December 12, 2011

Barbados vacation Part 2 the good and the not so good!

The weather in Virginia since returning from Barbados has been cool to cold to say the least; you know where I'd rather be right? Writing about Barbados is fun, being in Barbados...more fun.

Here's a bit of what I thought about our vacation experience.

The Food:
I found the food at the Almond resort to be good. Breakfast and lunch were buffet and dinner was off the menu, there were three restaurants on the resort but I suspect it all came from the same kitchen. There was mainly Caribbean fare, there was fish and lamb, chicken and lots of curry and sweet potatoes.I had lots of fun ordering dinner each night choosing all the things I'd never heard of or couldn't pronounce. To be honest I liked it all, really I did! And who can complain when they bring lunch to you by doing an occasional barbecue on the beach. And there was the rum and the beer!  It was just to much of the same type food over and over again that kind of got to me after a number of days. And that number would be four!!


By the forth day we were craving a little variety soooo, we did what any self respecting foodie would do. Ran to the Italian place to hang out with Luigi at his Italian Restaurant; it was across the street from the resort. I was dying for some pasta; really my craving was bad. Luigi even made me two different kinds of pasta when he saw I was having difficulty making a choice! I inhaled that pasta, ate desert, had espresso and even had some grappa, it was heaven!



The Clocks:
There weren't any clocks on the resort, nor were there any in our room. Now call me crazy but if I have to be at dinner for a reservation, and it is required then why no clocks? I now have $250.00 in roaming charges on my cell phone bill because I kept on checking the darn phone so we wouldn't be late for dinner every night. Which then led to our shopping trip to buy the turtle clock and our encounter with the Aloe Vera guy! (l'll explain about him next)




St Lawrence Gap:
This is an area outside the resort which I had imagined was a beautiful area filled with shops, restaurants, clubs a casino or two. When I researched it on line I saw this stretch along the beach that was touted as an area tourists want to visit. So here's me, the foolish American thinking it's like Port Jeff in NY or maybe even like Duck NC; a quaint area to stroll in and out the shops. Yeh sure! What we got was the creepy Aloe Vera guy who spotted the dumb scar on the back of my leg and hounded us every time he saw us walk up that dumb street, trying to sell me Aloe Vera for my healing.  And the Gap was seedy in my opinion to say the least, but we did visit the Casino there.


The Casino:
It was about the size of a bathroom stall in a Trump Casino. One neon sign in the window said "Slot Machine" so unbelievable to me that I actually went back to the resort to confirm that it was a legitimate casino. The perimeter of the room had an assortment of poker machines and slot machines maybe 18 in all. I thought to myself I can't believe they call this place a Casino. Then I heard a ringing in my head! Mr lucky, my husband won $1,200.00 Barbados that's $600.00 American in the slots, somehow then that little casino didn't seem so bad after all! We took our winnings and left. You got it Mr Aloe Vera guy was waiting outside wanting to sell us his Aloe and he wanted beer money too!

The Staff and The Other Tourists:
My favorite staff personnel was our housekeeper/maid, she was adorable and liked to chat. Honestly maybe it had it little to do with the fact she put the most fabulous fresh smelling sheets on our big and comfortable bed every day! All the other staff were very nice, but it seemed to me that the wait staff at the restaurants might have been slightly understaffed, and sometimes the bar was out of supplies and under stocked.

I have some observations about the other tourists too. British men are very friendly, more friendly then most other men. Canadian men love to talk about sports especially hockey. We met a German man who could barely speak English but loved to laugh, had a infectious smile and enjoyed beer.  And  not that I'm prejudiced  (my grandmothers were Irish off the boat ) Irish woman are very lovely and like to chat and the older Irish ladies I met also liked to tell jokes too!

Canadian women ROCK!! We met two younger both coincidentally from Toronto (in early 30's ) traveling alone....how cool is that? I have always fantasized about that, going someplace alone! I was green with envy.

Shopping: 
One day when rain was the full day forecast we took a taxi to Bridgetown to shop for things to bring home for our loved ones. Duty free is pretty neat, we purchased perfume, rum, Tommy Hilfiger clothes and liquor for a fraction of what we would pay here. Then we went to some of the stores that line Broad Street and the discount markets that line Swan Street. We literally had to buy and extra piece of carry on luggage to get all our stuff home.



Entertainment: 
The resort had a lot of different activities that you could sign up for(for a fee), tours of the island, of churches and so on. We didn't do any of these, but we did sign up for one thing and that was for transportation to go to Oisten's Fish Fry.All the locals open up these shacks and tents and cook local food on Friday night and it's a chance for the tourist to mingle with them. They have a big stage where they play music and you can dance and socialize. There are tents set up in one section where local crafts people show and sell their wares. I could easily say this was our favorite thing that we did while we were here. We strolled up and down endless rows of food, crafts, art and the like listening to the music sipping cold beer soaking in the aromas of freshly cooked local food and the local vibe.


This place was so cool, I loved loved loved it.

I hope you've enjoyed hearing about our vacation.

2 comments:

  1. That was really interesting! The thing about them wanting you to be on time, but yet having no clocks in the room was crazy!

    And that persistent sales guy would have gotten on my last nerve too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Liz, I think we could safely replace "sales guy" with "street person" and be accurate in our description of Mr Aloe Vera.

    The concierge at the restaurant told us one day when we were over an hour late for dinner, "hey we have to feed you anyway!" I felt bad regardless...Then we got the turtle clock, ugly isn't it?

    ReplyDelete

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