Day 8: Our Day in Long Beach

Saturday we woke up at our Bed & Breakfast. Pat, our hostess, told us breakfast was ready from 7 to 9 AM. We both are people who don't want to waste a vacation sleeping, so we were up around 6:30. (It was very light in our room and our curtains were only sheers over mini blinds.) We got presentable and made our way downstairs somewhere close to 7:00. The table was already set, with fresh fruit in little ramekins, plenty of muffins, bagels, and breads available, two kinds of juice, coffee, teas, milk, 3 kinds of cereals, yogurt, and Greek yogurt. And that didn't even include the hot breakfast entree that Pat makes special each day. She later added scrambled eggs and sausage to the table. Fresh fruit and Greek yogurt? That was way better than the Carnival ship's breakfast buffet. That was mostly pork (bacon, sausage, ham) and lots of carbs, like pancakes, waffles, breads, and fried potatoes. It was exactly what my body had been craving. We were very pleased with our stay here.

We didn't have anywhere to be until our business event around 1:00, so we just went back to our room, spent time on the internet, and relaxed until it was time to go. It was nice not to have anything pressuring us to go "do" anything. We took our showers, got dressed, and since we still weren't hungry, we skipped lunch and went to the meeting. It was held at the Maya Hotel, which happened to be right next to where our cruise ship had been docked. Did I mention it was next to the Queen Mary, sister ship of the Titanic, that's been turned into a hotel? Anyway, the meeting wasn't what we were used to. I felt like a Mom in that room of 200+ people, most of them under 30, many barely 20 I would guess. We had great speakers, got all the latest info, then they did something we didn't expect - they broke for a 40 minute scavenger hunt. You earned points by forming teams (we were there alone, out-of-state, so a little awkward), then you did group activities like, Have your team do 300 push ups and video it, then send it to FB with the hashtags they were looking for to earn points. Tim did over 50 and I was very impressed. They had things like video your team in a pretend earthquake, find a person to chase you but you can't ask them to do it, buy gas or dinner for a stranger, etc. If I had a day to do it, and a team, maybe - but 40 minutes with strangers...wasn't easy. Anyway, after the event, we listened to a great speaker, and before you know it, we were done.

We were done by 4:00, and by now we were hungry. We decided to go back to our room, and do some research to find a nice place. Tim spent over half an hour pouring through the local magazines' ads to research online. We hoped for a place at a marina or with a great ocean view. Then we tried someplace that maybe had live music. We also looked for someplace with nightlife going on. We also thought of maybe a Chinese buffet (so we can pick and choose what we eat). We didn't have much luck there, so we chose a nearby place called the At Last Cafe. It was originally a catering company that opened up a restaurant after a few years. The ad said it was featured on Guy Fieri's Dives, Diners, and Drive-Ins. That sounded promising. Good food, even if it didn't have a view or music. It turned out to be just a few blocks away. Again, finding parking on one-way, historic, residential streets was difficult. We finally found someone leaving, so we took their space. The place was tiny, but yes, the food was good. I ordered the Brick Chicken. It's half of a chicken breast, cooked under a brick, full of flavor, served with potatoes and veggies I think. I ordered a lemonade and it tasted homemade. It was one of the best glasses of lemonade I remember having. The staff was a little disorganized, bringing wrong items to wrong tables, but I think every table saw at least 4 different people! So you know they tried to do things quickly for the customer, they just weren't organized. Everyone was doing every job. Anyway, it was a great, peaceful final dinner in California. After dinner, we just went back to the room to enjoy our cozy inn room.

Day 7: Off the boat, onto the Bed & Breakfast

Waking up on Friday, we were a bit sad to be leaving the boat so early (they kick you off by about 8:15 AM), but again, we weren't leaving to go home, or back to work. We were leaving to stay at the Beachrunner Inn in Long Beach, a cute little Bed & Breakfast. So I guess it wasn't too sad, was it?

We got off the boat, which was easier than I would've guessed. We chose to carry our luggage off rather than leave it out the night before and claim it in a roomful of suitcases tomorrow. No inspection, no security, nothing. We walked off, no lines, no stopping, straight through to the parking garage in just a few minutes. We only had to hand in our claims form to declare what we spent and were bringing back, which was close to nothing from Mexico. Anyway, the Beachrunner was just 4 miles from the port, and check in wasn't until 3 in the afternoon. We decided to stall until 9 AM, then swing by the Bed & Breakfast to let the owner we were there, find out how early we could check in, and to ask the owner where we could grab breakfast and head to a beach nearby. You could almost see the ocean from the Inn, but it wasn't beach area. She recommended Belmont Shores just a little ways down the road. Off we went.

