I so would like a nap right now

But sometime in the past few days, I decided I'm more witty when I'm sleepy. And so I'm going to try to see if I can be as witty here as I was in my head when we were flying home from ARUBA....

ARUBA ARUBA ARUBA!!!

Dude, we totally were just in Aruba. I have pictures to prove it.

And, naturally, we had an amazing time. Our resort, the Marriott Surf Club (Not to be confused with the Marriott. Or the Marriott Ocean Club. Which are more of hotels. We were in the time share portion of the resort), was GORGEOUS. Very well maintained. Very large. Very.....full of families. And small children. There was a largely disproportionate amount of time spent thinking "ahem, your child is 2. WHY on EARTH did you bring her to Aruba?" or "Dude, it's so 10 pm. Your 18 month old wants to SLEEP which is why he is being difficult and not listening to you. Not because he wants to browse the street vendors with you." I mean, c'mon people, REALLY???

I vowed several times to never bring kids that young, or maybe even kids at all, to a nice tropical vacation.

I will probably be one of those parents, however.

So yes. Lovely (and I do mean, incredibly beautiful) resort, with screaming kids everywhere. It was a toss up.

One of the pools at night. We also had a lazy river. We never used the lazy river though, because you had to provide your own floaties. On sale in the gift shop of course.
Up lit palm trees against the Sky-something tower. We were in the Lighthouse Tower. Two very large Towers of time share family filled fun. This wasn't even the hotel part of the monstrosity of the Marriott, however, only Surf Club residents could use the Surf Club pool. We even had wristbands for it. All the beaches were public. And a nice fine white sand. Ahhhhh...

I digress.
Here is me on the second night, I think, next to the pirate that greeted you at the Hadicurari fish restaurant. I had the Wahoo. It was delicious. John had a filet. Also tasty. He's not big on seafood.
We also sampled the local beer! John affectionately called it "Monkey Piss". He wasn't far off. They also had Amstel and Amstel Light, brewed in Curacao, and even more recently, Amstel *bright, which is only available in the ABCs (*Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) because they incorporate some local herb only available here. So the story goes anyway....
John, having lunch at one of the hotels eateries, drinking our Balashi beers, mainly because we paid $5 for them. Food was pricey in Aruba. We kind of missed the all inclusive of hotels we had stayed at in the past. The hotel had many restaurants, but they all kind of served the same food. It was odd. Soon, we started to walk down the beach past the Holiday Inn, and near the Hyatt and the Playa Linda to cut through their hotels and to reach the shopping plaza across the street for food. Still pricey, better selection.
Here, at Guida's (I think??? I am SO bad at remembering restaurant names, right now!!) this man is making a parmesan pasta dish by setting the inside of the cheese on fire. And then he stirs it around, then he adds pasta, then he scrapes more cheese off the wheel, then he twirls the pasta in to little pillows and serves up them up on plates. You have to have 2 or more people order this to get it. John and I wanted different things. So we watched as our neighbors ordered it. I had gnocchi and he had a rib-eye. It was tasty.
Awes.
We did not eat here, as we didn't hear good things. This place was downtown too. But I had to take a picture of the stretch VW Beetle and dinosaur on the roof. My camera lens is a little hazy because of the humidity and the fact we had just stepped out of the air conditioned cab.

It was hot down there. My oh my. Hot and humid. Usually, there was a breeze around so it felt ok. But apparently, when there is a hurricane out east (such as Earl), it sucks up the trade winds, and makes things a bit more stiffling in the South Caribbean. Who knew? (I mean, besides all the locals?)

Shopping downtown. Not the shopping plaza we frequented for dinners - because that was in walking distance. Downtown was an $11 cab ride away. But we bought some good stuff here. Paintings, and wood sculpture, and rum cake.

Mmmmm, rum cake!
And the last night...we went on a dinner/sunset cruise on a fairly good sized catamaran with 34 other people. It was kinda pricey, but had the grand prize...the open bar. We had 4 glasses of champagne before dinner.

Did I mention champagne gets John drunk very quickly? Oh BOY! At the end of the night, the wait staff was putting down rum and cokes faster than we could drink them. It was a recipe for disaster, but I must have done something right, because we both survived. And even checked out on time the next day.
Awes. The newlyweds. I didn't think I got that much sun, but in this picture I look awfully dark. And my hair, due to the winds (when they were blowing) and the humidity, was in a perma-ponytail all week. The dress is nice though. A gift from John that he picked up in Hawaii when he was travelling with the General back in May.
Watching the sunset.

