March 8th to 15th Birthdays, Busses, Brewery and Bashes High 80's low 70's all week

What a week we have had. It's hard to imagine every going back to regular life after this type of experience.

Let's start with Birthday wishes. Since I last wrote, we have had 4 other birthdays our families. I do not generally wish happy b-day to my nephews and nieces, just cause I don't want to miss any, But one nephew, one niece, My sister-in-law Nancy and my Sister Liane all had b-days in the last week. Happy birthday all.

I had promised you a discussion on buses when I last wrote so this will be the next topic of discussion. The Bahamian Buses are small vans with lots of seats. The cost is 1.25 to go anywhere you like. The bus stops are clearly marked but there are no schedules. Basically you stand at a bus stop and hope someone comes by and picks you up. Now on the main routes, that's ok but here near the resort you kind of take your chances. When we first got here, Jim and I needed to go to the grocery store, so we asked for directions and waited for about 45min when finally someone drove by and said, it's kind of hit and miss here, let us give you a ride to the nearest main road and then you'll be able to get to a store. We gratefully accepted the offer of course and took a cab back to the resort just to be sure. We've been on a couple of excursions into Freeport. Getting a bus back is a really simple process. We go to the bus terminal in town and find a bus that is idling there. Tell them where we want to go and poof, this is the next route for this bus. It's not HSR but it sure does work!

We got a group of us together (20 or so) and took off to the brewery. This time we got a cab, which incidentally is exactly like the bus, and they drove us the 20 min ride to the Sands Brewery.

We got a quick tour of the brewery which took 15 min or so and then the tour guide escorted us into

Jimmy' bar for the taste testing. This particular brewery makes 7 different products and we got to try them all.

 Those of you who know me, know I hate beer. So I dutifully took a sip of each and promptly gave Jim the rest. It was not difficult to walk home but might I say Jim was feeling no pain! After the taste testing, our lovely  bartender Chrissie had to leave so she left me in charge of the bar. I was pouring a good beer in short order, but there was a bit of head on the first dozen or so beers, and the jokes to go along with them abounded. Fortunately I have thick skin and let it all roll off my shoulders. Those most offensive got to wait for their next beer anyway lol. Ok I might have told one or two as well, but I was allowed. There is great power in being a bartender to a bunch of thirsty souls!

Before we left the brewery, we had the mandatory stop at the liquor store where I got to purchase our next two contenders in the Rum tasting night. Simon and Alex, we will need to open this up to a few more folks or we will not survive the night!

Ok so now it's time for our last topic of the night, which is bashes. This week we had 4 celebrations. Monday night appreciation dinner was coloured with the hat dance, which Lynn talked me into doing. 

Lynn also threw the hat swiftly at me  when the music stopped, so I was quickly out of the running lol. Lynn of course won (I knew she would) and it could not have happened to a nicer person. Tuesday night miss Lynn talked me into Karaoke singing (come on now, you know how shy I am) We sang a couple of duets and we were darn good...well no one booed us off like that time Jim and I did the Meatloaf bat out of hell song. Apparently we were so bad, people were paying to get us to stop singing! Lynn also got Jim to get up and sing a duet with her. She's quite convincing. 

Wednesday night was Gavin and Lynn's last night here before returning to the frigid Calgary weather. They were expecting 18 degrees Celsius when they returned so we did not feel too bad for them. Anyway we had a pot luck with 4 couples and stayed up until 1am (way past our bed time).   Friday night was games night, where the Dominoes table got a little rowdy. 

Saturday we had to say goodbye to Bunkey and Geoff. They are a couple from Tobermory who run a B&B, so they had to get home to get things up and running again. Bunkey was nice enough to give me a hair cut last week. I was in desperate need of one and she graciously offered to do it for me. She is not a hairdresser by the way, but she did a fine job none the less. 

We topped off Saturday with another trip to the 2.00 bar with Dan and a lovely evening on the top deck with Dan and Julia.

We had our final celebration tonight. An Irish Kaleigh in honor of St-Patrick's day. This was a pot luck meal with about 30 of us boaters. 

We had green Jell-O shooters to start off the night,

followed by Maggots on wieners, Irish tacos and as usual more other food then we could possibly consume.

So aside from the usual bike rides, swimming and Weaving, that about covers our week. We are now starting to check the weather to decide on the right time to cross over to the States. Our current plan is Thursday, but this is highly dependent on changing weather reports. In any event I will blog again the day after we cross and will resume my daily blogging after that.  Tata for now.