Are you there Tequila? It's me, Lindsay. (Part 4 of 4)

There were so many highlights of our trip, it's hard to break it down to just a few! Aside from the sunshine, wedding, and beach, the biggest highlights had to be....

#1: All the food
At Barcelo, you can eat all you want anytime of day (or at least between 7am and 10:00 pm). Here I am standing in front of the buffet where we ate breakfast and dinner.
This is Amy at breakfast on our first day. I had an omelette every single day, and it was fantastic!And here she is enjoying dinner:There are two buffet restaurants - one is right next to the pool and is called the "snack bar". Our first day, we were searching for a concession stand, when we realized the "snack bar" is a huge buffet!! We ate lunch here everyday since it was close to the pool/beach and you could go in wearing your swimsuit.Such a pretty view from the snack bar! Barcelo has nice sit-down restaurants, too. Our package allowed us 2 nights at the nice restaurants. One night we went to the steakhouse.... but Amy and I felt a bit cheated when our dessert sucked.... so we headed to the buffet afterwards to split a crepe.Highlight #2: The Towel Swan
On our third day, the maid left me a little surprise on my bed...I'm not sure why this swan made of towels cracked me up so much, but I couldn't stop laughing!

Highlight #3: The free stuff!!

We all had slippers waiting for us in our bedroom closets. Amy's mom was very concerned about whether she could take them. None of us were sure.... I wonder if she took those slippers home?

Of course the free drinks were a plus. I started the trip drinking the classics - Corona (the only beer they serve) and Margaritas. But by the end of the week I was really branching out with Banana Daiquiris, Miami Vices (Kathy's drink of choice), and Mango Tango's.One night we weren't sure what we wanted to drink. Our bartender said he'd make us something special. He mixed up all kinds of stuff, and when he handed it to us, I asked what was in it. He said, "Special!" I asked what the drink was called in case I wanted to order another, and he said, "The Special!" Here we are with our Specials.

Highlight #4: The activities
- Everyday at noon, they had water aerobics in the pool. We went everyday, and I really wish I had a picture of us participating!

- The theater was right across from our hotel, so we usually stopped by to see what was happening each night. One night was "Fantasia" night in which they reinacted songs from Disney movies. It was clearly low budget and pretty hilarious. This scene from Kung Fu Panda was pretty interesting...

- The gym was really nice! We went our first morning, and then never again.... we get an A for effort that first day. This picture was taken right before I made the disasterous decision to do squats holding 15 lb weights. I'm not sure what I was thinking, and my quads were sore the rest of the trip!

Highlight #5: Interesting New Characters

As always, we met some memorable people.

- On our way to the gym the first day, we ran into two Italian guys who spoke very little English. They stopped us and said, "Are you Americans?" We said, "Yes..." One of them said, "Ah... you are both, eh, very niiiiice." They wanted to meet up later, but none of us could figure out how to communicate well enough to determine a location and time. It was pretty funny because Amy was speaking English, they were speaking Italian, and I was speaking my 10th grade Spanish, hoping it might be more translatable.

- We never did introduce ourselves, but "topless lady" became a regular fixture in our mornings at the pool. I guess it's legal to walk around topless in Mexico, but this lady was clearly the only one partaking. And it was a family resort!! The rumor mill had it that she was from Spain, but I guess we'll never know.

Highlight #6: Mexican HBO

There weren't a lot of English channels on the television in our hotel room, but we did get several English HBO channels. The funny part was that they all had Spanish subtitles, so everytime we watched a movie it was like having a Spanish lesson.

My first trip out of the United States was a success! Now I need to decide where I'm off to next....