Day 1 (Friday November 17):
On Friday we left at 11 to head to Toronto via the coach bus.. about 40 of us all together. We didn't make it too far before we had to pull over because our breaks were seizing. Yikes! There was smoke.. and lots of awful smells.. but thankfully we had a ton of mechanics on board that diagnosed the situation (while pulled over on the side of a very major highway.. Fun times) and we were on our way. The rest of the bus ride went off without a hitch, and as you can imagine the excitement levels were quite high! Check in at the airport also went off without a hitch.. we checked in quite quickly and went through security so that we wouldn't have any delays.. walked around a bit and then settled on some good 'ole sandwhichs and drinks before our plane ride. Oh yeah, there was a bit of pre-plane drinking as well.. All in good fun of course. We also hung out in our terminal waiting to board the plane.. Got some pictures and took some pictures of our plane. Once we boarded things seemed to go pretty quickly.. The take-off was great, and we were cruising high above the ground before we knew it.. had a dinner on the plane and chatted with everyone. The plane food was actually pretty good... and I even got a small nap in. I wish they had have told us where we were flying over, but that was pretty much my only complaint. We watched the movie "The Ant Bully" on the way there, it was really cute! When we landed we had to get off the airplane right onto the runway, which was pretty neat, since I'd never done that before. Cuban customs was super easy too.. And they sold lots of beer (really cheap) right at the airport, so the guys loaded up for the bus ride from Holguin to our Airport. The bus ride was lots of fun too.. We were excited to see the resort. Once we got to the resort we checked in.. took our luggage to our rooms and then hit the lobby bar. It was a pretty early night for most of us though, since we were anticipating the sun (and booze) of the next day!

Day 2(Saturday November 18): Our first official day at the resort. We woke up and it was sunny and beautiful. First stop of the day was the Breakfast Buffet. Yummy. A lot of the people who travelled with us said this was their favourite buffet meal of the day. I'm not a big breakfast eater, but I definately did gain a few pounds this week thanks to the mini donuts and french toast! Yummy!
We headed down to the pool/beach area right after breakfast. We had to be down their early in order to get a prime tanning/poolside location. We did well, and basically staked our claim on a whole row of chairs together for the rest of the sunny days.. And some not so sunny ones!
We all had a *few* too many drinks by the pool that day.. The good thing is that you don't really *feel* it while you're still in the pool. It was only when we got up to tour the beach that we really realized how much we'd actually had to drink. I'm pretty sure everyone else at the resort was probably fed up with us.. We hooked up with one of the other Wedding Parties there, and had a BLAST all week. The pool bar was awesome. There were so many of us travelling together that it felt like we were the only people AT the resort.. Loved it! We spent most of the day at the pool, and made a few trips to the beach to check things out and of course take lots of pictures. The ocean was BEAUTIFUL, and it was even warmer than the pool! Lots of activities for people to do, and although I didn't have a chance to go, I hear the snorkeling around the resort is awesome! We also had our "orientation" this day.. So we got to find out about the resort, travelling off the resort and the type of tours they did. It was honestly quite boring, but we did learn a few things we didn't know. We hung out in the lobby bar that night.. And most of us were a little burnt from that day.. But we had a great time!

Day 3 (Sunday November 19): When we got up today it was pretty sunny also! We were pretty excited about that.. so we headed straight down to the pool, skipping breakfast altogether. Plus, we weren't really sure of the time the whole trip, since we didn't have a watch or an alarm clock. It was lots of fun. LOL. We had a few drinks and hung out by the pool most of the morning.. Floating around and suntanning. It was so great. The boys went off to play some beach volleyball, and us girls just hung out by the pool. Then my friends Jenn and Scott and I went to find Brad to see if he wanted to take a ride into the little market in town (Guadalavaca). We ate at the restaraunt by the pool, and then took a horse and buggy into town. It was a GREAT ride, and we took so many pictures. There were a ton of animals on the sides of the road.. Horses, Birds, Cows, Goats. It seemed as though many of them were wild and they were able to roam wherever they would like.. but some of them were tied down in random places, which I thought was quite odd. The funniest thing was that everytime we saw a horse, we would see this white bird that looked kinda like a duck right beside it! The ride in was so nice.. the guy that drove us in the horse and buggy was really helpful and tried really hard to understand and speak in English. Once we got into the market he asked us how long we'd be and we said about half an hour.. So he went and parked and waited for us to finish! The market was SO cool.. There were a ton of different "booths" set up selling all kinds of wonderful things. I wanted to buy something from everyone, but we decided to do a "tour" first before we settled on buying anything. The jewelry, paintings and wood crafts were my favourites by far. We ended up buying quite a bit. We bought some beautiful paintings for our walls, and some wooden flowers for me. Jenn and Scott bought quite a bit of stuff too, we were all pretty happy when we left. We were also able to give a few children some candies, and they were so excited. It was very rewarding. When we arrived back at our hotel we tipped our driver very well because he did an excellent job, and I couldn't imagine having to drive one of those things in that heat. Poor guy. He was super nice though, and we really enjoyed the whole experience! We then shared our "finds" with everyone else and went back to our rooms for a nap before our dinner reservations at the Japenese Restaraunt. I have to admit I was a little leary about the whole Japenese Restaraunt thing.. Since I don't eat many "strange" things! It was, however, my favourite restaraunt at the resort! I had chicken for dinner, and we all had deep fried bananas and ice cream for dessert.. YUMMY! Brad and Tara had the Sushi and they said it was amazing! Kate and Mike were there with their familes for dinner also.. They had a cook prepare their meals right in front of them, how cool is that! Kate and Mike were able to "take part" also.. Got some good pictures of that! This was the night that I drank a *little* too much white wine at dinner, and proceeded to drink WAY too much wine afterwards. At one point I've been told I was drinking from glass of wine with a straw, and I had another glass on the go too. Ooops! Probably explains the pictures of me passed out in the lobby bar, and the reason I didn't make it to the disco that night with everyone else. They convinced me I should probably go home to bed, and I might have gotten a *little* sick that night. Oh well.. It's all in good fun, right?