Out at Crobar with Carlee Last Night :)

Carlee and I in the Yukon River, AK

AK

Carlee comes tomorrow!!! Yay for visitors from Alaska...especially those I haven't seen since graduation :)

Gold Rock Beach

Annie's and My Hut

Mangrove Swamp

Grand Bahama Island

Last night here in Lucaya Port, Grand Bahama Island. We've been staying at a mini-resort where most of the activity seems to be anyways. After arriving late on Monday night, we went for a walk around the marketplace, where the taxi driver had said we could find music and dancing till late in the night. What we found turned out to be more like an awkward high school dance with cheap drinks. Since then we've spent most of our time on the beach, by the pool or exploring. Yesterday we drove out to Gold Rock Beach, which is in the middle of Lucayan National Park. You have to hike in a little ways to get there, and you can pick between two paths. We chose the slightly longer path through a mangrove swamp to get there and took the creek path back to our car. The beach itself had very pale, clear water, and all along the shore were trees that had been knocked down during one of the last hurricanes. In effect, they were still helping to prevent erosion. We spent a good part of the afternoon swimming there, and then my parents went walking along to a far off point. Annie and I stayed back by our things, making a tent out of beach towels for shade :) Today was our spa day. We all had various massages and fun treatments, including swe-thai and hot stone massages and a few mud baths. An adventure as always! Finding shade over the past few days has definitely been the hard part, since the island has mostly low-to-the-ground shubbery, but today we succeeded in snagging a big umbrella for above our chairs by the pool. So now it's off to one last dinner and then we'll catch an early flight back to Baltimore for another of Zach's jazz concerts!

My cousin Mary Kay, me & my "seastar" Annie

Seastars

My family spent Easter weekend on Tilghman Island on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. We had a couple of rooms at the Black Walnut Point Inn, which basically sat in the middle of a nature conservancy at the very end of a road that turned into gravel for the last mile or so. Seriously! You looked like you were driving the wrong way. The inn itself was an old house on the point, which has over time been used as a religious retreat, a local company's presidential house, and now is a bed and breakfast. On Saturday she and I drove to a nearby town, St. Michael's, and looked around at the little shops and harbor. Then we brought lunch back from the "So Neat Cafe and Backery" on Tilghman Island. They were just about to close up for the weekend (it was almost 3 pm), but we managed to charm them and weedle a few sandwiches out of them, which by the way were simply fantastic. As one of the woman rang up our order, she asked Annie and I if we were seastars. Not really sure what she meant by that, we told her that "No, we were new to the area and thus couldn't be seastars,"....all the while thinking that she was referring to some program like Girlscouts take on the Sea or Kids High on Ocean Life. Who knows. Anyways, she just laughed and said "Awww no no no. I asked if you were siiiiisters" in her slightly southern drawl. And then she made fun of us for 'not knowing what a seastar was.' Mmmhmm. It was a classic moment. One I am sure they will remember for quite some time. And I do have to admit, I love my little seastar Annie.

Go RED!

Spent this afternoon and tonight in NYC, since a cousin was visiting from Madison. I got in a bit early and was able to catch up with several friends from Princeton, although due to a poorly written text from me, I wasn't able to meet up with another friend later on :( BUT I did get to spend a few hours hanging out at the official "Badger" bar in the city, watching the NCAA men's hockey championships. Great times were had by all...especially since WI won. I may be a bit saddened by Boston's defeat, but really, WI just has so much more spirit! Unfortunately I had to take a rather early train back to Princeton, since I needed to move my car before it got too late (silly Pton parking regulations). Bugger. So now I'm home, and everyone else seems to be out. Logic dictates that I should sleep, especially since I got up early this morning. Oh well. In other news, I had a great talk with my dad about Georgetown on the ride back, and I am getting more and more excited. It's going to be great!

what the...?

Sitting at my desk and I just happened to glance out the window, and what do I see? It's snowing!! Quite a lot of snow in all this wind. It's actually looks like it's snowing sideways. I thought it was a bad sign when I woke up to rain, but this is ridiculous. It is after all April 5th. Oh well...I just have to make it through another week and a half and then I will be traveling with my family to new and sunny beaches! So very excited. In other news, I went to a yoga class last night in an attempt to destress, and I must say, the instructor was fabulous.

Quiet Sundays

Today was the first day in a long, long time that I had nothing that had to be done. It was wonderful! I slept till I wanted to get up; I read lots of a new book; I went running outside because it was too nice to go to the gym; and I caught up with several friends. I love the Spring! In other brilliant news, my lil' sister just got into Princeton!! woohoo...she is amazing. Now she just has to decide where she's going to end up next year, which is certainly not a decision I envy. Happy Spring everyone :)