Notice how blue the water is? I LOVE Caribbean waters!! Crystal clear and very freakin blue.

Caribbean sunset....

there was another picture in here too, but I have decided not to post it. It was of another couple we befriended on the boat. We got to talking and they are American, but live in Aruba, and will be for another few years. He's a US Customs officer. She's a teacher turned stay at home mom. They were very nice, but I didn't want to share too much info about them. Because they were also fun. He was drinking rum and cokes too, you see. He was as happy as my drunk John here. And while it's not illegal for him to have drinks, or have a good time, I didn't want to ID him, basically. I wouldn't want other people posting pics of me on their blog without permission after all. As for me and John, we were on vacation. *He* had to be at work the next day.

In Aruba, you go through Aruban customs first, then you go through US Customs, while technically still in Aruba. It's like a mini territory or embassy or something. You walk past a sign and it says "Welcome to the United States!" after you just cleared the exit immigration for Aruba. It's kind of odd, but worked out well, and we didn't have to go through customs in Atlanta. They have separated their airport departures by US flights, and non-US flights. Anyway, we saw our new friend the next day, working! He must felt as rough as we did, but he hid it well. He wasn't our officer either. And I wasn't about to shout "YO! Dude! You feeling ok?? Man, we were so hammered!!!"

I'm just trying to be professional. ;)

So, while walking back on the beach, after successfully deboarding the boat without falling into the ocean, we come across this little dance show, which I am sure is culturally significant somehow. But we were drunk. And we stopped to watch just for a little while. Because it wasn't our hotel putting it on. And when I turned back around, I saw this.
It was clearly time to go back and go to bed. We were even supposed to go to Bavaria (a Bavarian restaurant. shocking, I know), to meet up with our new friends, which was within walking distance, but we just weren't going to make it that far.
One more before we go!
This is the site that we woke to. So pretty. So Blue. I was kind of sad to leave Aruba, but happy to get home.
And this was such a nice treat too. We had flown over some island...I don't which one. But this is some shallow water of the ocean at about 35,000 feet. (the white stuff being clouds) And there are like sand dunes down there. They were very cool looking. About 30 minutes later when I looked down, all I saw was deep blue.

Overall, a great vacation. I have an entirely different post about the diving. Because it was pretty cool as well. I just hope I get around to posting it. And it gave us something to do and somewhere to go everyday.

Because our neighbors at the Marriott were annoying. We could smell what they were cooking, or had for take out, we could hear when they were punishing their kids, and we could hear when their kids were watching Spongebob. Aside from the other gorgeousness of the resort, I probably wouldn't recommend it. While, I got a nice little peppermint infused towel to welcome me to Aruba while standing in a huge line waiting to check in, the niceties ended there. We mentioned we were on our honeymoon. (Aruba tries to market heavily to honeymooners and promises gifites upon arrival at participating hotels.) We got "Congratulations." Apparently time share owners don't get that deal. We also had to pay for room cleanings!! We didn't. We made our own bed and were careful not to soil more than the 2 towels each we received upon check in. The charges started at 13,50 florin and went up to 33,50 florin. Per day. They charged us $1 per local call. (we made 2 to the dive shop.)

All in all, maybe try the hotel side. My experience was to never own a time share with them. I just felt nickel and dimed the entire time. And constantly like I was being sold on something.

However....the stay was free. So can I really complain? No. But it's an honest review for my four readers! :D

And I still have stories about the Buccaneer restaurant, the skinny dipping chicas on the beach our first night there, the singing waiter, the singing cab driver, the other couple on the dinner cruise boat who were recently married as well..... The girl looked like Mila Kunis. (from That 70s Show and the voice of "Meg" on Family Guy. I think she was also in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall") She also looked like Katie Holmes a little bit too. And the water show at the shopping center - like a miniature version of the Bellagio show. And I'm saying it was like 1/10th that size. But it was pretty. And the Razz-berry mud slides. It was more of a dessert than a drink and it was SO tasty!

But alas, they may have to wait for another day!