or not, but it’s interesting all the same. He gave us a lot of facts but the only ones I can remember is that the number 7 is sacred and that each side of Chichen Itza has 91 steps. 91 * 4 = 364 + the base of the temple = 365. Three, the Mayans also considered the sun and moon sacred, and the orientation of the buildings in Chichen Itza has a lot to do with the rising and setting of the sun. For instance, they Mayans believe that when the sun sets it carries spirits to the heavens, so the human sacrifices everyone is familiar with took place to the west where the Mayans believed that the souls of the dead would be carried to the heavens by the sun and guarded by the moon.

 

I must confess: at points during the bus ride I wished that Santos would shut up and let us go along in peace, but at the same time he was given a job to do and put his heart and soul into it.

 

On the way to Chichen Itza we made a couple of stops. The first stop was at a Cenote. For those unfamiliar with the term, one can’t say that “we’re going to The Cenote” because “Cenote” means “cave” in Spanish, so there is no single “capital-C” cenote. This cenote, like most on the Yucatan Peninsula, was made of limestone and this was beneficial because it functioned as a natural filter/aquifer for the Mayans (having a giant hole in the top also helped, ha ha). I wanted to go swimming in the cenote but time constraints prevented that as we were only there for 30 minutes. At least I stuck my feet in the water, and yes, it was freakishly cold.

 

So we arrive at Chichen Itza and Santos proceeds to show us every small detail about the place. He did his job well, yes, but there was a ton of walking involved. My father hated this part on account of his bad knees. Lots of little details – the similarity of the Mayans to Chinese people, how the principal deity has a beard when Mayans don’t, the fact that some of the carvings look like Native Americans when there were obviously no Native Americans in Mexico. Just a whole lot of odd and amazing details – such as how the Mayans modeled building arches off of the human foot. Perfectly logical: if my feet bear my weight, why don’t I stack a bunch of similar foot-like shapes together and build a self-supporting arch?

 

Seeing Chichen Itza (the temple) itself was also pretty cool. Although there’s not too much that can be said: it is just a building, after all, which unfortunately no one is allowed to enter.

 

The two really cool things about the place: one, the ball court where they would sacrifice the winners in order to have a good harvest. It sounds surprising to us Westerners, with our notions of fearing death, but when you consider that for the Mayan people a death like this was considered venerable, it makes perfect sense. When you also consider that the Mayans used blood as a fertilizer, it’s totally logical that you’d want to sacrifice the best people you’ve got: give the land the best and the odds are you’ll probably get the best possible harvest in return. Two, the acoustics: the priest and the king would sit at opposite ends of the ball court and needed some way to communicate so the Mayans figured out a way to make a whispering gallery – well, not really a whispering gallery because you’d have to shout to be heard, but the concept is the same: speak (most likely yell) at one end of the ball court and be heard at the other. There are several other points around the court where if you make noise in one place the echo is reflected back to you. What amazes me is that the Mayans figured out how to make the echoes so focused: you have to be in one precise spot and you’ll only hear the echo in that one spot and nowhere else. If you consider that the only way to accomplish such a feat with modern technology is to shell out a ton of money for very expensive unidirectional speakers, it’s amazing that the Mayans accomplished this with only a bunch of stones. I guess we can’t forget the old ways.

 

Oh yeah, I bought a hand-carved jaguar head off a street vendor at Chichen Itza. I feel bad for these people because they hang around all day trying to make a buck and virtually no one buys anything because the tour guides all steer the business towards their affiliates by demeaning these people. The head is actually very well made, and I managed to get it for cheap.

 

The trip back to the hotel was three hours of sleepy, inky blackness on a long, unwinding ribbon of road.

Mexico Trip (Day/Night 2+3)

First off, a couple of complaints: one, the internet here sucks balls: long story short, the hotel, despite being “all-inclusive” wants me to fork over an additional $16/day for wireless internet access. I’m not paying $16 to be able to check my email and update this blog, two tasks which would take me all of five minutes.

