Barbados

The alarm went off last Monday at 5 am - I hopped out of bed, into the shower, and was just giddy. I woke Blondie up around 5:30 am, and we headed out at 6 am to catch our cab to JFK. To go to Barbados (in case I haven't said it enough). I had upgraded our tickets to premium seating because it had more room and Blondie was (is) still feeling like complete shit due to his pinched nerve. When we got to JFK, it turned out the upgrade also included "Fast Pass" which basically expressed us in front of everyone waiting in line to go through security.

Our flight took off right on time, and I slept most of the way - waking up to the most beautiful words in the world: "If you look out the windows to the left, you'll see Barbados".

Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Barbados is gorgeous. The water is incredible - crystal clear, bright blue - I've never seen anything like it. It looked like a painting. Our hotel was pretty nice - as soon as we walked in, rum punches were in our hands, and we sat overlooking the carribean while they got us checked in.

The hotel had 2 buildings - one was the spa building and one was the ocean building. The spa building was across the road from the ocean building, and it's where we ended up being. The spa building had the spa (duh), and the pool, and a bar. It was also only like 20 seconds from the ocean building, but it was weird having to cross a road everytime we wanted to go to the beach.

Our first day we just hung out at the pool - we literally changed immediately and booked it on down and into the pool. Tues and Thurs, we started the day off at the ocean in the morning, and then the pool in the afternoon. And on Wed, we took advantage of our complimentary spa passes and got a massage (Blondie) and facial (me) in the morning, before hanging out at the pool in the afternoon. We didn't do anything else - no touring, no snorkeling, no nothing. We ate almost exclusively seafood, drank a ton of booze, lazed on the beach/pool area, slept. That was it.

What I liked about our hotel: the complimentary booze in your room (you didn't even have to go to a bar to get a drink), the pool area was beautiful, the patio in the ocean building was incredible, they had drink service on the beach.
What I didn't like about our hotel: the 2 building setup, it was all-inclusive but with weird hours for dining, the bars weren't 24 hours, the beach vendors were invasive.

The water: I can't stress this enough - the water at Barbados is unlike any I've seen. You could see everything - it was like looking through glass. I would be in water to my neck and look down and still be able to see my toes. It was honestly my favorite part.

We headed back to NYC on Friday (after hitting up duty free for Barbados rum), left the 85 degree tropical weather and hit down at JFK to mid 40's. And woke up Saturday morning to a snowstorm. Yep, a raging snowstorm. In October. Less than 24 hours after we left Barbados. I drug Blondie to the grocery store where the checker asked me if I had fallen and hurt my face (because of how bad I'm burned). We spent Saturday just recuperating, watching a ton of TV, drinking some beer and rum, and taking it easy.

Today the sun is back, but it's still chilly. We did leave around noon to go buy some more beer, and then started to watch the Godfather trilogy. Around 4 pm, we decided we had to have pasta for dinner, which meant we had to have red wine for dinner. So I took advantage of our neighborhood and had our local wine store deliver 9 bottles of wine. We're stocked for awhile.

Plans for the week: work (BOO), Halloween, a friend from Texas lands on Thurs for the weekend.

Workout plans for the week: tomorrow starts my training for the half next March. I'm thinking also about buying some goggles and starting to use our pool 1-2 days a week for laps. I think that cardio would totally help my running, and would give my knees/legs a break.

Mostly right now, I want to get back into my eating right, working out plan so bad I can't stand it - I feel miserable, bloated and full all the time. I want to feel some hunger pains again. I want to feel my heart beating fast from a good run. It's time folks.

--K