An Eventful Weekend in The Bahamas!

DAY SEVEN: Write about the arts (music, art, dancing, etc).

DANCE. Dance used to be a HUGE part of my life. I did ballet and jazz from ages like 6-16. I stopped dancing when I got to college. Got lazy, never got the courage to try out for a dance team. I have trouble watching So You Think You Can Dance, because I miss dance that much and always wonder what could have been. MUSIC. I’m a huge fan of music. I have the most eclectic iTunes library on the face of this planet. I don’t discriminate when it comes to music. I listen to just about anything. My iTunes on shuffle: 1. “Cash Flow” by Major Lazer, 2. “I’m Still in Love With You” by Al Green, 3. “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve, 4. “Radio Ga Ga” by Queen. ART. I appreciate art. I dig museums. I love to paint.

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So I’ve been M.I.A. from my blog for quite a while cuz I been busy hustling and tryna get that paper (aka I been reading my sister’s friends’ med school essays and getting paid $20-45 to proofread/edit them). Another slightly less dorky reason I’ve been away is because of a lil trip to THE BAHAMAS aka my new favorite place in the world! It was a much needed girls trip with my sister, Mom, and Grandma that started at the beach and ended at Senor Frogs : )

I was highly impressed with The Bahamas…from the people to the beaches to the downtown area. As a Jamaican, I tend to be highly bias of the islands, but I have to admit that The Bahamas is giving Jamaica a run for its money. And I also learned that behind the US and Canada, it’s the third richest country in the Americas and one of the richest in the world where the majority of the population is Black. Shoutout to my black

folk! Anyways, thought I’d give yal a little play by play of our pretty eventful trip…

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**WEDNESDAY**

5am flight. Yup we’re cheap and had to book THAT flight. We all packed light for the first time in our lives and then get to the airport and face $100 in checked-baggage charges. FAIL.

Arrive at The Bahamas airport, which is undergoing major construction. We depart the plane and have to walk what feels like a mile across the tarmac to some other random building to go through immigration. Nice start to the trip! Arrive at The Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort and finally realize we’re in paradise! Get to our hotel room by 10am and knock out cold by 10:05.

Rub eye boogers out of our eyes at about 2pm, put on our bathing suits, and hit the beach where we’re met with this…

We start to get hungry but we didn’t buy the all-inclusive package and have to pay out of pocket for food. Stop by the poolside restaurant and see $17 burgers on the menu! Yikes! My sister and I immediately schlep down the street to Burger King, which is having a sale on the Original Chicken Sandwich meal—only $4.99! We wonder how on Earth we’re going to survive and eat for the rest of the vacation : ( Get back to the beach and my mom, Mrs. I-Can-Make-Friends-With-Anyone, has SURPRISE-SURPRISE made a friend with a fellow Jamaican woman who’s in The Bahamas selling timeshares. She invites us to a free lunch tomorrow…all we have to do is listen to some timeshares presentation. Sign us up!

For dinner, we decide to hit up one of the resort’s restaurants called Amici. $14 appetizers and $36 meals. This should be interesting! My sister suffices with a salad and my mom and I split a meal. Then our waiter, Bertis, treats us to free drinks. When he brings the bill, we see he only charged us for our meal…the salad and drinks were on the house. We’re eating here every night!

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**THURSDAY**

Free lunch! Afterwards, my sister and I hit the beach, then go to the pool, then back to the beach, then the pool again…ahhh vacation : ) I start reading "The Giver," meanwhile my sister is reading "Catcher in the Rye"—two books we shamefully should have read decades ago. We look over and a Black-Hispanic couple is getting married. Gotta love interracial love : )

Dinner at Amici’s and this time Bertis truly outdid himself! He treated us to a bottle of wine, free Strawberry Daquiris, Caesar salad for appetizer, 4 entrees, and dessert for each of us (worth: $300+, check: $157, what Bertis made us pay: 89bucks). Across the restaurant a wedding party is having their rehearsal dinner and it’s another interracial couple…this resort sure loves The Swirl!

