| Meeting the group Marisol and I were late to the orientation meeting since we underestimated how much time stopping in Mango would take and we also overestimated how quickly the train would get us to back to Hotel Praga. We were the last ones into the room, I think. We sat at a table with Jon, Tameka, Jason, Lynn, and Ray. Immediately, I could tell that I’d like Ray. He was hilarious. Jon seemed sweet enough. Tameka and Jason are Australian and had the great accent. This is where Jon got hit with the gay jokes. There were only six guys in the group and Jon was trying to figure out who he could hang out with so he asked a guy at the table next to us if he was single. Ivan paused and hesitantly said that he was and we all laughed at Jon. And thus started the gay jokes. Jon really didn’t like it at all and even tried to say that Marisol and I were lesbian lovers but had to acknowledge defeat because “everyone loves lesbians.” Okay… After everyone filled out the required paperwork, Nathan let us know that we were free to go so a bunch of us tried looking for a restaurant in the neighborhood. The first place was a bust. Either she really didn’t serve tapas at that hour or she didn’t want to serve 30 foreigners. I’m betting on the latter. We eventually found a restaurant that’d take all of us. It turned out that a handful of our group – Christine, Tammy, Melissa and Mark – were already there. I got a salmon dish that was supposedly cooked in the local tradition. It was good but it would’ve been better had I not waited so long for it to come out. I checked on it a few times but was ignored. Oh well. Marisol ordered the chicken dish which came out with fries. She wanted ketchup so she asked for “salsa de tomate”. She got a tomato puree. We later found out that we should have asked for “ketchup”. Room service, please. After dinner, a few of us met in the hotel’s bar. It started out with a good-sized group but dwindled down to Tameka, Jason, Lynn, Ray, Marisol, Mark and me. Lynn and Tameka were hilarious. They got in good with one of the waiters who apparently liked Lynn’s curly hair. Kasia came down to buy orange juice. There was a party in her and Luc’s room so she invited all of us to come up. Somewhere in here is when I met Carlos. Actually, I didn’t even meet him. He walked up to our table and put his hand on my shoulder as he chatted with everyone. Apparently, he had already met the rest of the group. I made funny face when he left and told Mark that I didn’t know him. Lynn and Tameka went to the bar to buy some orange juice and, in a matter of minutes, Lynn was answering the room service calls. Too funny. The room party was crazy courtesy of Carlos and his fly boy moves - enough said there. (Not so) Joy(ful) At the room party, people were talked about clubbing. What happened to everyone? There were only 7 of us downstairs. When we got to Joy, one of the guys was pulled out and told that he couldn’t come in because he was wearing wind breakers. Oh no! We offered to find another place but he and his wife went back to the hotel so we were down to five. At first, the place looked really dull and empty. We assessed the place and it wasn't getting any better - the music was blah - but we got on the dance floor and went through the motions. A few songs later, another guy popped up. He found out where we were went and decided to join us. Yay! We're up to six now. The best part of the night was when I was asked if I'm from Toronto. Apparently, they're the only ones who can dance. There must be some terrible dancers out in Canada! People started streaming in and the music switched to salsa, I think, but we stayed and faked it. The music wasn't enough so three of us decided to go back to the hotel. There's nothing like the pain of being awake in the wee hours of the morning to get you chatty and at ease with a total stranger. I felt like I've known Mark for years even though we went through the typical "where are you from" conversation. Although Joy was a bit disappointing, the night was pretty good overall. And thus ends the first night with the Contiki group. |