Well, that was an exciting week. First of all, I want to wish everyone a belated happy thanksgiving. I would have expressed those sentiments last week but for a few reasons:

They wouldn't have been belated.

ATF's large Canadian readership had it's thanksgiving two weeks into November. It would have been inefficient and rude to give belated Thanksgiving wishes to our neighbors to the north, and on-time sentiments to those of us south of Niagara.

I had no access to my ftp for the better part of last week, having spent a long weekend in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

I imagine that's what I'm going to spend the better part of this entry talking about. Mostly because as of right now, everything in my life that isn't related to my trip to the Carribean is cold (and therefore depressing). I know, I know - "It's not that cold in New York yet." I came from 80 degree weather to 40 degree weather. This contrast has caused me to sink into a minor depression. This depression is only exacerbated by the knowledge that there will soon (over the next couple of days/weeks) come another temperature drop from 40 degrees to 0 degrees (NB that this is the same temperature drop I have recently undergone). So it's like I have to suffer through two onsets of winter - one quick and painful, the other long and tortuous. Honestly, the only aspect of the entire thing that makes it at all palatable is the knowledge that everyone I see is undergoing the same painful transition.

I intend to (silently) revel in the fact that, while I am undergoing a far more drastic change in my environment, my average temperature calculated over this winter season will be greater than that of most of my peers. Hey, I never pretended to be a good person.

But to quote Ben (who actually hasn't said it yet, but I'm sure that once he reads the above will say): "Bitch bitch bitch. Wah." And I can't say I disagree. My time abroad was a seriously great time - one of the best vacations I've been on, actually, for a number of reasons. I'll try to hit all of them, but it might take a couple of entries. And a few sessions with my hypnotist, since a good part of the weeks memories have taken refuge in a mental bunker built entirely out of maraschino cherries from pina coladas.

The trip into the island was fairly uneventful. The only rough part centered around the fact that this was my first solo vacation - I booked the tickets myself, was travelling alone, and was going to have no one to commiserate with if things went wrong. So the entire sequence up until I transferred planes in Miami was tinged with a low but constant degree of panic. Once that went away, I felt much better. After my entry to Montego Bay airport, I was bustled onto a small bus which drove about two hours to Ochos Rios where the resort at which I was staying is located. "Ochos Rios," according to the imbeciles I had sitting next to me on the bus ride over, means either "Red Gold" in Spanish or "The Peaceful Road" in Portugese. I took this little bit of information with something of a grain of salt, since the think tank which came up with it consisted of a couple from Minnesota wearing matching Corona Beer shirts. Not that I have anything against people from Minnesota or Corona beer, but I have a certain standard for language professors and they didn't meet the criteria.

I think I want to strech this out a little bit, so I'm going to end this entry here-ish. I do want to mention a few things I learned on my journey, however:

Jamaicans love Bob Marley. It's not a front for tourists. They are so psyched about him. And they are way ahead of Hollywood, having made a movie about their own favorite musician which was released quite some time ago, called 9 Mile.

It's actually harder to not buy marijuana than it is to buy marijuana. An anecdote from one of the members of the group I was with spoke of someone putting a bag of drugs in his pocket at the airport and then demanding $30 for it (From what I understand, the only way for this kid to not complete the transaction was to drop the bag on the floor. Which is a pretty tough decision to make at an airport, to be honest. At some point it almost seems safer to hand over money than to be seen distributing narcotics to the floor). As far as I could tell, the only people on the island who weren't prepared to sell you dope were those who had already sold all of their dope.

The human body can only take in so many tropical drinks before it ceases to function properly. Unfortunately, all evidence as to this fact is purely anecdotal, since for some reason there is not a single reliable witness to any single instance of this strange effect.

Oh, and I'll get to more of it later, but for those of you that don't know, the reason for my short trip was to be present for the wedding of Christopher Demetriou to Cynthia Maurino. The wedding was beautiful, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for inviting me to share it with them. Much love to them both.