I went to sleep last night listening to a podcast about morning light and your circadian rhythm. So this blog entry is being written while watching the sun rise. (Also I don’t wear sunglasses, do your research and read about the correlation between skin cancer and sunglasses)
Day 5 Aruba.
I woke up and went to the gym. I lasted 15 minutes. This is not something to phone home about but it’s something. It’s the pesky air conditioning and I could feel in my throat, it was starting to hurt. Exercising with a scarf is not a thing. Maybe it should be.
Then my mom braided to French braids on my wet hair. The lady can’t help her self with the comments (I’m aware the apple hasn’t fallen that far from the tree). She said that I looked like a Mexican school girl. What does one do with these random comments your whole life. You just say ok. She then says, it’s a not a bad thing.
The next move is when it all turned to shit. Wet hair close to scalp and in air conditioning in the breakfast dinning room is a recipe for disaster. I was already feeling the head cold come in. Why didn’t I politely excuse myself and go back to my room and dry my hair or at least get a baseball cap 🧢 to keep my head warm. Maybe subconsciously I didn’t want to ruin the nice braids my mom brained. Who knows.
From 13:15 to 16:00 I was on a tour bus seeing all 6 of the districts of Aruba as well as their national park, some caves, some rock formations etc. I’m so fortunate that I can trike up conversations with almost anyone and they seem to like me or warm to me. By the end of the excursion I was ready to vomit so my new friend made sure I was the first person to run off the bus and back onto the ship. As soon as I got to my room I vomited and then did it again prior to sleeping until the next day. In the end, all I ate that day was breakfast. It’s amazing how humans don’t really need that much food.
Let’s talk about Benjamin the tour guide bus driver and Aruba. Yikes this tiny island was hit bad by the plandemic. So many business closed and have never reopened. We passed loads of restaurants and even a super cool drive-in that is shut, all you can see is the screen and weeds growing in the parking lot. How great would it be for more drive’ins to come back.
Benjamin was full of stories, he married his first wife when he was 22. She’s Chinese and there are a lot of wealthy Chinese people on the island. He divorced her when he walked in on her shagging another man. He then went on to marry his first kiss. He spoke about the wages on the island being $2.50 USD an hour and tourists buying up all the good land along the coast. We passed Floyd merriweathers place.
We also drove down the road with all the big Brad resorts. Oddly enough I wasn’t convinced I would come back and stay. I get the water is beautiful but I’m not a fan of being in a tall building. I think I’ll stick to the all inclusive resorts that I’ve stayed in, in Cuba, Dominican Republic, India and Mexico. (… and yes I can hear the privilege screaming off the rooftops)
Day 6 - Thursday May 7th 2026
I woke up feeling normal again, I looked a little haggard still but all and all it was a huge improvement. I had a fever in the night, not for too long, just long enough for the body to do its thing.
- side note. Fevers are wonderful, they are signs that your body is working and it’s released toxins in your sweat. Whatever your beliefs are, it’s the universe, Mother Nature, God, yoda. Who cares. Sweating out a fever is good, good, good. I do wish parents would stop freaking out so much when their kid is warm and the pile the tiny being up with pharmaceuticals.
Family breakfast was fun - not. Now I’m really, really trying to not say anything, pass judgement etc. My moto is, if it’s not hurting the person or anyone else… just let it be. Strike one of the day.
My dad. He is stick and bones and has a big belly. I use to call it a beer belly but he really doesn’t drink that much beer. He doesn’t exercise much at all other than walking. He use to play volleyball with the seniors but that was more in his 60’s. He’s 81 now.
Now I don’t know if this is due to my dad growing up dirt poor (in Africa) or the fact that it’s a fully inclusive holiday but the dude is embarrassing when it comes to what he orders. It’s one thing to order loads and eat it. It’s another thing to order food and waste it.
Breakfast this morning was a disaster, he kept on ordering things, then forgetting what he ordered and almost not touching what he ate. The waiters were a bit fed up too, one of them kindly came to the table and said this was the last order because they had to move to another section. By the end of breakfast he said he would try and order less. He has also come to writing down what he ordered and looking back at the paper many times. This method works well and I think it will help him with his dementia.
The sibs (siblings) are so judgemental with his dementia. I’m use to it. It’s ramped up in age. I think for most of my teens I would joke around that my dad has selective memory. He would remember what he wants to. In hindsight a cognitive memory test 30 or 40 years ago would have been very helpful. Oh well.
There is just sooooo much going on and I really really need to remember that. It’s so easy to forget. So my dad will ask the same thing over and over. I’m no doctor but this is my theory. Age, cognitive decline, dementia, prostate cancer medication that’s not helping the dementia (known side affect). On top of that, I believe my father to be on spectrum and have ADD. There is a huge attention deficit going on too. And it’s real because if you can find a topic, subject or interest that he likes. He can carry a pretty good conversation. If he’s not really into the conversation, he’s lost to the fairies.
Lastly when he was 15ish in Zanzibar, he was messing around with friends or cleaning his ears (I’ll get clear on that story today). There was a pop and his ear drum was perforated. He is completely deaf in one ear. The “good ear” that’s what it was referred to my whole life… is no longer good and he has an hearing aid in that one.
After breakfast the 5 of us headed off the ship and into the port area of Willemstad Curacao. 🇨🇼 I finally got data via an eSIM. It was sooooo nice to be online again.
We took a few pictures in our family themed T-shirts and then split up. The sibs took a cab to cocomo beach. (Someone how we all the beach boys song - it was on the soundtrack of Cocktail with Tom Cruise. The cocktail film at the theatres was actually mine or my sisters birthday party. Yikes have you seen it?? It’s very racy for children. Oh well). I didn’t do the beach because of the cab bit. I wanted to be waking distance to the ship. So I spent some time with my mom while I dad rested on a bench. Then I went to the fruit market with my dad while my mom went to an outdoor beach bar and had a cold drink. Then back to my mom where we looked at a few jewellers while my dad went back to the ship.
That’s a lot of chop and change but it was fine, and it all flowed well.
At the jewellers my mom pointed to a bracelet that she liked. I was wearing one almost the same. Mine is lab grown diamonds and gold vermile. So silver with gold plating. It’s still nice and fraction of the price. I gave it to her then and there. She was grateful
I’m going to wrap this up as I’m melting now on the top deck.
I made friends in the hot tub jacuzzi, I’ve invited them to the quiz today.
There are 6 quizzes so let’s see how many I do.
