nose peeling = acceptable trade off

i love the caribbean. a lot. even though it's really a terrible place for me - i burn really, really easily; my body doesn't do well with a lot of direct sunlight or heat (seriously, i do things like pass out randomly when i get overheated) - but still go there whenever i can. because dude. it's AWESOME there.

i've done a decent amount of travelling by myself, but this is the first time i've gone tropical on my own. (um, ok, that's not technically true. remind me to tell you about my first trip to st. maarten some time. it's quite a story.) the last time i went to the DR was with my lovely friend liz, and we ended up meeting an adorable young english couple, as well as a group of english boys, and we all made friends and hung out together all week.

i was sort of hoping for that type of happy coincidence again this time, but no real opportunities presented themselves, so i actually did spend nearly the entire time lying by the pool and/or ocean, reading. and taking breaks to swim up to the bar for a fresh pina colada. it was DELIGHTFUL.

(the books ended up being perfect, as it turns out - the Labyrinth book was a really fun read; the thriller, Invisible, was completely status quo [eg, mindless and perfect], and the Good German was REALLY REALLY great. excellently written, very compelling story. highly recommended.)

the resort was... okay. i've been to a lot of cheap resorts in the caribbean before, and i'm not really very picky - i mean, i'm going there for the sun and the water and the drinks, not the quality of the bedding - but this one was shabbier than even i have come to expect. but honestly. does it even matter? i was HERE:

i'm not going to complain too much about crappy showers when this is the flip side, you know?

the resort had these neat little raised platforms out in the shallow water, with little mattresses on them, so you could wade out a bit and hop on the platform and lie on top of the water. mostly it was, um, Romantical Couples doing this, but psh. whatever. i'm romantical.

(like the chin there, by the way? it actually looks pretty good now, as the scab came off while i was down there. not looking so hot is my shoulder, which caused a hilarious number of double- and triple-takes from people down there, along with eleventybillion concerned inquiries of "que pasó????" from everyone i encountered. i really should have looked up how to say "er.. i fell.." sheepishly in spanish, because my rudimentary grasp of the language definitely didn't cover that phrase. and THIS is what it looks like after 3 days of healing chlorine and salt water - which is to say, BETTER than it looked when i got there:

it's purdy.)

UM. ANYWAY. this was supposed to be about gorgeous caribbean scenes, not gory flesh wounds. my bad. bottom line: you should totally go the caribbean sometime soon. it's wonderful. i feel a hundred times better.

[full set here]