Second, on timeshares: timeshares also suck balls. When we landed in Cancun International Airport we were immediately accosted by a “federal employee” (we didn’t know at the time she was affiliated with the Cancun Palace Hotel) telling us that if we attended some information session on timeshares at the Cancun Palace they would provide us with cut-rate tickets on all the popular tourist attractions here. My family being totally green to Cancun went for the deal, in the process put down $340. We proceeded to waste half of yesterday listening to some fucking presentation about how great the timeshare at the Cancun Palace is and at the end these fuckers seriously expected us to part with $80,000? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Only the world’s biggest dumbass would let go of 80 G’s like that…. Oddly enough, word in the wings is that today three people at our hotel actually did this! To add further injury to insult, we also had to suffer through another one of these timeshare lectures from the hotel we are currently staying at! Granted, it killed off this morning, but at least we lucked out with reservations for the tours and activities we wanted to do at cut rates (although in all honesty, it really doesn’t matter – we’ve already spent so much money for the hotel and cab fares that any savings we get on these activities is comparable to pocket change).

I just feel bad for my parents – they were the ones who had to suffer through all this shit. Fuck you, Mexican government, fuck you.

OK. Deep breath…

The night of the 25^th was excellent by comparison: I took the Random Indian Group’s (RIG’s) offer: the RIG and I visited the Coco Bongo. It’s the biggest, baddest club in Cancun, and it’s worth every penny. A $50 USD cover charge gets you an open bar and floor admission to 1,000 drunken, cheering, happy people. It’s also worth mentioning that the Coco Bongo is a bit of a unique concept as far as clubs go: it’s not only your typical club with a DJ and dancing, but also a live show in which they intersperse live acrobatics and choreographed comedy/dance routines among the bouts of free dancing. The routines are simply excellent and in and of themselves are worth the price of admission. Last night, for instance, we had actors play diverse parts like Michael Jackson, Batman and the Joker, Spider Man and the Goblin, Moulin Rouge, The Mask, and Jack Sparrow! The show ran from 11 PM till about 2 AM, and at around 2 AM a DJ took over playing hip-hop, house, trance, and a lot of old top 40 songs which, for some reason I can’t quite figure out, are all the rage here. The RIG and I stayed at the Coco Bongo from midnight until 3:30 AM, got home at 4 AM, and I for some reason was awake at 7 this morning.

A couple of standout moments from our visit to the Coco Bongo include the fact that I was macking on all the ladies with my totally badass Spanish skillz (OK – my Spanish is enough to get by, but all I was hearing last night from the ladies was “Es estadounidense y habla espanol muy bien! Qu  precioso!” – “He’s American and speaks Spanish so well! How precious!”) I had to fight off a few pretty heavy come-ons, although I did oblige one lady to dancing for the night, which was hilarious because she barely spoke any English and my Spanish was good enough to just barely keep pace. No matter, we still had a good time. And, if my girlfriend is reading this, NOTHING HAPPENED, I SWEAR. Met on friendly terms, left on friendly terms. She was good because she got the RIG loosen up some and get dancing (a few shots certainly helped, too).

On a side note: about those shots… The Coco Bongo has these girls who come around and offer you these extra-amped-up Hpnotiq shots (incredibly potent). When you’ve got a bunch of testosterone floating around, it’s hard to say no, and you do get pushed into it (hell, I did). The girls got it easy: $5 a shot, all they have to do is look pretty and flirt a little bit, and there you go.

The other standout moment was when the RIG started a waay-too-serious conversation with a pimp. All manner of hilarity ensued as I and one other person of the RIG were trying to convince the other very-drunk members of the RIG to give it up and head back to the hotel but they were initially having none of it. Thankfully, reason finally prevailed (again, to my girlfriend – NOTHING HAPPENED). And in the interest of full disclosure: Yes, Kelly, I remember your words well. I was well-behaved *hands halo*. A huge thank-you, also, to the RIG for letting me tag along.

Which leads us to this morning and the fucking timewaste of the timeshare. Fuck you, Villa del Palmar, fuck you.

This afternoon was also excellent. My family and I visited a local aquarium, which doesn’t sound too exciting or worthwhile in itself until you throw in the fact that we took the opportunity to swim with dolphins, which is something that my sister so desperately wanted to do. The dolphin swim was a lot of fun, although in our case it was less of a “swim” and more of an “interaction”. Briefly, the weather here right now is fucking cold due to the snowstorm raging up North currently, and so the water is also fucking cold. Consequently, we figured that the less time we spent in the water, the better. Also, the price for actually swimming with the dolphins was incredibly steep. All you have to know is that when you get to pet a 500 pound animal up close, it’s amazing.

We spent the rest of today hanging around the mall. The drive back to the hotel was a trip because we got a flat tire along the way. The hilarious part is that the spot in which we pulled over was right in front of these two lovebirds. I still feel kinda bad for ruining their moment.

