I realize at this point that I have managed to eat nothing more than a yogurt today. The drinks were going straight to my head and the sub wasn't helping. Tim Horton's to the rescue, as I hadn't actually eaten my biscuit that morning. Eating Tim's in paradise struck me as funny, so I got Sunshine's help to capture the moment.


Somewhat to my dismay, we discovered when we arrived that the restaurant at the hotel was closed because it was low season. The reviews had all said it wasn't very good, but I have to admit, I was kind of counting on being able to get some food without having to venture away from the hotel that first night. Having only just finished breakfast and skipped lunch, we do need to find food. I seriously contemplated just starving.

Instead, we decide to head down to the beach and actually put our feet in the water. This may sound nuts, but I just felt safer and more comfortable exploring the beach under the cover of a bit of darkness.

So we wander out, another drink in hand. The sand is soft and still warm from the sun and the water is the perfect temperature. We share a bit of a smooch and hear a call from not far behind us. It is the Rasta we dealt with earlier. He invites us next door to share a sub with him. We tell him we aren't buying and he says it isn't business, just a sub amongst friends. Seemed a sure sign we had seriously overpaid. So a mere hours after arriving I find myself on the beach, sharing a sub with a Rasta man.

The whole thing felt surreal and at that moment I truly felt how far we had come. I did eventually figure out he was trying to sell us a farm tour for later in the trip, but it still didn't detract from that moment. We said our good-byes to our new Rasta friend and wandered back to our beach.

"Sunshine, we aren't in Kansas anymore," I said. He just smiled a contented smile back.

Now I am really hungry. I am not very good at being hungry. If fact, if you ever meet me and I seem to be more of a b*tch than you would have guessed, I am probably just hungry. My father is the same way. My mother has carried candy in her purse all my life, so when he starts to lose his cool, she can spike is blood sugar to a friendlier level. I didn't have any candy.

I have put this off as long as possible and probably longer than is actually wise. I'm several drinks and a couple of subs into the evening. I haven't slept in three days, and I now I need to find food.

Traveling with all our cash seemed foolish, so we pull out what seems like a fortune in $JA and lock the rest in our room safe. You know I have done my research, so I decide that we will turn right on the road and stop at the first place whose name I recognize. We hadn't walked long when I see Sweet Spot across the road. Perfect, I thought; this was on my list of places serving real Jamaican food and I believe they do take away. We cross the road and head in.

Every country seems to have their own protocol for the order in which one arrives, greats, sits, orders and pays at restaurants. As our first stop, I was clueless as to what we might do. It wasn't that busy, as it was already after eight o'clock.

The women behind the counter says something quickly, I miss it completely. Third time repeating really slowly, we get that she mostly just asking what we would like.
We order up friend chicken and curried shrimp, both with rice and peas and a couple of red stripes while we wait. Time to pay. Since we seem to not be communicating well, she writes the price down. Think it was $2300JA for the meal. No problem, we pull out our cash and start counting.

Uh oh, small problem. We've only $2100 between the two us. Seriously, when I lived in Europe and before the Euro, I carried four currencies in my wallet pretty much every day. I could do exchange rates in my sleep. How have I screwed this up so badly? I wanted to crawl into a small hole and never emerge.

She asked where we were staying, to which I replied honestly; it didn't seem a moment for subterfuge. She paused to consider us. With a roll of her eyes she appeared to come to the conclusion that someone ought to be educating us and today is was going to have to be her. She proceeded to give us a rather stern and incredibly sarcastic introduction to the Jamaican currency, which started something like this, "See this, this $100JA bill, this is like 1, that is 1 of your dollars. See this $500JA bill, this is like 5..." She worked her way through a stack of bills and then asked us what we were going to do now.

Well, I didn't see that many options. If we both walked out, we would have no food and I would never darken the door of the place again. So I guess the only answer is I will wait here and Sunshine will walk back to the room and get more money. Sunshine was none too impressed to be heading back to the room on his own, but he sure wasn't going to send me on my own. So I stood at the bar and tried to become invisible. After a few minutes I decided I might as well drink my Red Stripe. I did have enough money to pay for it at least. It seemed like forever, but Sunshine was back in 10 and our food was ready not long after that.

We took our boxes and booked it back to the hotel. We head out onto the patio and dive right in. With my very first bite of Jamaican food, I was in love. The curried shrimp was delicious. The shrimp tasted great and were not overcooked (which is a total pet peeve of mine) and the veggies were awesome. The best surprise though was the rice and peas. Who know something so simple could be so delicious. Sunshine shared some of his chicken and I must say it put the Colonel's to shame.

I suspect we went back to the beach that night; we stood with our feet in the surf in the moonlight almost every night we were there. After the journey of the day, I can't really recall. I do remember not knowing what animal was making that sound and not being able to believe how loud it was (frogs, of course). When they first started up I thought it was an alarm going off somewhere.

I do know that I was relieved to be there, excited for what the next day would bring and ready for a good night's sleep.