An Update from Down Under

Henry's doing well on his study abroad trip in Australia. He was between classes and gave me a quick call on Skype just to say hi. How sweet right? Who knew he had it in him!
I think he's in Australia till the end of next week, then back to Hong Kong to Bangkok, then back to Hong Kong and then finally back to NYC. We should all go get our MBA!
Nassau – Bahamas, not Long Island
Okie dokes, folks. Click this link for the pix -----> Bahamas Pix
Steve and I spent a our New Year's and then some in the Bahamas. (I'll have pix up one day.) We were in Nassau for eight days. Originally, we were going to do some island hopping. But then the weather turned bad, it got cold (70) and it was quite windy (30-40 mph wind gusts), with scattered showers. That was for 3-4 days. We finally managed to get our tan on one of the days there. We spent about five hours trying to catch the sun in between the clouds and the high gusts of wind. It was damn cold in a bikini, or in Steve's case, just shorts.
Our whole vacation was eating and walking. Walking to the crappy restaurants to eat their bad food. I wanted to do some jet skiing, snorkeling and scuba diving (even though I'm afraid of the water), but it was too cold. We didn't even go into the heated pool and jacuzzi because we were afraid of the cold when we get out. We visited Atlantis, which was on another island, and it was huge. We started at one end of the resort, walked around the entire resort for about 3.5 hours, and finally ended back at where we started. We almost got lost. Actually, I think we did get lost for a while. The resort is gorgeous, but also totally overpriced.
We spent two days sightseeing, although there's not much in Nassau, because it was too cold to do any water sports. The "downtown" area, which was supposed to be the hip and happening touristy, shopping area, was filled with shops such as Gucci, Diamonds International, Versace, etc. It was a strip of high priced accessories shops. Literally, there were about 3 diamond shops on each block! Insane! There was also a small area called "The Straw Market," where you can do your souvenir shopping. It's like an enclosed version of Canal Street. There was this really hot Jimmy Choo bag that some lady wanted to sell to me for $80, but it was "originally" $150. I said no, and she was like, how about $60? I'm thinking, come on, I'm not going to pay that much for a fake bag. (A few days later, at the airport, I saw some lady rocking my bag. B*tch.)
If I could sum up our vacation in a few words, it would be "overpriced and overhyped." Although I did enjoy it, it could've been so much better. Not just the weather, although the crappy weather killed all our plans. It could be because we only spent our time on Nassau/Paradise Island, but it really was a crappy island. I mean, it seems that 98% of the island is underdeveloped. As Steve and I walked around, we felt that we saw all that we needed to see. And everything was so effin' overpriced. Gratuity was included in every single thing we did "for our convenience." I bought a soda from a store, gratuity included; I bought a mug, gratuity included. Every meal we had, gratuity was included. The Wyndham, where we stayed, also had gratuity included in the total bill. Usually one of the better hotels, the Wyndham in Nassau sucked nuts. The food sucked, the casino was lacking, the service was great, and the internet wasn't free. The only good thing about it was that it was one of the better resorts in the area, and their beach area was nice.
Usually, we wouldn't stay in one place for too long, but we thought it'd be nice. And after we found out it wasn't, we were going to island hop. Then it started raining, and you know what happens after that. All in all, we wouldn't come back to Nassau again. Maybe the other islands, but it'd definitely be island hopping. Thank goodness we, at least, stayed in a nice hotel. If it was a crappy one, that I originally wanted, I would've killed someone.