what were you doing one year ago today?

Lazy day 4 in Aruba. We woke up at 11 and went to the buffet. We finally made a profit on the well...expensive breakfast. We each had two glasses of OJ, an omelette, fruit, pastries, pancakes, oatmeal...etc. We had so much food that we went back upstairs, and napped and hung around the room for about 3 hours.

We decided it was time to go do stuff so we searched the internet and decided to check out a helicopter tour of Aruba. We went down to the concierge and had them call but the phone wasnt working...no matter we got the directions and set off. We also made a reservation at the Trattoria right next to the lighthouse. On the way to downtown we noticed Subway was closed, Quiznos was closed...not good signs. Oh yeah...Good Friday. Absolutely everything was closed even some of the downtown casinos, most restaurants, and the helicopter tour place...too bad. Maybe we'll try again tomorrow.

We realized that on Good Friday, everything is closed but the Jewish stuff. So we looked at the map for the synagogue and realized it was about 30 seconds away from the helipad. We drove by it and it seemed closed too so we took a few pics and were about to leave when a very nice woman opened the door and invited us in. The synagogue was very beautiful though stifling inside. The decor was simple, but nicely appointed. There are about 35 Jewish families on the island, but the woman said whenever a cruise comes in the congregation swells a bit. They currently lack a rabbi, but are looking for one. If you know anyone who is willing to relocate to Aruba to lead a Jewish congregation, please let me know.

After walking around downtown and taking a few pictures of iguanas sunning themselves we returned to the hotel and had a eensie weensie lunch of just grouper fingers (delicious) with fries. I also had a piña colada which was yumster. We went back upstairs for a little while and watched TV and napped...again until dinner time.

Finding the restaurant was much easier this time and we had another fantastic meal. I had the baby octopus in tomato sauce, garlic and olive oil (decent...a bit too swimming in the tomato sauce) and then my absolutely alltime favorite Italian disk...Linguini alla Vongole (linguini with clam sauce) which was quite good. Sara had the eggplant parm appetizer (kinda strange for an antipasti) and then the lasagna. The complementary bruschetta appetizer was probably the highlight of the night. And also the Coke was much much bubblier than the previous night. That made me happy.

On the way back we stopped at Ben and Jerry's. I had caramel ice cream in a sugar cone and Sara had cherry garcia / choc fudge brownie in a sugar cone...pretty standard but also splendicious. Totally and udderly (get it?) full, we returned to the hotel.

We looked at our watches and it was casino time so we opened up our room safe, took out our $100 chip plus the $35 profit from the other night, went back downstairs, and sat at the roulette table. Gambling didnt go so well tonight, as 17 stubbornly will not hit for us...We lost the $135 and another $100 before calling it quits for the night. We met a few nice people from Long Island, Queens, and Boston.

Can't win em all, but to be honest, I feel like a winner. :) Tomorrow's our last full day so we're gonna try to make it a busy one.