Day 6- Dec 29- Colon, Panama

Wow, what a jam-packed day this was!  We got up early because our excursion started at 8.  We took a bus ride through the rainforest to the Panama Canal.  That part was pretty boring, although it was cool to see the rainforest.  I also learned that in Panama, they celebrate Christmas until January 6th, so it was all decorated fancy there.

 Not quite the beautiful blue we saw in the rest of the Carribean.

 In Panama, they import old school buses from the US and paint them and use them as public transportation.

The Panama Canal was awesome.  I'm so glad we did this excursion.  We got to see ships go through it and there was a whole museum about its construction, how it works, and the area surrounding it.  It was totally worth the long bus ride, and besides, why wouldn't you visit the canal if you were in Panama?

After finally getting back around 2 or 2:30, we decided to shop.  Mostly, the shops had the same useless stuff that the other ports had.  I did manage to find a way cute dress and a great gift for Jessica that I KNOW she's going to love.

 Rainbow!

 CRAZY humidity hair!

I won dinner, so it was 4-2, my favor.  We checked out the casino again that night, but it looked like people were losing, so we decided not to risk our money again.  We got bad news back at the room: our horseback riding excursion had been cancelled due to weather.  Becki was devastated.  I was disappointed too.

Day 7- Dec 30- Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

This day was an excellent one for us.  After getting up so early for the past several days, we slept in.  We WERE on vacation, after all.  For the first time on the whole trip, we got breakfast at the buffet.  Before, we had either ordered breakfast ahead of time so we could eat in our room or we had just skipped straight to lunch.  Let me just say, the breakfast buffet was better than the lunch buffet.  Not the greatest food there.  It wasn't terrible, of course, it was just... buffet-y.  Not cruise-y.  The dinners in the dining room were far better.

After eating, we left the ship for the country of Costa Rica.  This port was similar to the past few ports, in that you couldn't see very much of it unless you hired a taxi.  It didn't matter, though, because the sheer amount of shops in the ship's terminal kept us PLENTY busy.  Where Columbia and Haiti had the same useless islandy junk in their stands, Puerto Limon's wares were different and interesting.  Becki and I both brought $100 each, and we spent it ALL.  It was souvenir central.  It was the most intense, awesome shopping ever.  We had a blast.  Got some stuff for Will, some stuff for our parents, Becki's roommate, my co-workers... and, of course, ourselves.

 One of our souvenirs.  It had sticky things on its feet so we hung it up in our room.

The reason our excursion was cancelled.  Look closely, everybody.  Rain from the rainforest!

We returned to our room to examine our spoils.  Becki and I decided to put off the contest that night, so it was still Becki- 2, Paige-4.  After dinner, we went to see the magician, who was okay.  Really simple tricks, nothing too flashy.  We decided to leave the casino for the next day, when we would be at sea.

In case you were wondering why there are no pictures of Costa Rica, it is because our cruise ship was surrounded by two other cruise ships, and we just went to the terminal.  So the reason you don't get to see Costa Rica is because we didn't really see Costa Rica either.  Blame the weather for ruining our awesome rainforest excursion.

Day 8- Dec 31- At Sea

Ah, the last day of the year.  We slept in again, except Becki faked me out.  I woke up to see her walking out the door, saying she was going to breakfast.  I tried to tell her to wait for me, but she wouldn't listen.  Turned out, she went and got me a plate from the buffet, so I wouldn't have to leave the room.  How nice of her!  She complained that I ruined the surprise, though.

After breakfast and lounging around the room for a while, we went to the casino.  We each put down $24 at the blackjack table again, and walked away with more than $100 apiece!  We had paid for the previous day's shopping spree!  YAY!  We were so happy.  We put some credit to our lucky dealer, who also helped us win on the first night.

That night's dinner was another formal one, since it was a holiday.  I actually remember what we had.  I got the lasagna and Beck got the Surf and Turf.  She won big time because I sent the lasagna back for what she ordered.  This made the score 3-4, with me winning.

Since we had let the first formal night pass us by with no pictures, we went to each of the free photo shoots they had set up this time.  We took a bunch, figuring we could narrow them down after they were developed so we could decide which to buy.  It was good because Becki and I had not had nice pictures taken together since high school dances.

Then we went to check out the shops on the ship.  We had already gone through them, of course, but in the middle of them all there were selections of jewelry that was always changing.  That night it included a selection of amber.  As you know, amber is just hardened tree sap, so we were admiring the pieces.  I was especially in the seeds and leaf pieces trapped in the stones.  Becki found a necklace with the traditional Irish claddagh on it and she was debating whether to purchase it.  While I have been interested in claddagh rings for a while and have been looking for one I liked, Becki was a new admirer.  She wanted one because on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which we've been watching together, Angel gave one to Buffy.  We kept looking at the amber, and suddenly we spotted two claddagh rings with amber hearts in the middle. I picked up one and Becki picked up the other and we tried them on... and they both fit perfectly!  We decided it was fate and both bought them.  These rings were the big purchases of the trip and we were thrilled.

We squeezed in one episode of Buffy with Aubrey and Emmy (both of whom we converted to Buffy fans over the course of this cruise) before midnight.  In the Centrum, the large foyer that stretched from deck 4 to deck 11, they were going to drop hundreds of balloons at the start of the new year.  We had told Adam that we would meet him there, but once we got downstairs we realized that would be impossible.  It was WAY too crowded to find anyone in that mob.  The trip downstairs wasn't a total waste, though, because I picked up a glass of champagne for midnight, my second and final drink of the cruise (I think being legal has been wasted on me.).  We went back up to our deck, deck 10, to watch the festivities from the balcony there.  It was almost more fun because we got to help throw balloons at the people below.  It was a fun way to ring in the new year, though I wouldn't have minded if a certain someone was there to kiss me at midnight.