Nuestra Luna de Miel: Our honeymoon in the Western Caribe (Part 2 of 3 Milestone celebration)

In the days after our wedding we did a lot of unpacking, organizing, shuffling, and most difficultly, tried to stay focused at work. With that being said, after a whirlwind wedding weekend and a super hectic year of planning, we were definitely in need of a vacay.


This trip was not only special because it was our honeymoon, but it was also a big deal because it was our first trip together as a couple. So after dropping off the munchkin at his grandparents we were ready!


On Sunday morning we left Cstat bright and early and headed to Galveston. For those of you not as familiar with Texas geography, Galveston is about 2 hours and 45 minutes ( 2 hours and a half-when I'm driving) from us, so when you're cruising, it's really convinient.


We ended up beating the rain that was coming as a result of the impending tropical storm on the horizon and arrived in Galveston two hours early. To pass the time we drove around admiring the awesome restored victorian houses, the improvements made since Katrina hit, and the brand new Boardwalk adventure.

Aside being $10 per person to just walk around, it's a great step in the right direction for this gulf city, so we're excited to see what's coming next.


After a quick trip to CVS, we headed to the pier to start the dreaded embarkation process. After about an hour we were on the boat and ready to go.


In the following days, we spent some time lying by the pool, relaxing on our private balcony, and exploring the boat. While the boat wasn't quite what we had expected, we were determined to have a great time. Some of the coolest features included the Swim up Cinema, where they turned the Lido deck into a huge movie theater. Our favorite movie of course was Harry Potter.

Lido during the day

Why Harry, what are you doing in the middle of the ocean?


After a few days at sea, our first stop was Montego Bay, Jamaica. Seeing as we were both newbies to Montego Bay we opted for an excursion through the boat that included touring a haunted estate and of course, shopping. Our tour guide was in one word, awesome! On the way to the estate she pointed out really interesting facts about the island, really cool facts about her family and friends, and some conversational creole.

A brief history of Rose Hall Great House and the legend...


The story states that the White Witch was Annie Palmer, who was born in England to an English mother and Irish father. She spent most of her life, however, in Haiti. After her parents died of yellow fever she was adopted by her nanny who regularly practiced voodoo and taught her witchcraft. She later moved to Jamaica, where she was married to John Palmer in 1820. John was the owner of Rose Hall Plantation, east of Montego Bay. Annie's husband (and two subsequent husbands as well) died suspiciously, and it is speculated that Annie herself brought about their demise. Annie became known as a mistress of voodoo, using it to terrorize the plantation, and taking male slaves into her bed at night and often murdering them. Annie supposedly murdered her lovers because she was bored of them. The legend has her being murdered in her bed during the slave uprisings of the 1830s by one of her slave lovers named Takoo, who also practiced voodoo and became one of Annie's lovers. Annie was said to be killed by Takoo because she was in love with the husband of Takoo's granddaughter. When Annie found she could not have him, she conjured a voodoo curse on Takoo's granddaughter who died a week later. When Takoo found this out, he killed Annie. Takoo ran into the forest to hide after murdering Annie, but was quickly caught by an overseer (another of Annie's lovers) and killed. It is said that a family who owned the property after the Palmers had a housekeeper who was "pushed" by Annie off of Annie's favorite balcony, subsequently breaking her neck and dying.


Rose Hall is a Georgian mansion with a stone base and a plastered upper story, high on the hillside, with a panorama view over the coast. It is considered to be a visually impressive house and one of the most famous of the great houses in Jamaica. Built in the 1770s, it was restored in the 1960s to its former splendor, with mahogany floors, interior windows and doorways, paneling and wooden ceilings. It is decorated with silk wallpaper printed with palms and birds, ornamented with chandeliers, furnished with mostly European antiques, and features a downstairs bar and restaurant.


Rose Hall was bought in 1977 by former Miss USA Michele Rollins and her entrepreneur husband John Rollins. They refurbished it at great personal expense and conceptualised a tour and museum that showcase Rose Hall's slave history, antique splendor and original fittings. Rose Hall also offers night tours that focus on the "Annie Palmer" legend: supposed locations of underground tunnels, bloodstains,hauntings and murders. Seances are also held on the property in an attempt to conjure Annie's spirit.


We personally felt some definite chills and goosebumps walking around but we weren't necessarily convinced that it was from Annie's spirit, but more so from those who had died in the house. Regardless of if it is truth or fiction it is a beautiful house and the countryside is breathtaking.


