So it’s not the front page. And you have to search “backpacking” but if you do, you will find me as the Featured Blog today! Success! Perhaps it’s the lack of other candidates, perhaps it’s because I’ve started updating frequently, but who cares!? I really don’t. So to remember this moment, I did what any nerdy dork would do. I hit “Print Screen”, opened up Paint, Ctrl+ V’d it, clicked save and have put it here for your viewing pleasure.
Now I realize it’s quite small. But I know it’s me.
But I haven’t got a stitch to wear…
My wardrobe is becoming so mundane. I mean, I know I’m backpacking but a girl does miss some things when she’s stuck with the same clothes everyday. Don’t get me wrong, I love my five t-shirts, three tank tops, three pairs of shorts, one pair of jeans and my sweats, I really do. But after three and a half months of wearing those clothes over and over, I long for some of my favourite items that I left behind. I shall begin with my shoes: 
I miss my beautiful, gorgeous, oh-so comfy skate shoes. All six pairs of them. I have a profound love affair for DC’s. I have no idea as to how this came about, but it’s how I am. To throw a pair of these on right now would be heaven.
And let’s not forget a girl’s best friend and worst enemy in footwear. The pointy, three inch, sexy black heels. Man, I’m missing those girls. I even dreamt of them last night. Sure, most people dream of hot people, sex, random events but for me, it’s my sexy heels. I can’t even talk about my bot collection. It will make me cry. Oh, knee high, suade, thr…I can’t do this to myself right now.
I can’t even begin to describe how much I miss some of my underwear. It’s quite ridiculous. Though, both of my favourite bras have been totally ruined on this trip so it should be quite understandable. What a lot of you also need to know is that I have over sixty pairs of underwear. Yes, over sixty. Thong, g-string, bikini, boy cut. Silky, lacy, cotton, mesh. I swear, I do not have a problem.
There is also a certain little blue dress I scored at Guess that I am dying to wear. It’s been ages. It’s cute, flirty, short and dressy all at once. Paired with those sexy heels and this great little clutch I have, I ready for a night out in the city.
My purses. Oh how I miss them so. They used to hold all my things whether they wanted to or not. I could carry them around, throw them around, cheat on them with new bags and they wouldn’t care. They could glam up an outfit, make me look professional and provide me with therapy when I would add to the collection.
I miss my jeans. And my sweaters. And all my awesome going out clothes. The dresses, the skirts, the capris, the tube tops, tank tops, t-shirts. Oh, and I can’t forget the accessories. The necklaces, bracelets, earrings. OMG! Perfume. I need to stop this entire post right now.
I think I need to go home just to play with all my stuff.
So lately, I’ve noticed that Sean has been pretty down. All things considered, I’m usually the last person to be a bitch in a situation such as ours but in the past few days, I’ve felt compelled to bitch slap him. You see, I’ve been extra nice to him, getting him snacks for surface intervals, picking him up his favourite breakfast one morning (the place is at the other end of town and I was down there), nice kind of friend things. And he’s been nothing but a dick. So yesterday I decided it was time to give him a piece of my mind.
Without going into a huge story, I had been drinking since 11am. It was my first day of not diving in over 2 weeks so naturally, some girlfriends and myself hit up the beach, then a restaurant, then a bar. Around 5:30 I strolled into the office to talk to him. He wasn’t having any of it. So I got him at home later. He said it wasn’t a good time. So I went off for dinner and the beach fire and headed home. Seeing his light on, I so brightly walked up the stairs, knocked on his door and said “When is a good time for you to talk, because it always seems like never is the best time for you”. Yea, I know, pretty lame but I was drunk, pissed off, hurt and I hadn’t exactly planned on what I was going to say. Drunk impulses and such, you know how they go.
I proceeded to ask him why he was being such a dick, pointing out all the awesome friend things I do, mentioned the sex from last week and bluntly stated “I don’t want you back, I don’t want to be with you but I’m not against just sleeping together.” Ahh yes. The stupid things I do over and over again. He had agreed with most of what I had said, he apologized and then I asked for cuddles. (I may have some kind of mental or personality disorder. I’m waiting on the results.) We go to his room, we cuddle, he starts massaging my back, something he’s always done when he wants to get all intimate. So I kiss him, we make out and once again, I slept with him. Go me! At least I have a no-strings fuck buddy.
