12/27/08 - Saturday, moving day - Okay, I’m a lush! I’ve decided that besides not having my cats here, my only complaint is the high price of liquor/beer/wine (North Carolina is not cheap for alcohol and this is worse). I’ve had to resort to what is “on sale” right now for Amsterdam beer at 99 cents CI 330 ml cans of beer that is worse than PBR. I miss my box of red wine (not available here) that’s 12.99 US or so for 5 liters. And there’s no “generic” hard alcohol either, and very little amber/dark beer. A 6-pack of pale [View Full Entry]

---

---

12/26/08 Friday: Iguanas and Blowholes on Grand Cayman Leisurely start to the day; DD and DGS had some pool and ray time while she was doing a load of laundry and I did some tidying in the kitchen (can’t get away from housework completely) and made lunch to take along for the afternoon. We headed to the East District again, and went to the Mastic Trail. It goes into what is still a scrubby natural area on the Island. The northside trailhead was a little tricky to spot - it’s right beside a house that has a front wall marked Beware [View Full Entry]

---

---

December 25, 2008 Wonderful leisurely day at the resort today. We did a few presents in the morning that I had brought along. DD (dear daughter) started cooking turkey dinner, then we went down the beach and did a holiday photo. DGS (dear grandson) and I did some snorkeling -- it's fairly rocky along this part of the beach, so there are a quite a few different kinds of fish about. Had lunch and relaxed, then DGS and I went down to the pool while DD continued working on the conch shell project. They are pretty heavy, not sure how many [View Full Entry]

---

---

Wednesday, 12/24/08 - Christmas Eve DD and DGS went to the pool for early morning rays after bkfst; I posted some photos, etc. Then we went did a little shopping, mostly for a few extra things to get through the coming two holidays. Had lunch at the condo. Then drove through town to head to east side. Six enormous cruise ships in town - an expected 17,000+ people; it was elbow-to-elbow along the sidewalks in the shopping district in town. The smallest of the ships is the Disney Magic, that DD and DGS got to cruise on with DD’s grandmother as [View Full Entry]

---

---

Tuesday 12/23/08 -- $30.00 for a bottle of rum liqueur! (guess I need to add some more scenic photos along the way as well) Weather kind of stormy today, very windy, pretty cloudy, cooler and some sprinkles. After bkfst, DD and DGS did an early morning basking session in what rays were available - before 10 (they got up way too early!). I am realizing that my blog about this trip is not very exciting for other readers. We don’t dive or party in the evening, so may not be much useful info for other folks. But maybe for families visiting [View Full Entry]

---

---

Dec. 21, Sunday - Moving on down 7 Mile Beach - This is the Life! We went to Eats Café for breakfast, using the Cayman activity guide coupon - had two books, so got two CI$3.99 one egg bkfsts, and one blueberry fluffycake bkfst to share with DGS and among us. No coffee or juice so came out at about CI$16-17.00 with tip. (That’s really inexpensive here, but we just had water to drink, and ordered carefully to see if we could get by doing that). Pretty good, with good service. It’s straight across the street from the Westin and traffic [View Full Entry]

---

---

“Plan on extra fees and increased costs everywhere” We left on Friday and spent the first night in Charlotte, to skip the hassle of getting up early in the morning, dropping off and parking at the airport. The Wingate Inn at the airport has a Park ‘n Fly option, which worked really well for getting to the airport. A decent/pleasant room, the usual marginal lobby breakfast and a shuttle to the drop-off near the check-in location. Saturday: Check-in went fine, lots of people, but lots of desks open; security went fairly quickly. It’s right after the check-in now [View Full Entry]

---

---

Next up is our holiday trip back to Grand Cayman. We fly out from Charlotte this year on Friday, 12/20 -- should be much less stressful than last year's experience with the Atlanta airport. I'll also be doing a trip report on the Cayman activity guide site, but I hope to be able to add more details here. Why, you may ask, do people who do no scuba diving want to keep going back to Cayman? After all, the Cayman Islands are known most for their spectacular diving. Well, we do a little bit of snorkeling -- even though we don't [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sept 22, Monday, heading home - boring details about the transfer to the airport, and what Gatwick is like. No luck sending email at the airport, put a pound in a coin-operated computer station for 10 minutes of time - but email wouldn't send. Someone helped me find the @ sign on the keyboard, but that didn't work either (it hadn't gone thru using my address book). At least it didn't appear to. Guess I need to Google “how to use the Internet internationally” to try to find all the different sites to sign up with, and how to pay for [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sept 21, back to London, Warwick Castle It's Sunday evening, back in London - tried to get on to the Internet, but wimped out. At the desk I was cheerfully told that it was cheaper to use a credit card, rather than their L7.50 voucher for about an hour. When I tried to go the credit card route, which came up at L6.00, I kept getting a security domain error message, so I didn't want to put in my cc number. It was too late to wander over to the KFC nearby that claims to have free wifi - I have [View Full Entry]

---

---