Ouaté

Today was our first day in port! We stopped at New Caledonia, a French Colony. Mom and I had picked some excursions prior to departure, so we woke up early to go to a beach resort for lunch and a hang out. Apparently, James Cook discovered this island and named it Isle of Pines without ever actually visiting the land. And it's pretty evident why the name stuck, there are pine trees popping up through the vegetation everywhere, it's quite distinct! To get to the island we took a smaller boat from the cruise ship, a tender boat, which took about 15 minutes to get ashore. From shore we took a bus for about 30 minutes to the resort. The resort was lovely! I could see myself staying there for an extended period. It was expensive though... About $20 for a drink! Ridiculous. So of course I didn't drink aside from the free beer than came with lunch. We tried to go snorkeling while there but because it was low tide it was hard to get out deep enough so we decided to pass. Instead we sat by the pool, swam, and had a good time just relaxing. Mom even went for a massage! She says it was great. I didn't feel the desire and spent some time writing instead. We had lunch there, did some more swimming, and then went back to the ship.

I went back to my usual afternoon spot, the Crown and Kettle Tavern, where I'm becoming quite familiar with the staff. There's one bartender in particular remembers how I like my Bloody Mary's and makes them perfectly every time. Today he gave me a little heart in my straw wrapper ;) They really do go out of their way here to make sure that you're having a good time! I go to this spot with the intention of getting my blog posts done for the day but didn't have much success this time around. People kept coming by and asking what I was doing, being social and all of that jazz when I just wanted to do my writing in peace. But, I will take the compliments when they ask if I'm a professional photographer ;) Obviously I'm not, but I guess some of my photos have turned out all right! Even on the crappy camera that comes with the S3.

After trying to write, Mom and I decided to go and catch a show at 7 pm, the Circus Firemen they called themselves. Basically two brothers dressed as firemen preforming circus acts. They were quite funny! The comedy was almost better than the circus act to be honest. But, in any case it was well worth the time :) We had dinner afterwards and I went out for a drink following dinner but called it an early night and was in bed by 11.Read more