We headed down the street to Belmont Shores. It was a cute little beach town. Lots of surfing items, beach clothing, and seafood shacks. We were told we could check in early, but not before noon, so we went looking for a place to grab breakfast. We weren't overly hungry so we stopped at a little doughnut and coffee shop on the main street. Parking in Long Beach is different. Half the streets are one-way streets, and all the streets have signs up that say, "No parking on Thursdays (or whatever day on that sign)...street sweeping". You may find the best little shop, but parking may not be available for a long way down the street, nor on the side streets. We probably chose the coffee shop we did because we found a parking space and just tried to find what was near the car. Inside was small, but fairly clean. It was run by just one woman. She did the baking out back, and ran the front of the shop. We ordered our coffees and bagel egg sandwiches. We didn't rush through our breakfast but we didn't stay too long either. I couldn't wait to get on the sand, staring at the ocean waves breaking once again.

We headed down to the end of Belmont Shores and found a mostly empty parking lot on the beach. Perfect! We paid for our parking, opened our suitcases to pull out bathing suits and towels, then hit the restrooms to change. They were pretty much cement blocks with a door and typical side-of-the-road rest area toilets, but we just needed room to change. After putting our clothes back in the car we headed toward the water. I can't tell you how amazed I was at the empty beach. Granted, it was a Friday morning, and people are at work and kids are in school, but you always see photos of California's beaches with people packed like sardines on the sand. That morning, there were about 3 people walking the beach, and way up on the next hill a small group of people met for yoga on the beach. We had a mile long stretch of beach almost to ourselves. We could even look across the way and see a little of our ship we'd just left. I never mentioned this but Jordan collects sand from places we go. It started with my trip last year back east when I brought her back some sand from Hampton Beach, NH. She put it into a colored, old-fashioned bottle with a cork stopper. She said then she'd like to have sand from all over in different colored and shaped bottles - so on this trip, I brought her back sand. We gathered sand from Newport Beach, and Catalina Island, and now from Long Beach (the Mexican beaches were miles away so that didn't happen). The sand here amazed me. First of all, where the water receded after each wave came in, it left a black trace. The sand had lots of black minerals in it. When I looked closer, I realized it also had tons of shiny, gold glitter (looked like it) in it. When the wave came in then receded, it would leave a trail of gold behind on the sand. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I made a short video of it for the kids to see. I collected sand for Jordan, and also some shells to add to her someday Beach Themed room (next house where we can paint). It was a beautiful morning, by a perfect beach, with the best husband I could have asked God to give me.

Once it was around noontime, we weren't really hungry, so we just snacked on our healthy snacks we'd brought along, and went to check into our room. The home is a remodeled 1913 home with lots of space. There were at least 3 bedrooms upstairs and 2 downstairs, I think, plus the areas where the owner lives. The chair rail shelves, built-in hutches and cabinets, the stone and tile fireplace, it was very inviting and warm. There was even a hot tub and sitting area out on a back patio that was covered by trees for privacy. Our room was ready when we got there, and we were more tired than we realized. We thought we'd just take a short nap, then go sightseeing or something. Well, our nap took us from about 12:30 through to suppertime. We slept great, the room was nice and cool, the ceiling fan and open windows were perfect. There was a bit of noise from the street outside, but I grew up in the city and Tim sleeps in truck stops, so it was fine. We just enjoyed the freedom to sleep all afternoon if that's what we wanted to do. There never seems to be time for naps as an adult, too much to do. This day was ours to do as we pleased, with nothing else to do.

After our extended nap, we were hungry. Tim suggested going to George's Greek Cafe. I LOVE Greek food. I wasn't sure he liked it, but if he was okay with it, I wasn't going to argue. We got ready and drove downtown to the district where all the restaurant, bars, and entertainment seemed to be. The buildings had a historic flair to them, nice architecture, high-rise buildings. It was very different from everything else we'd done so far. We ate outside on their side patio, just as the sun was getting ready to go down. We enjoyed the special, roasted lamb, baked potatoes, Greek salad, it was better than the cruise dinner. All homemade, no artificial ingredients, just good food. For dessert we tried a warm vanilla custard with vanilla ice cream (again, I'm not a chocolate fan). It was pretty good too. What a great dining experience - yes, we were still on vacation.

After dinner, we just went back to enjoy our Bed & Breakfast, and spent the evening relaxing.

