Day 4

We started with a large breakfast, and then went straight to the sea and beach. We got a bucket and some other beach toys yesterday evening, that Maddie was trying out today.. even tho she found the pacifier to be the most amusing toy.. she and a 3yr old boy started tossing it back and forth, and were laughing and having a jolly good time.
Tonight we have rehearsal dinner with the wedding party, we're meeting them at their hotel at 5.30. Maddie's grandpa, uncle and great grandpa are arriving this afternoon from Kingston, too, and I think that's the last people outstanding.


wow.. i wasn't prepared for what the outside of the hotel compound looked like.. i thought - in my ignorance - that it was gonna be a somewhat quaint town, where i could take a stroll with Maddie and do some shopping, but.. no. The simple fact that the hotel has barbed wire around the outskirts, and security guards manning the gate 24/7, *should* have been a dead give-away, but.. i guess i wasn't paying attention. And we arrived to late on Tuesday, that it was already pitch black outside the bus when we drove along the highway to the hotel. There WAS a small shopping center, a kind of a strip mall across the main road from the hotel, but.. i dunno. No need to be venturing out there, at all. A 1 minute drive down the road from the hotel there were people living in concrete and sheet metal shacks, ppl were standing in the middle of the road at the major intersections, peddling stuff - like peanuts, fruits, god knows what.. There were loads of cars, and crazy drivers.. In a way reminding me a little bit of the traffic in Crete.

Maddie's auntie and her fiance came to pick us up at the hotel, with half of his family also in the bus. We arrived at their hotel about 30 minutes later, as we got a bit stuck in traffic on the way there. Once there, we all headed over to the venue right next doors, where the wedding is supposed to be. Maddie was getting tired at this point, she was not happy at all with everybody trying to get her attention, only wanted to get in the 'wadeerr', and screaming bloody murder. The only person she liked was the violin player, a blond haired girl.. Go Figure.
We left the venue at 8'ish, Maddie was screaming bloody murder, she was tired beyond reason (she had only slept 30 minutes earlier in the day), we all walked over to the hotel, and.. once there they were very reluctant in letting me in, since i didn't have a bracelet stating that i was staying there... We got stuck in the gate for a few minutes, as we tried to explain to the security guard that i just needed to get thru the gate to get in the shuttle bus to go back to my hotel. Ha, the guard even asked the groom if HE was the bus driver. :(
Once on the bus, Maddie curled up on my lap (in her new fave sleeping position - legs folded, she's kind of sitting on her knees on top of my lap, arms folded under her) and she was asleep before we even reached the main road. She didn't stir as i offloaded everything at the hotel, didn't stir as i walked her in the stroller thru the restaurant to pick up some food, didn't stir as i put her to bed.. She slept for 12 hours straight, and woke up happy as a clam on Saturday morning. :)

and on to day 5.

/Carina