Scattered thoughts from vacation

I think the problem with this hotel is that it has no center. The closest thing to a hub is the pool area, but that's a couple of elevator rides and a hundred stairs down from our room. The lobby is a whole separate space, far from the pool. So there isn't any place for the guests to gather and feel like they're all someplace together.

And the food setup leaves a bit to be desired too. The breakfast is okay, though they run out of things by the end. Lunch and dinner is pretty scattered though. The first night we had a buffet which wasn't bad. Second night the kids were sunburned and unhappy and so we got pizza for the room. Tonight we went to the main restaurant for the resort and had a truly odd meal. First, there was Christmas music playing over the restaurant sound system, but at the same time there was a Jewish event of some sort going on in the private dining room, complete with a DJ and professional sound system and dancing. So for the first part of dinner, we had these two competing strains of music going simultaneously, but the Jewish music kept getting louder and louder until by the time they got to Oseh Shalom and Hava Negilah you really could hear very little else in the dining room, including conversation.

We didn't mind this that much, of course, it was just like any Bar Mitzvah. Not so sure about the Gentile contingent though. This weirdness was supplemented by as bad a waiter service as I've ever experienced.  There wasn't anything laughably bad. It was just plain and simple bad. Slow, inattentive, didn't tell us about the specials, dropped a tray that thankfully (or not) didn't contain our meals. The food itself was mediocre and such small portions.

Part of the awkwardness/charm of going to these kinds of places is that there is such an obvious disconnect between the affluence and sensibility of the clientele and the staff. Life in the tropics is slow and easy, which is as much of an attraction sometimes as the weather. On the other hand, the people are poor and there sometimes seems to be some tension below the surface. I'm not sure if there are any islands around here where that is not the case.

I went for a walk yesterday, which made me the object of some curiosity, but I always go for walks, wherever we are. Here, there are no sidewalks and the roads are just wide enough to fit cars going in both directions, so walking along the road has a sense of excitement it might not have elsewhere. I never exactly had to jump out of the way of a car, but I did have to be strategic about where and how I walked. There was absolutely nothing to see on the walk, though I did eventually reach a nice little beach, and there was a very peculiar looking cemetery that looked kind of like a morgue set-up with a bunch of slots, some of which were covered up and with wreathes on them.