Day 6: Ensenada, Mexico

Again I woke up and turned on the "window" to see if we were in port, and what it looked like. It's odd to use a television that way, but for a claustrophobic without a window, it worked. It was a sunny day, the wind had died down, the forecast was for the low to mid 80s,...a perfect

We went to the morning buffet and I was surprised to see land on 3 sides of the ship. We had land on our starboard side, which continued around the back of the ship, and on the port side, the land seemed to continue, but beyond the harbor, around a bunch of docks, it eventually opened to the ocean. Having never left the U.S. before (except for a long weekend in Montreal, Canada), I didn't know what to expect. In my school books growing up, they always depicted Mexico with old cars of the 1970s that didn't look like American cars. The photos typically shown of Mexico look like Indian Reservation land, with beat up pickup trucks, and building shanty's made with pieces of scrap metal leaning together. I know there's some poverty-stricken areas that may actually look like that, but where we were in Ensenada, it looked like a typical lower-income city. We could see a McDonald's and other familiar fast food and cheap type of businesses. I was surprised that the cars were modern and looked like those on an American street. I already knew people dressed in jeans and T-shirts and sneakers - not the souvenir type of garb they sell to tourists, with over-sized sombreros and sarapes draped over them. After breakfast, we went down to the gangway to do some shopping. I was hoping to find souvenirs for all the kids there too.

This was the strangest day. We got off the boat, went through a little building with about half a dozen mini shops of souvenirs, and one pharmacy. Yeah, like a Walgreen's in a 10' x 10' area, strange. The first thing that told us we weren't in America anymore was the style of souvenirs. I searched high and low for those little mini collector spoons for my Grandmother. I try to get one everywhere I go. I expected shot glasses, but not ones with clay body parts sticking out in 3D fashion. Seriously, who wants to do a shot with "one of those" poking you on the bridge of your nose? And there were skulls...lots of skulls. Not typical Harley Davidson skulls, these were Day of the Dead skulls, styled with flowers for eyes, and all kinds of intricate patterns on and around them. They just don't match our decor...There were lots of jewelry cases and stands, silver being the main focus it would seem. Not what I was looking for. They had clothes, but again, nothing they would wear, so nothing I felt the need to wear to remind me of our visit. We didn't find anything worth parting with our money there, so we got on the $2 bus to get to "downtown" safely. It has no route other than ship to downtown center and back. Little did we realize until afterwards that the center of downtown was about 2 blocks from the ship. Oh well. It was a nice bus with clean, new-looking upholstery. Not some broken down 1960s thing with a lady and chickens on it like they portray in movies.

Once you're off the bus, you're in it. You're in the center of the main street filled with literally hundreds of tiny stores, all sharing walls, that have open fronts and go very deep into a dark back of the store. The owners sit across from their stores putting you in-between the store front and themselves, with the street behind them. There's also dozens of people with stands of junk to buy on the sidewalk itself. It's a bit claustrophobic, but I love learning about cultures so I had a great plan to be friendly, and see what the Mexican people are like. Well, all I really encountered were the salesmen and saleswomen. It's like going to a huge car dealership to find out what Americans are like. It's not really a representative picture of the whole. Every single person you pass has their routine down, "Good morning amigos! Go into my store and see all the great deals we have for you today! See if there's something you like, no pressure. Here, let me have a 'Mexican Minute' of your time to show you something..." And you heard it every 10 feet down a half mile long street. Over and over and over. We must've said, "No thank you." at least 100 times while still smiling. Then we got all Boston on them and just stopped making eye contact and stopped smiling. We did great for about an hour. We even figured out what a Mexican Minute was. Apparently, it's as long as it takes a Mexican merchant to make his sales pitch. We went into one store followed by an adolescent who asked us, "Do you speak Spanish?" Tim said, "No." He then asked if we came in off the ship. When we told him we did, he replied, "Ah, mas barrato." (Oh, very cheap). I stopped, looked right at him, and he looked like the kid caught in the cookie jar. I told Tim we were leaving, and we walked out. If his mind is already made up that ship people are cheap because they don't buy from his one store, among the hundreds, all selling the same thing - we don't need to change his paradigm. The nicest guy we met was one of the first. He took about five or six no's and was still just as nice, pleasant, and excited to show what he had. It was a great lesson for us to learn. He didn't let the no's stop him from doing what he had to do to make a living. There were also several shopkeepers that tried to show us how to not be fooled into buying fake silver or fake leather. It was to buy their real wares but it was still a learning experience. The funniest was when one asked me what I was looking for. I told him, "One of those little silver spoons" and he said, "Coke spoon (cocaine spoon)?" I then had to explain further. It was a good laugh for us but he was just as serious either way. Getting back to pharmacies...just like it was strange seeing liquor sold in normal stores in Arizona (you can only buy them from liquor, state liquor, or "package" stores in New England), it was just as strange seeing that every 20 mini stores or so was a pharmacy. NOT like a Walgreens. These were stores that had huge signs directed to Americans. You could buy Viagra, Antibiotics, pain pills, sleeping pills, whatever you needed, right there in the streets. They let Americans know that, "The U.S. Law allows you to enter the states with up to a 3 month supply of drugs as "personal use" so you can buy them today and take them home." Our public service messages are a little different...