In the middle of eating our dinner, a tall cutie and seemingly member of the wedding party comes over to our table and throws the whole "don't I know you?" pick-up line at my sister! They chitchat and upon him leaving, my mom, Grandma, and I badger my sister with questions and analyze the situation, as this NEVER happens in real life…only in the movies! My grandma demands to know his profession, his college major, and basically his mother’s maiden name and is upset with my sister for not gathering this information from their short 3-minute conversation.

Head back to our room and watch a cheesy JLO movie. I later struggle to sleep due to my mom and grandma’s snoring competition and my sister kicking me in the groin every hour or so.

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**FRIDAY**

Fish fry, fish fry, fish fry. Everyone keeps telling us we have to go to the fish fry. We board the local bus and head into the city to find this infamous fish fry. We finally get to see Nassau outside of our resort and realize the city is undergoing loads of construction due to “Bahamar” (a major resort metropolis project being built on the island: http://www.bahamar.com/). We get to the fish fry and its basically a row of restaurants selling baked conch, fried conch, conch fritters, sautéed conch…clearly conch is a delicacy here.

We choose a restaurant and our experience was subpar. Our waiter moved like molasses and the food was extra greasy. We head back to our resort and chill on the beach.

Dinner at Amici’s then we head to the world famous Atlantis Resort, which is on Paradise Island. We get there and realize the place is like a mini-Las Vegas. We also learn it costs $120 for day-passes to their water park. (Guess we can cross that plan off our list!) Grandma and Mom check out the casino while my sister and I hit the nightclub, which charges $50 for non-Guest females.

Naturally, my sister gets us in for free : )

The nightclub is fun, but filled with too many teenagers and an Italian posse with their shirts buttoned down to

their navels.

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**SATURDAY**

It’s blazing hot today and we spend the day going in and out of the water. In the pool, I overhear a conversation that epitomizes childhood:

Six-year-old #1: Wanna play Shark?

Six-year-old #2: Ok, how do you play?

Six-year-old #1: I’m the shark and I chase you around.

Six-year-old #2: (ponders for a moment) Ok!

We watch yet another interracial wedding on the beach...

Our final dinner at Amici’s and Bertis already has our table picked out. Sad to depart him but thank him for the excellent service : ) Head upstairs to the lounge and listen to a jazz singer before heading to bed.

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**SUNDAY**

Unfortunately it’s time to depart Nassau. But first we head downtown to the market to buy some nicknacks. I’m disturbed by the amount of Bob Marley t-shirts, towels, bags, etc that I see, seeing as Bob Marley is Jamaican! Hello people?! Get your own reggae icon Bahamas!

We head to Senor Frogs to join all the drunk white people coming off of the cruise ships. We each (with the exception of my God-fearing Grandmother) order Bahama Mamas and get a little tipsy….my sister does the ChaCha slide. Three shades from being drunk and disorderly later, we finally head to the airport and leave The Bahamas : (

Our layover in Charlotte is extended an extra hour. I do some intense people-watching and realize the trend among young Southern men...

…I decide I prefer my rough-around-the-edges NJ/NYC boys much better. After a freezing cold flight home...

Me: Do you have any blankets?

Stewardess: Sorry, we only have enough for first class passengers. But you may purchase one (of our paper thin "blankets") for $7?

...we’re back in good ol’ Jersey.

Must See Movie: TROUBLE THE WATER !!

DAY SIX: Recommend some books to read.

The Power of One, Holes, Catcher in the Rye, Life is Funny, Great Expectations, The Laws of Thinking, Winesburg Ohio

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If you take anything away from my blog, it should be this post right here!

The other day I saw one of the best documentary films I’ve ever seen and I am writing today to urge everyone to download it ASAP and watch it!

The movie I’m talking about is called Trouble the Water. It’s a Hurricane Katrina movie, but unlike other documentaries or news specials about the hurricane, this film takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way no one has ever shown.

(If you’re into accolades, then you must know that this film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film, won a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and was included in film critic Roger Ebert’s “best of 2008” list. Basically this movie is proven to be the shit so you need to download it and watch it now!)

