Negril and the WHOLE team is here

This morning we left for Negril! I was really excited to see this place after all I have heard about it. We CRAMMED on a bus and headed out about 9-ish, and realized about ten minutes before we arrived that the restaurant we were headed when we realized that it didn’t open until 12:30…so tragically we had to go spend some time at another beach until Rick’s opened. 

It was absolutely beautiful there and there were people cooking jerk chicken in a stand RIGHT behind our chairs so that there was a tantalizing aroma filling the air in addition to the salt and the sea. 

I pretty much tried to sleep the whole time. I wasn’t feeling great, I think from the bus ride, and I was a little out of it.We got back on the bus and rode for just a minute down the road to Rick’s Café. 

We walked in to a breath-taking-ly beautiful view of rocky cliffs and deep turquoise water that actually sparkled like a million diamonds. The huge waves crashed against the rocks sending white spray all into the air. Then there were the cliffs. There were multiple levels, two that tourist weren’t even allowed to do, that Jamaican guys would do neat tricks for $10 and $20. One guy did a handstand, a couple of push ups and then a swan dive into the ocean.There was at 35 ft. platform which was the big jump. There was also a medium-sized cliff that you could rope swing from and a small jump that couldn’t have been more than about 15 ft. I did the small one and considered the high one and the rope swing…I actually would've really liked to have done the rope swing but you had to jump in and swim too it…and that was just too much effort…even though I was already wet and didn’t think the water was that cold. It actually felt amazing. I LOVED it. If there had been a beach I would've loved to have snorkled and climbed in the cavernous rocks…ah.

We ordered, I got a yummy bow-tie chicken pasta dish with a light cream sauce, and then we lounged on the decks in the sun. We ventured into the gift shop for a minute until it was time to board the bus. I decided I wasn’t going to change into drier clothes because I had mostly dried off in the sun…but I was just damp enough to be miserable on the whole bus ride home. I was damp and cold and sticking to the seat and the sweaty guy (on our team) next to me. 

We were packed in again and the ride seemed SO much longer than it had the same morning. We were all very tired, you could tell because there wasn’t a lot of singing going on as there had been before. What did occur was discussions about their favorite childhood TV shows and games…which made me feel VERY old because a.) they are the same generation of kids that I BABY-SAT for…can anyone else say they themselves watched Pokemon? No. It was My Little Ponies and Care Bears, the original ones. Hey, I’m a child of the 80’s. They liked things that I have only watched with little kids…but now they’re in college. The second reason I felt old, b.) is that not only did they watch things I only associated with children, they had never HEARD of half of the things the other leaders and I reminisced about! They’d never played pogs. They knew different hand games and rhymes than us. Weird. I just don’t get it.

We arrived back at the base and the rest of our team was arriving. I RAN to greet Ashley and tried to get some random room key situations sorted out. We got reprimanded for being too loud again because the baby was sleeping. Now, I understand how much of an inconvenience it could be to have a team of 54 people to invade your home for a week…but you knew it was coming. Fifty-four people are noisy even if they are all whispering and wearing flip-flops as they walk to their own rooms. So I understand that it would be hard and I realize we should be courteous…no screaming and yelling, running, loud music…but even I can’t handle constant SHHHHH-ing the minute I get near the building… Move the baby. Close the windows. Find a noise maker.

I was very excited to see Ashley and she brought me presents from my friends back home, some for my birthday, some for now…which included PEANUT BUTTER M&Ms and now my life is complete again! Lol…just kidding.