Our tour finished up with some "touristy" shopping after which I asked our new friend and tour guide to take us to the "real shopping." Hey-my grandparents taught me well. You always shop, eat, and beach where the locals go. She took us down to the Hip Strip to do some shopping and walk around in the 150 degree heat. After picking up some great souvenirs and Brad being offered weed twice-they didn't offer it to me, I guess they assumed he had the money ;) we headed back to the ship and spent some more time with our new friend Phyll Darling.

Looking back we really wish that we had gotten a picture with her but we will definitely get one the next time we visit her in Montego Bay. Since leaving, we've been e-mailing back and forth and making plans to come back and visit in the future. If you're planning on taking a trip to Montego Bay let me know and I'll send you her contact information.


Every night we dined in the dining room and spent some quality "us" time at our own table.

One night they even serenaded us with "Happy Honeymoon to You."


Our next excursion took us to the beautiful Grand Cayman where we took in the sights at the pier and jumped on an amphibious bus ride through the city and snorkeled in the bay.

 The water was absolutely stunning and we saw more tropical fish than we could count. After wrapping up the tour, we stopped at Bikini Beach and took some pics.

Yes please!!!

Our last excursion was in Conzumel, Mexico. Where I was totally in my element! I took over as tour guide and grabbed us a taxi to Playa San Francisco. Unfortunately I don't have any pics to post of Mexico because I forgot my camera on the boat. We did however have an intersting adventure...


I took over most of the conversation and guiding because although Brad understands Spanish, he doesn't speak. After visiting Cozumel before I had initially thought about Playa del Carmen, however because we had limited time we wanted to make the most of the time we had. I then asked for suggestions and was pointed toward Playa San Francisco.


The beach itself is part of several beach clubs along the coast that offer swimming, food, water sports, and shopping. Since we didn't want to do anything touristy it was the best place for us. The water was relatively clear and the temperature was amazing. And...we were treated like royalty because we were on our Luna de Miel (Honeymoon). I also made friends with some of the merchants and got a killer deal on a silver and turquoise bracelet, a silver chain for Brad, and a calavera (decorative skull) for our house. Plus we walked away with an engraved shot glass for Brad and an evil eye bracelet for me.


We spent the day lounging and swimming and ate some delicious pescado al mojo (fish with garlic sauce).


Another highlight were the super cute towel formations we came back to in our room, not to be outdone, Miguel and Mel even got in on the action:

Overall, we had a great time, we were just ready to be back with our munchkin.

Hey baby...I hope you're taking notes ;)

In pictures: the world’s most romantic travel destinations

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Some of the world’s most romantic travel destinations in pictures…

Cala Dogana, Levanzo, Sicily

Photo: Wagman30

Paris

Photo: bEbO

Oia, Santorini

Photo: Marcel Germain

Oahu, Hawaii

Photo: B Tal

Maldives

Photo: Muha

Ulun Danu Temple, Bali

Photo: Jennifer Phoon

Château de Chillon, Switzerland

Photo: Pear Biter

Venice

Roadtrip? Yes please!