The film contains REAL LIVE footage shot by 24-year-old Kimberly Roberts and her husband, residents of the poverty-stricken 9^th Ward in New Orleans, the day before the storm, during the storm, and after the storm. Kimberly takes her camera around her lively neighborhood before the storm and introduces us to friends and family, some packing up and evacuating the city, some sticking around with hopes that the storm will pass rather peacefully, some people we sadly never see again. Kimberly keeps her videocamera rolling as the storm rages on and the levees in New Orleans break, rushing water into her home and forcing her and her family into the attic. We watch as Kimberly, her family, and her neighbors work together to survive (with ZERO help from the government or local authorities, might I add) and then rebuild their lives and their community after Katrina. Sounds like a dramatic disaster movie à la The Day After Tomorrow, right? And I’m telling you…some of the footage is so crippling you forget that what you’re watching was real life! The trailer:

When I first saw Inception, my mind was on roller coaster and working overtime trying to keep track of all the stories and backstories and subplots, etc. Likewise, Trouble the Water sends your emotions on a roller coaster ride. One minute you’ll be crying (or maybe that’s just me), the next you’re be joyful, the next you’ll be angry! The film weaves in archival footage of news reports about looters and “refugees” (let's not call them people trying to survive or American citizens ripped from their homes) and Bush talking plain nonsense, with tragic images of people standing for days on their rooftops literally pleading to be rescued and 911 phone calls of people begging for help only to be told “there are no rescue teams out at the moment.” In fact, there’s one specific scene in the movie, that made me so disgusted with the American government in its entirety that I instantly in that moment felt like packing up my bags, moving to Australia, adopting a Jamaican accent, and pretty much dissociating myself with this country…seriously!

Now, there’s no question I WAS NOT a fan of the Bush administration, or conservatives in general for that matter, and this movie only affirms my beliefs. But I think this film is also a must-see for everyone no matter what your political affiliation may be. There’s no denying after watching this movie that you’ll begin to question whether some citizens of this country are treated as second-class citizens. And the movie is bound to get you thinking…if the hypothetical levees of Beverly Hills broke, would the government allow these people...

...to stand on rooftops for days begging for their own government to help them?

Hurricane Katrina certainly isn’t old news. Many people are still living the effects of the hurricane and their stories must not be forgotten! This film reminds you of the serious race and class issues this country has (in case you forgot) and should always be looked at critically! So please download and watch this film ASAP!

**FYI: You can rent the DVD from Netflix or download it (illegally) from ANY torrent website.

What I ALREADY Miss About College!

DAY FIVE: A list of things you fancy doing.

Traveling, watching TV, watching movies, surfing the Internet, writing this blog, discovering new music, reading screenplays, reading books, reading magazines, reading blogs, dancing, partying, talking to strangers, skyping with friends, painting, crocheting, writing lists, surfing Wikipedia, online shopping, Facebook stalking, eating, cooking, baking, not working out, playing board games, making bucket lists, tweeting, swimming, getting pampered, playing with my dog Haze...

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So I’m not gonna lie…summer boredom is starting to kick in. I can only do nothing for so long until doing nothing starts to feel tedious. Well, I've already written a blog post about the 10 things I DON'T miss about college...Given the current state of my life, I thought it only made sense that I countdown the top 8 things I’m already missing about college : (

1. All the little people—When you think of the people you’ll miss the most from college, you tend to immediately think of all your close friends who are moving across the country and around the world to pursue jobs and grad school. Although I love my friends and miss SOME of them dearly, I think the people I’m starting to miss the most are all the little people! You know…the overly friendly card swiping lady at Commons (cafeteria) who always put a smile on my face, my boys Juan and Jose at Allegro’s Pizzeria who happily greeted my greedy ass at 2am every weekend, Rich the bartender at Blarneys who made it his mission to always get me and my friends wasted by pushing free 20 ounce Long Islands our way throughout the night, and that insanely hot guy who shall not be named who my friends and I have all crushed on since freshman year—basically all the people who have filled in the gaps in our days and nights and made the last four years rather meaty. You all will be missed!

2. CampusFood.com—Only the Lord up above knows just how much money CampusFood.com got from me over the last 4 years. As disgusting of a thought that is, I can really do for some Campusfood right now!! I’ve been eating leftover jerk chicken and curry goat from my graduation party for the past week!