“… Leigh here wants to become a Dive Master. She has finished all her training and passed all her tests, except one. Leigh will demonstrate how to clear her mask and snorkel. Leigh, when you are ready, give us the OK.”
And that is how my snorkel test began, with my instructor Sean introducing the event as all instructors do. As I sat perched on the top of the picnic bench in the pool room with the mask and snorkel on, I wondered what in the hell I was doing. Here I was, sitting in a bikini, about to consume a ridiculous concoction of rum, coke, beer, pina colada and red bull, staring out at all these people who had shown up to witness this rite of passage. Did I really want to chug back that foul mix and clear beer out of a mask? Did I really want to be a Dive Master?
With those thoughts in my head I said “Let’s get ‘er done!”, put the snorkel in my mouth and signaled the OK. It seemed like an eternity had passed by the time the sickly sweet brew finally came rushing down the snorkel. I tried to take it like a champ and not waste anything. The problem was, I was running out of air. So I did what I have seen no other snorkel test victim did. I plugged the snorkel with my thumb as to not waste what was put in my snorkel. After taking a few gasps of air, I put the snorkel back in to be greeted by two gulps of liquid followed by what seemed like ten seconds of foam. After I sucked in air, I whipped off the mask and snorkel, took the snorkel off and waited for the mask filling.
I sat on that bench with anticipation, the top of my mask lifted off my forehead. All of a sudden, this icy cold beverage hit my face, filling my nose and burning my eyes. I counted to three. I signaled for everyone to watch me. I looked down, held the top of my mask and slowly exhaling through my nose, I looked up, cleared my mask and whipped it off. I was handed the rest of my beer, was toasted and I slammed back that beer like it was the last beer on earth. After two months of nothing but reading, tests, exams, and diving until I couldn’t even wake up in the morning, I was finally a Dive Master.
How long does it take a backpacker to pack up all their belongings?
When there is a blazing inferno next door- less than two minutes.
Monday night, I wandered down the island to a nice little spot for Quiz Night. I had promised some people that I would go, so I did, despite having been up since 5:40am and on the boat all day. My roomie and I had gone for a lovely falafel and enjoyed a brief rain storm as we ran to the bar where we began to get liquored up in preparation for the pain our minds would feel while answering the most random of questions.
As the evening wore on, I grew tired and began the walk home. As I exited the bar, I started to smell smoke and just figured people were burning things as they often do on this island. As I wandered further down the street, I saw a red glow in the dark night sky and noticed it was in the direction of my apartment. My slow meandering quickly turned into a run as I got closer and closer to the intersection near where I live. From there, I could tell that the fire was definitely right where I lived. I ran past groups of people, apologizing in both english and spanish as I bumped into them. With ash and embers raining from the sky, I rounded the corner to see the house next door to me engulfed in flames. At this point, the wind was beginning to change and blow in the direction of the apartment.
I sprinted back to the bar where several of my neighbours were finishing up after the quiz and on the way, ran into my roommate and one of my neighbours. Gasping for air, I told them the situation. My roommate and friend started running in the direction of the house and one of them was smart enough to pull out their phone and call our landlord. I continued on to the bar to tell Sean what was going on before running full speed back to the house. I found my friends and we tried to figure out how we were going to get through the crowd of people, the fire truck and get to our place to get out anything we could.
We ran around an entire “block”, going down dirt paths, through backyards and the like. We finally got around to our house where we were greeted by electrical wires hanging down and on our lovely chain link fence. My roommate got her keys out, opened the gate and the three of us sprinted to our apartments to grab our passports, some money and whatever else we could grab. She and I managed to grab almost everything of ours in under two minutes and sat on our lawn watching the flames take over the two houses next door to us. There was nothing we could do until the major flames were out.
After about an hour, most of the flames were extinguished and we started the bucket line, putting out embers and smaller fires. There must have been fifty of us passing buckets back and forth just trying to do our part to help. It was a crazy night.
In other news, Sean and I may or may not have had sex last night, spent the night together, slept together and woke up together. Just saying…
God I’m an idiot. But the sex was fantastic!