Tomorrow, a tour of Chichen Itza, which I’ve been looking forward to. Because I have to leave wickedly early tomorrow morning, I bid you good night.

Mexico Trip Night 1 (of 6)

Let’s just say a certain completely wild happening tonight prompts this entry. Basically, we ran into the other Indian contingent staying at the resort with us. My parents, the inquisitive types that they are, just had to strike up a conversation over dinner. Mind you that this lot of Indians were kids all probably a little bit older than me, and all completely hammered out of their minds. Fun times as we all (well, everyone in my family except my younger siblings) did tequila shots in front of a very miffed waitstaff. Never mind that this dinner was supposed to be a Christmas dinner done in a very traditional Mexican style and here these nutjobs are fucking with the whole concept! Oh well… Great laughs had by all. The hilarious part is that I now have a semi-open invitation to tag along with them if they decide to hit a few nightclubs one night. I’m not sure if I will take this offer, as… yeah… they’re crazy.

The dinner, by the way, was excellent. I was kind of pissed at my siblings for not eating a lot of it, and there was one course that no one in my family could figure out how to eat (if someone can forward me a tutorial for how to eat shrimps that have not been peeled and still have the heads on, I’d be forever grateful)

And as promised, pictures:

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Mexico Trip, Day 1 (of 6)

Getting Here:

Getting to Mexico was trying: I started this morning at 3:30 AM. Given that I went to bed at 12:30 AM, three hours of sleep does not make one a happy camper. A hastily downed cup of coffee didn’t really help to wake me up either. What did facilitate my morning, though, was taking a shower the night before. So I get up, then my parents get up, I go downstairs and slug my cup of coffee, and I’m then promptly mandated to start hauling suitcases downstairs and into the car. Needless to say, when it’s 4 AM and you’re hauling suitcases, you’re none too happy. So bitching and moaning, I complied.

Our family was loaded into the car by 5 AM. We hit a bit of a snag in this because my idiot brother took far too long in the shower. For reasons which as are of yet unclear to me he routinely spends 45 minutes in the shower when 15 should suffice. So Mom starts bitching, as she often does, and finally gets this kid out of the shower and dressed. I guess what bothers me about all of this is that he’s 17 and he acts like a 3 year old – Mom and Dad need to constantly remind him of things to be done, such as waking up and exiting the shower.

At precisely 5:03 AM, everyone was loaded into the car and we were headed to the airport. The airport is a 45 minute drive from my house, and thanks to my dad driving I was afforded an opportunity to nod off to sleep for a little while.

The airport was… well, like airports are now. Bags checked no problem, and then we headed for that damn security line. I’d heard, as most people have, about the various “violations” the TSA is now allowed to perform in the name of “flight security”, but my family got lucky. The only ingratitude we all had to suffer through was those “porno scanners”. I guess there isn’t much you can do or much you can really think about or feel when you’re standing there like a convict with your hands above your head.

We didn’t have a direct flight to Cancun, as we had to connect in Fort Lauderdale, but we were lucky in that it was through the same airline. This fact led to a little bit of an incident on my part, which for your entertainment I will recount here.

I get off the plane and head for the baggage claim. Mind you, I was sitting in the very front of the plane while my parents were sitting in the very back. I argued with myself for a while whether or not to go and get the bags… and following through on this thought was the dumbest mistake of my life. In essence, I exited the gate area, thinking I would go and get the bags in order to re-check them for the next flight, when I get a call from my Dad asking where the hell I was. I tell him “outside the gate.” All matter of hilarity ensuses as it was 11 AM and our flight was in 20 minutes…. He had to run from where he was sitting, hand my ticket and passport to a TSA agent who then handed it to me (thank you, DMZ!) and then I had to GO THROUGH SECURITY AGAIN! By the time all of this was done, it was 11:10 AM and I get out of the security line, belt and shoes and coat and other stuff removed, Mom’s standing there, telling me to hurry, so I run to the plane and realize that I LEFT MY LAPTOP AT THE TSA CHECKPOINT! So I had to run back and grab it and then run all the way back to the plane. Thankfully, no one was too pissed off at me.

Our arrival in Cancun was, thankfully, less eventful, and we made it to our hotel with virtually no problems. The hotel is beautiful – I will post pictures when I get a more reliable connection.

And yes, I’m exhausted (so I ask please pardon any incoherence in the above writing). I should go take another nap.