Provided by: 10 Coolest Small Towns in America 2011 The winners in our sixth annual celebration of great hometown escapes may be short on people, but they’re long on personality. By Budget Travel Staff Greensburg, KS Courtesy of Michael Mohr More from BudgetTravel.com 10 Gorgeous Pools You Won't Believe Are Public 4 Most Common Reasons Airlines Lose Luggage 12 Places With Sensational Views More from Yahoo! Travel Find Special Offers & More Savings Check flight deals now! Tips for Wellness on the Road Once in a while, you discover a town that has everything—great coffee, food with character, shop owners with purpose. Each year, the Budget Travel team celebrates these places with our "Coolest Small Towns in America" competition. It starts with a call to you—our readers—to nominate the most interesting towns you know with populations of less than 10,000. From there, our editorial team whittles the selections down to the three most promising contenders. It's then up to you to vote on your favorite. You won't find a more charming slice of small town Americana than you will right here. #10 Greensburg, KS (pop. 777) The Real Emerald City When you pull into Greensburg, you may well think you're not in Kansas anymore: Elegant wind turbines and LED streetlights have replaced cornfields and barns. After a 2007 tornado destroyed 95 percent of Greensburg, those who stayed vowed to build the ecofriendliest town ever. "These are not hippie-dippy concepts," says Stacy Barnes, director of the 5.4.7 Arts Center. "These are the same tenets used in pioneer days—south-facing windows in chicken coops to increase sunlight, reusing everything like Mennonites do. We got lazy over the past century." The gallery, named for the day the storm hit, houses contemporary art from around the U.S. Many businesses here pay tribute to the past. Green Bean Coffee Co. serves milkshakes to fill the void left by the destruction of the old soda fountain (shakes $3.50). Nearby, you'll find innovations both high-tech (solar panels) and low (banisters made from tractor parts) at the Silo Eco-Home B&B . Just goes to show: It's not so hard being green after all. Ripon, WI Courtesy of Daniel Shea #9 Ripon, WI (pop. 7,733) College Town Perfection In some college towns, the locals and students get along like rivals at the Michigan-Ohio State football game. Not in Ripon. The professors sit on the local school board. The students sing in the church choirs, and church folk welcome the school's 1,000 or so students with a potluck every fall. Friday evenings in summer, across from the college president's office in the old public library, townies and academics alike turn out for concerts on the Village Green. "My favorite is Tuba Dan's polka band," says Professor Mary Avery, who oversees a student group that helps local businesses, such as the Watson Street Sub Shop, create financial plans. Watson Street in turn lets the students use its storefront for fund-raisers. "We are the quintessential college town," says David Joyce, president of Ripon. "Or maybe it should be the quintessential town with a college?" Cedar Key, FL Courtesy of Stephanie Adams #8 Cedar Key, FL (pop. 896) Unspoiled on the Gulf If someone asked you where to get the best New England clam chowder, you might be inclined to say, "Duh, New England." You'd be wrong—by over 1,000 miles. For the past three years, the Great Chowder Cook-Off in Newport, R.I., has been won by Tony's Seafood Restaurant of Cedar Key. In fact, the town is America's second-largest producer of farmed clams, one of many surprises in this two-square-mile hamlet 130 miles north of Tampa. Despite its prime location on the Gulf of Mexico, Cedar Key has escaped the pull of developers-its spit of beach isn't long enough to attract large-scale building projects. Instead, it still feels like a ramshackle, old fishing village straight out of Hemingway. "People always say it's like Key West 30 years ago," says innkeeper Ada Lang. Built in 1919 and restored in 2004, Ada's Wabi Sabi Cottage is a time-capsule example of a "Cracker" cottage, a style of wood-frame house popular in the 19th century. Newtown Borough, PA Courtesy of Jean-Paul Bernard #7 Newtown Borough, PA (pop. 2,384) Amish Country Charm Newtown Borough isn't the kind of place where you'd expect to see millionaires tooling around in a fancy car. In fact, the rural Bucks County burg is close enough to Amish Country that most of the convertibles around these parts are horses-and-buggies. It's home to the nation's oldest movie theater, Newtown Theatre, a 375-seat, red-brick treasure that's been in operation since 1906. The Brick Hotel, built in 1764 and still looking sharp decked out in hunter green shutters and striped awnings, is one of the few places that can honestly claim that George Washington slept here. And director M. Night Shyamalan likes the look of Newtown so much, he filmed Signs here in 2002. Phoenicia, NY Courtesy of Paul Bernard #6 Phoenicia, NY (pop. 309) A Riverside Retreat Phoenicia may look like a one-street river town sandwiched between hills in New York's Catskills—it does a wicked tubing business in the summer—but it's got a bookish, cosmopolitan vibe in its soul. "It's not just crazy guys with cars in their yards," says Michael Koegel of Mama's Boy, a hip little cafe and smoothie bar. Like Koegel, many Phoenicians came from Manhattan, and they've brought a healthy dose of quirk with them. For instance, former New Yorker Alan Fliegel, sells locally made clothing and underground comic books—and runs a well-stocked communal art gallery upstairs. Yet like its library that loans fishing poles, Phoenicia hasn't lost touch with its down-home roots. If you spend the night at the cozy Phoenicia Lodge, you may feel like you've woken up in Mayberry. You certainly will after breakfast at Sweet Sue's Restaurant . The pancakes (pumpkin, pineapple-coconut, and 20-plus other varieties) are legendary, as are the lines waiting to get inside. La Pointe, WI Courtesy of Daniel Shea #5 La Pointe, WI (pop. 309) A Superior Hamlet It's called the Island Wave, and to the folks on Madeline Island—a quiet, North Woods enclave of artists on Lake Superior—it means you greet everyone, even when you're driving. It's a lovely idea, but in summer it can get, well, dangerous. That's when La Pointe, the island's only town, swells with visitors. "The line goes out the door for hours on July 4th," says Marie Noha, owner of the Mission Hill Coffee House. Eureka Springs, AR Courtesy of Michael Mohr #4 Eureka Springs, AR (pop 2,073) Honeymoons and More Sure, you could sleep in one of the Queen Anne-style B&Bs, visit the monumental 67-foot-tall hilltop Christ of the Ozarks, catch a Branson-style show, or hunt for ghosts in the historic downtown. You could easily spend a week on the tourist circuit in this late-1800s Victorian spa retreat. But you'd never get to meet the real Eureka Springs. Eureka Springs may be the honeymoon capital of the Ozarks, but don't let the kitschy, heart-shaped Jacuzzis fool you. The biggest surprise of all may be the 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa, a palatial ivy-covered grand hotel with claw-foot tubs and manicured gardens. From this perch, you'll be inclined to look back to see Eureka Springs, but the leafy Ozarks keep the valley all but hidden from view—an apt vista for a town dubbed Tree City USA. Clayton, NY Courtesy of Stephanie Adams #3 Clayton, NY (pop. 1,978) A River Runs to It Clayton sits on a peninsula that juts out into the St. Lawrence River, so far north that the fire department's boat flies the American and Canadian flags. One of the benefits of that isolation is that the river itself is like a neighbor. In the summer, the old ferry terminal, where wealthy visitors once caught rides to their cottages on the Thousand Islands (birthplace of Thousand Island salad dressing), now hosts concerts. Out on the water, the family-run Ferguson Fishing Charters offers morning fishing trips followed by picnics on a private island, where a guide cooks the day's catch over a fire for lunch (half-day charters for a group of four $325). Back on dry land, K's Motel & Cottages' two-night "ship watch special" includes a room, a two-and-a-half-hour boat cruise, admission to the Antique Boat Museum, and two meals. Astoria, OR Courtesy of Justin Bailie #2 Astoria, OR (pop. 9,477) Pioneers on the Pacific Astoria has always been on the frontier, both the Lewis and Clark variety (they set up camp here in 1805) and the geographic (it sits both at the mouth of the Columbia River and in a teeming temperate rain forest). Sure, the place has prettied itself up nicely since those pioneer days with the addition of aging Victorians and craftsman-style bungalows, but the folks in sleepy coastal Astoria have never lost touch with their rough-and-tumble side. Even the city's swankiest design hotel, the Commodore, embraces a decidedly masculine and nautical aesthetic. Reopened two years ago after being shuttered since 1966, the property pairs modern furnishings with sly nods to the city's history as a seaside cannery hub: thick braided ropes, nautical charts, and fishing floats. Lewisburg, WV Courtesy of Michael Mohr #1 Lewisburg, WV (pop. 3,830) Arts in Appalachia A small town is usually lucky if there's a decent one-screen movie theater, maybe a community dance troupe. But a Carnegie Hall? This speck on the map in the Greenbrier River Valley lays claim to one of only four in the world. The 1902 building now serves as Lewisburg's creative control tower, attracting an unlikely band of artistic characters, back-to-the-land types, and retirees. Jeanne and Michael Christie embody Lewisburg's blend. The duo run the Davenport House B&B, where guests can bottle-feed one of the property's baby lambs after taking coffee and breakfast on their private patio. Michael is a painter whose work has shown in New York City's Hoorn-Ashby gallery, and Jeanne is the former director of front-office operations at the Greenbrier hotel, 10 miles down the road. "You know, you always think of the ideal American town, where the kids are safe, the streets are clean. We have that, but we also have Wynton Marsalis coming through," says Jeanne, who'd just finished a morning of shearing sheep.