After an hour, we were done, SO done. We took the return bus back to the ship so we had visited and returned, all by 11:30 AM. We experienced it. We found 2 necklaces for the guys - a guitar and a cross, both with the Lord's Prayer in Spanish - no souvenir spoon for Grandma. On the boat, we relaxed by the pool, sunning ourselves until we got hungry for the lunch buffet. It took a few hours to just decompress from the pressure in the market. After lunch, we returned to the top sun deck where we'd found quiet the day before and found it even more secluded. We spent all afternoon there. It really struck me how industrious and hard-working the Mexicans we met really were. They get up every day, get told "no" by hundreds, if not thousands of people. They sit out in the hot sun on the sidewalk. And they do it with a smile, handshake, and kind words. They pay around 20% in taxes, they told us, so they do whatever they can and do most of their deals under the table to survive. It's not easy, but at least they work. They aren't sitting home on public benefits (at least the ones we talked to said they were able to work, thankful to be able to own a business, so benefits were not an option). I really think if you put 100 Americans on that routine, they'd quit, give up, or walk away. Then I started thinking about the ship's staff - no Americans that we encountered. They put their country of origin on their name tags. They work harder than anyone I've seen in years! I see our evening waiter working in another part of the ship in the morning, then doing another job in the afternoon, they wait on us for dinner (handling several tables of 10 at a time), then they do it again for the late seating dinner. When in port, you see dozens of Asians scrubbing the decks, washing all the windows, doing all the unseen jobs that don't get credit or tips. They looked to be in their teens, for the most part. It really made an impression on me what good workers come from other countries and how lazy the typical Walmart employee and cashier seems to be in comparison.

Our last dinner was fun. I ordered the steak, Greek salad, and Bread Pudding with Coconut sorbet. The staff did another rehearsed song & dance, including a part 2 which was the Gungham Style dance. We said goodbye to our table-mates, and exchanged facebook information. We agreed to go see another family-friendly comedian with Christopher and Kerri. He was funny, but not as good as the first guy. Wanting to make the most of our evening, Tim and I returned to the Violin Bar before going to bed on our last night.

We knew the Sea Ninjas were playing again, and tonight was 80's Night. They were all decked out like the cast of Saved by the Bell. They did a good job, just missed the words a few times, but that's okay, we understood...some of them weren't even born when the song was popular! They played well and people clapped after each song, but there was a strange, new excitement in the area. There were two waitresses who'd been there all trip, but were very serious and quiet until tonight. One was named Aimee, she was very sweet. The other was named Kajka and she could've been Cameron Diaz' twin sister from about 10 years ago. She's Russian, and seemed so stern before, I just guessed maybe she was tired of being hit on by the drunks in and out of the casino right there. On Thursday night though, she was a whole new person. She and Aimee were dancing, singing along, interacting with customers with laughs, and they made it a fun, party atmosphere. Kajka came out from behind the counter several times, grabbing the hands of all the patrons on the barstools to lead them to the dance floor, then she'd stay with us for a few minutes so we'd be comfortable staying out there. As I mentioned before, this bar area was an open concept with the main deck's walkway crossing straight through the middle of it, and through the "dance floor". The most heart-warming thing I saw Kajka do was grab the hands of a man in a wheelchair passing through, and she gave him her full attention and danced with him for a whole song. He looked so happy, and she made him feel like part of the party. Warm fuzzy feelings! We stayed until the very last song, around 1 AM, then went back to the room full of happiness and joy. And although the cruise was over, we weren't sad because we weren't leaving to go home. We still had a few days at a Bed & Breakfast, more beach time, a great business event, and the San Diego Zoo - so after the cruise, we were going "on vacation". What a great trip.