Aruba Wrap Up
Overall I had a good time in Aruba. I can’t really say I had a great time because there were a few extreme annoyances while I was there. For most of the week, I didn’t really do too much. I generally slept in, lounged around, worked out, ate, etc. Not a whole lot of partying or even really doing a lot. I did meet with some people from UB a few times and go out to eat with friends but the vast majority of time was simply spent relaxing.
So what was annoying? A couple of things. First, the internet was AWFUL. Last year the internet was kind of bad (see the end of this entry) but it was 100x worse this year. It made browsing the web impossible. However, using AIM worked mostly pretty well — once you were logged on to AIM, it worked fine. But the lack of web browsing tilted me so badly at times I swore to myself I would not go back and stay at the Radisson unless they fix the problems. According to the people at the hotel, the internet is normally okay but it can’t handle the huge influx of online poker players who are on their computers frequently. My response to that is that they shouldn’t be the host of an online poker site’s flagship tournament if they can’t figure out the problem. So, yea, I’m not going back to that hotel for the Aruba tournament unless they fix it.
The second main annoyance was that the hotel’s air conditioning was really poor. Yes, it cooled down the room. But it was like very humid air conditioning. If you walked around the carpet barefoot it felt like the carpet was wet. And the bed sheets felt damp even if you blasted the A/C all day in the room. At first I though to myself “well I guess maybe it just feels damper because it’s really humid in Aruba”. However, we went over to the Westin for dinner a few times and I realized then that the A/C at the Radisson was seriously screwed up. As soon as we walked inside the Westin, everyone said “wow this A/C is nice” because it was both cool and much less humid. While I hold out a little hope that the internet will be better next year I doubt they’ll fix the A/C. Either way, I’m not so sure I’ll end up going next year regardless so it probably won’t matter.
Although I said I didn’t party much (which is true) I did get a bit trashed at the Phil Hellmuth rooftop party on Friday night. I made a few bad decisions. First, I drank on an empty stomach. Second, I stayed up too late. Third, I booked a 7:30 am flight out of Aruba on Saturday. First, here’s a picture of me at the party with sub, Billy Kopp and Matt Graham:
(Credit: Excellent Photog LD)
I had a great time until about 4:45 am when I woke up to leave the hotel for the airport. Unfortunately I woke up drunk and pretty sick. I normally don’t drink on that empty of a stomach and I definitely don’t normally get that little sleep after a party like that. I was having trouble walking around the room in a straight line and my stomach felt like shit. I managed to get a shower, get packed and get out of the hotel by around 5:10 am. Obviously the Aruba airport was already a shitshow even at 5:30 am and, after going through about 10 lines (they do US immigration and customs offshore there, just like in the Bahamas), I finally managed to get to the gate. I still hadn’t had anything to eat and I was still feeling awful. I jumped into another long line at the only food place that was open and snagged a bagel/egg/cheese sandwich. Very few things have ever tasted so good. Not only was I completely starving but it almost instantly made me feel way better. From that point forward it was just about surviving two flights (Aruba->Miami and Miami->Grand Cayman) and I was back in Cayman around 12:30. I managed to stay up until about 10:30 pm despite getting about 3.5 hours of sleep the night before.
Needless to say I’m feeling a lot better today after a full night of sleep. Now I’m planning on being in Cayman for awhile and settling down to work hard on my running conditioning while also working hard on a few projects I have going on with work. If I don’t hit the half marathon training hard before my trip home for Thanksgiving then I don’t think it’ll be a good idea for me to run it. Luckily I have six full weeks to bear down and get my conditioning where it needs to be.
Related posts:
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to get future posts delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
well you are in aruba… comeon’ do u really need internet to the point where you’re cussing to yourself? that sounds ridiculous and greedy. millions of people worldwide are starving.
i agree tho the air conditioning is really uncomfortable. i went there a couple years ago and it was bad then. gl
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
you should at least give credit to the excellent photog