Visitando La Frontera...Greetings from Aggies Reaching Out (ARO) South Texas

Salutations from McAllen! This past Sunday we made the trek from College Station (or as my Alle calls it, ECollege Estation) to the valley to work with three middle schools in the McAllen area. The ride down here was nonstop laughing, singing, and joking thanks to our awesome counselors, random walkie talkie talk,  and some albeit, inspiring scenery. After getting a slightly late start we arrived around 7pm and went straight to dinner because these college students needed a well deserved break and food in their tummies. Needless to say after I arrived to our hotel I unpacked and passed out.

My days have started around 6:30am and usually end around 9:30pm but every minute has been worth it. Our middle schools have been our second homes for the past three days and I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of such an incredible program. Counselors get to shadow 8th graders for the majority of the day, interacting with them in classes and at lunch as well as after school and both groups have loved every minute.

As an advisor, I have the opportunity to see firsthand the development of our counselors as leaders on this trip and I have no doubt that they will continue to go on to do great things after this program and past graduation. Our students greet each challenge with flexibility, openness, and selflessly work with their Directors to find creative alternatives. Each counselor is unique and have different attributes and talents that make working with them an incredible experience and I know that they are making an invaluable difference in the lives of these 8th graders. Although I may not be an Aggie, but in my opinion as an honorary Aggie, these counselors are a true reflection of what Aggies should stand for, how they should act, and  I know that these students parents and fellow Aggies would be so proud of these students if they were here. Until next time, Thanks and Gig em'!