Whew! It's been a great week!I spent the December 22nd at the Poseidon office Xmas party which was also Lil's grad party for divemaster. They had the party catered at the shop. the food was amazing but even the salad had meat in it so Lil (she's a vegetarian) was pretty much eating rice and potatoes to prepare her stomach for her rum-thru-the-snorkel final test. I decided to take the whole weekend off from essays and applications and the like so I was ready to roll. And roll I did. Everyone was in a great mood and we headed to the local bar to chill out for a bit. I danced and drank some more and snuck out as early as I could to save my liver from too much damage.
The next day was full-on recovery mode. After slurping down a full bucket of watermelon juice at Chez Luis the highlight of the day was catching a rerun of America's Next Top Model to find out who got kicked off on Tuesday. We have a TV-o-saurus here who arrived last week and won't give up the remote for anything. Lots of families from Bogota have arrived and the beaches are covered in people. It's definitely interesting to see you deferential people here are to the rich holiday seekers from Bogota. In the evening we headed out at night to see Casino Royale at the cinema in Santa Marta. The theatre was plush and the tickets were still only $3. Why are we paying so much back home?
Ah December 24th. The girls at a nearby hostel threw a Xmas eve party starting at 9pm which took a lot of pressure of what to do. What started as a small affair turned into a party for almost 50 people on the hotel patio. Great music and food. We all chipped in about $5 and had a great time until the power went out just after midnight and we all headed out. Lil and I decided to head back to the hostel sand sang Xmas carols at the top of our lungs all the way home. Well, most of the way until this giant tree jumped out in front of me and smacked me in the head. Quite the shocker. I actually don't remember hitting it but I do remember complaining about it the whole way home.
The 25th was our little Xmas party. We wanted something small and since there were only about 10 turistas left at the hostel it worked out perfectly. Jenna and I picked up Lil from her morning dive we headed into Santa Marta to buy supplies. We made it back by about 5pm and went straight to work chopping up salads and getting Drew to fire up the Bbq. Everyone brought or made a little bit and we had a fantastic night eating and drinking under the stars. I had been scheduled to take someone out on a night dive but thank heavens I finagled my way out of it as it really was a lovely night. More recovery and watermelon juice on the 26th and then it was back to my 8 hour days on the computer with my essays. They really feel done but there are still little things that I'm fixing but it is almost over thank heavens. We all met up at the cinema to see the movie Eragorn but after 2 minutes of beautiful scenery, the voice over started in Spanish and we all split.
New Year's Eve was one of the best ever. We didn't want to do too much in case we couldn't get everyone on board so Lil and I planned to run into town and get some stuff to make salads and chips and dips and we'd play it by ear. Lil had to work in the morning (and, as it ended up, the afternoon) so I had to head in to town by myself. I spent over and hour just trying to find a ripe avocado. Picked up everything and made it back by noon only to find out that the dive shop had been looking for me all morning to come in and lead a dive. oops. I started preparing salads in the kitchen and people started wandering over to find out what I was doing. All of a sudden everyone was on board. They all up and left to run into town to pick up supplies and Jarad volunteered to work the bbq. 
It was a lovely hassle-free dinner with about 25 people and the cool Dutch girl, Nasca, singing and playing her violin and Jack playing the guitar. We somehow all had the presence of mind to head down to the beach at 11:30 and made it in time for the countdown. More laughing, drinking and even a little swimming before we rocked up to El Garage to dance til dawn. I couldn't have planned a better night! First application due January 2nd. More on that later ...
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