The Bahamas!- Mama.

You may be wondering why Grams was back down in South Carolina so soon after her last visit. Well, we brought her back down so she could babysit while we were in the Bahamas!

Brandon was invited to a conference and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to tag along as this is papa's first conference that wasn't somewhere like Pittsburgh or South Bend. (Though we have tagged along to many an event in Washington DC.)

We're very glad to say that the Bahamas are just as beautiful as the pictures and about 10 times more expensive than we could ever have imagined. Thank goodness we used up all of Brandon's research money to pay for the conference and hotel room.

As Brandon spent a good deal of time in talks and presentations, it was my job to scout out the island. On the first night, I went in search of water that didn't cost $4 a bottle. (Did you ever notice that hotels have NO water fountains? It's a racket. We filled our water bottle with ice from the ice machine.) My search led me to the next hotel which not only had a convenience store with cheaper drinks, but a casino. We were feeling giddy with our freedom, so we risked $5. Brandon took $2 and made it 6 at the poker machines.

And mama's first quarter at the slot machine netted $15! The Coopers may remember from a trip to the casinos at Niagra Falls 6 years ago that I am the least fun person to gamble with, so not only did I make Brandon cash out our winnings, I also made him go back to our hotel to get the camera to document them! We took our lucky $15 to the bar to buy 2 beers. Then we realized we couldn't afford $7 beers.

So on our second day, I ventured out farther. I hopped on a bus and headed downtown. I took it as a good sign when the bus let me out on George Street. (I did periodically think about my children.)

I peeked inside Christ Church Cathedral to find it was a perfect mix of St John's Church and St. Michael's the Ridge. It was almost surreal.

I visited the Straw Market (I found this picture on the internet), a very tightly packed tent full of booths where the locals hawk their wares to Americans fresh off cruise ships. From what I read online, the key is bargaining, because they'll always tell you a very high price first. So I had a fun afternoon bargaining and buying dolls for the girls, a turtle made out of a coconut for Henry, a bracelet and straw basket for myself and a coffee mug for Brandon. I'm sure even with my bargaining, they still made a fortune off of me, as everyone was selling the same thing, probably imported from China. (I did see them sewing the straw baskets, so I'm fairly confident that was authentic.) I had a great time in the Straw Market. When I took Brandon back another day it only took about 5 minutes for a local to approach him, wrap a necklace around his neck and weasel $3 out of him. (He would have paid more if I hadn't stopped him.) Brandon would have kept them all in business for a month if we hadn't left immediately after that.

The internet was also right when they said the rum was cheap in the Caribbean. I found a $10 bottle and we saved a fortune making our own rum and cokes in our room for the rest of our trip. Take that, hotel bar!