3. Taking naps—So I’m definitely still taking naps. After all, I am still unemployed and the summer heat is so draining in my house some days that no matter how late I sleep in, I always find myself dozing off. However, I know once I hit the job market, I’ll be saying bye-bye to nap times. The other day, I was talking to this girl who works for a top financial firm in NYC and she revealed that they have a “quiet room.” It’s basically a soundproof room where people can go to distress, but more times than not, people go there to take naps! I think I might have to see if they’re hiring…

4. Lab studies—Who doesn’t love free money?? At Penn, Wharton Behavioral Labs, aka BLabs, were a way of life for many of us. It only took one hour of your time to fill out some computer surveys and you walked out with 10 bucks. I remember fall semester senior year, fresh and broke from Sydney and an unpaid internship in the city, I was scheduling BLabs like they were my job! It was to the point where the technician knew my name.

Q. How do you know you’re a broke ass Penn student? A. When the BLab technician becomes your BFF.

5. Pottruck (College gym)—I didn’t step foot in Pottruck not even once after spring break. Yup, I’d let myself go (resulting in my disgusting 10 pound weight gain…damn shame). However, having Pottruck as an option was great! Although it wasn’t exactly free; my parents did pay for Pottruck as part of Penn tuition…not having to shell out my OWN money was magical! Forseeing myself signing up for a gym membership once I hit the real world makes my stomach rolls curl…

6. Being a slacker—My work ethic during my final spring semester was quite shameful. Few people know about my 2000 word final paper for one of my major classes in which I submitted only 1000 words and got a 4/10 grade (only God knows how I finished that class with a B-). However, those days of slacking are over and done with! In the real world, you slack at work and you’re fired, which can result in homelessness, begging on the streets, and forced prostitution! And nobody wants that!

7. Learning—As painful as going to class became, I did learn quite a bit while I was in college (one would only hope so)! Some of my favorite classes: Race and Ethnic Relations—learned that white people are evil, Screenwriting Workshop—learned that Rocky is actually a really good movie, the Study of Whiteness—learned again that white people are evil, Media and Militarism—learned that Republicans are evil, and Children and the Media—learned that Sesame Street is the shiznit. However, in the real world, those painful recitations, final papers, and annotated bibliographies will only be replaced with scheduling meetings for a boss I’ll probably hate and working on projects with impossible deadlines.

8. Summer break—Unless I move to France where five-weeks paid vacation is mandatory, after this summer, I can kiss my summer vacations goodbye : (

Report Card: Adventures in NYC!

DAY FOUR: Write about someone you love.  

So I'm incredibly behind on this 28 Day Challenge...my apologies. There are many people I love in my life, but I think I'll take this time to write about my older brother. My brother is by and large the funniest person I know. Few people besides comedians like Martin Lawrence and Kevin Hart can actually make me laugh until I cry; my brother is one of those people. I also admire him for finding something he's incredibly passionate about and making a career out of it--a career that allows him to travel the world, something I'm incredibly envious of him for. I love how he's not afraid to vocalize his thoughts and theories when it comes to everything from politics to women, no matter how cringeworthy and honest they are. I love how his taste in movies and television is similar to mine and that he shares the same desire to be cast on The Amazing Race. Oh, and I love his storytelling abilities (remember the MeowMeow story?). Basically, I love my brother : ) 

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Clearly this blogging everyday deal has been quite the struggle, which is a damn shame considering I really haven't been doing much! So I'll admit...it's a tad bit hard to write when you don't have much inspiration besides a big plasma TV, a couch, and an Italian greyhound.

However, I HAVE had a few highlights in the past couple days and I HAVE tried to venture off the couch, in an effort to remind myself that I NEED to go out and enjoy this summer before it's time to buckle down and get real with my life. I thought I'd detail my latest adventures in NYC, as I pretend to be a hip young professional out on the town (instead of a Bridge and Tunneler). 

- AMC Dine-In Theatre: Okay, so this isn't in NYC, it's in West Orange, NJ, but whatever...I thought I'd review it anyways. So our favorite movie theatre conglomerate AMC has decided to fold the "dinner and a movie" concept into one with their new chain of dine-in theatres. Basically, you sit in a big comfy leather seat with a table in front of you and get seat-side service and order yummy food and cocktails as you watch a movie! It's awesome! This is the future of movie-going people! While I'll give the movie I saw, The Hangover 2, a B, my mozzerella sticks, chicken fingers, and frozen strawberry margarita were delish, so the AMC Dine-In Theatre gets an A+! This is how the theatre works...

