Cruise Day 6

December 28th - Aruba.

One Happy Island indeed.

As it turns out, The word Aruba (although I forget which language) means 'Nothing' because apparently the first folks to get there weren't terribly impressed by all the scrublands. We, however, found plenty to do. Chris and I took the island tour, while the others (after a minor fiasco and a decent amount of frustration) went snorkeling. The tour was interesting because, if for no other reason, we got to see the economic differences on the island. We went through the poor, middle class, and upper class districts on the way to several of the sites. I guess I was surprised that everything from orphanages to golf courses would be on a tour. Maybe it was unavoidable due to travel routes, but our guide did a good job of putting a positive spin on things.

This poor guy only has ONE swimming pool!

And to add to his coolness, he dropped us off at the Butterfly Farm instead of taking us all the way back to the boat. I think Chris took 9000 pictures, give or take a couple. Contrary to my initial impression, butterflies are really interesting when you aren't trying to memorize their life stages for a biology final. It's one thing to read about all the different survival mechanisms, it's another thing to have one whiz by your head and hear your guide say, "That one's very toxic, he's used to flying wherever he wants. This one here isn't as daring because he just *looks* poisonous and doesn't really like the attention." Huh. Just because your brain is the size of a pinhead doesn't mean you can't have personality.

Little known fact:
Black butterflies are the ninjas of the insect world.

We were ported in Aruba all evening, but Chris and I went back to the ship for lunch after our tour and never went back out. Shopping... expensive food... meh. As the T-Shirts say, "Same crap, different island."