- Happy Ending: So a friend and I read about this old health spa turned club/lounge in the Lower East Side called "Happy Ending." Now, the name alone probably should have deterred us from going, but we're young and dumb and decided to risk our lives. Not to mention the outside of the club, still looks like a store-front massage parlor. However, the cover charge was $0, a Long Island was only $10, and the old saunas of the former health spa were turned into semi-VIP areas...très clever! The DJ was bumpin old school hip-hop and R&B all night, the crowd was young, diverse, and hipsterish, making for an overall pretty fun experience. Not to mention my friend walked away with the phone number of a guy who turned out to be the little brother of a pretty famous actor on Primetime television! I give Happy Ending an A. No A+ because I'm still salty I didn't snag any famous actors' brothers for myself : (

 
- Greenhouse: So I read online that "Greenhouse" was supposedly one of the most exclusive clubs in NYC. And the pictures online made the place look amazing, so naturally I HAD to check it out! If you're a guy and want to get in, you better be "somebody" or prepare to drop some serious cash for a table. If you're a girl, have a healthy BMI and a nice face (sounds harsh, but these doormen are no joke). I called ahead to find out the cover charge and the girl on the phone said, "it's at the doorman's discretion." Yikes! My friend and I weren't too excited about possibly having our self-esteems crushed by night's end, but we decided to brave it anyways. Well, because we're like total babes (duh!), the doorman didn't turn us away, but instead gave us the option of a $30 cover or a $75/each bar tab. Um $30 cover please!! As we rushed behind the velvet rope, before homeboy finally realized we weren't Ford Models, and ushered ourselves into the club, our excitement went from a 10 to about a 2.5, give or take a digit. 

"Wait, are we in the right place?

Is this Greenhouse or somebody's 2-bedroom apartment?" 

The place was super small yal! And the decor was not as breathtaking as it looks online! I'm telling you, this place is proof that pictures online can be deceiving! Did I seriously just pay $30 to dance in a 10 ft X 10 ft area? I'll give it to Greenhouse...the music was pretty good, we did see Carmelo Anthony, Swiss Beatz, Chrissy (Jim Jones' girl from the critically-acclaimed VHI show "Love and Hip Hop"), and some sailors in the city for Fleet Week. But seriously, the anticipation and politics of the door were not worth it. Greenhouse gets a big fat B-. 

- Kool Bloo: So immediately after Greenhouse, the drunk munchies set in. As my friend and I took off our heels and slid on our flipflops, we randomly met these two characters from Jamaica, who took us to this 24-hour food stand called Kool Bloo. If you're in the South Village late at night and need a place to eat, GO HERE! This place puts White Castle (Jersey people's late night food option aside from diners) to shame! The menu was extensive...a little overwhelming actually...but I ate the biggest and best bacon cheeseburger ever! To add to our Kool Bloo experience, our new friends were hilarious. One of them turned out to be an up-and-coming reggae artist named Spoon AKA (Google him) who apparently has a song with Nicki Minaj! Our friend Spoon here had a rather thick Jamaican accent, which allowed him to be one of the most entertaining storytellers I've ever come across in my entire life! My friend and I ended up sitting there chatting with our new BFFs until 5 in the morning! Don't you love random nights like that?! Big fat A (no A+ because we then had to take the Path train home and I didn't get home until 7am....stress). 

- Luke's Lobsters: Before dropping my brother off at JFK airport, we had to stop at one of our favorite food spots in all of NYC...Luke's Lobsters. If you're a seafood lover and particularly enjoy lobster rolls, I'm telling you...this place is Jesus's VIP section in heaven. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. A+++


 

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Other NYC spots on my list for the summer...

- Katz Delicatessan & 2nd Avenue Deli: So I can eat their pastrami sandwiches and compare, à la "Food Wars" on The Food Network

- Peking Duck House: Hands down the best Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.

- Picnic in Central Park: So I can cross this off my bucket list.

- 1Oak: Greenhouse's evil stepsister that I got turned away from back in December. I must persevere!

- Big Gay Ice Cream Truck: Because its name is so fun!

- Pacha: To get my fist pump on, duh!