myvacation3

Caribbean

I spent an awful lot of time in the Caribbean hitting just about all the islands at one time or another over the years. My favorites are Jamaica and Trinidad/Tobago. Jamiaca is truly an island paradise with beautiful scenary and incredible beaches. The locals livelyhood is based on tourism and they do a helluva good job. Ocho Rios and Montego Bay are good places to start. The resorts are reasonably priced and well staffed. I highly recommend the "Falls" which you can easily spend an entire day walking up/down the waterfall and venturing into the canopy, just be careful it can be dangerous. Trinidad/Tobago was #2 on my list. Four locals took us under their wings and spent a weekend driving us around the island on our own private tour. The food was somewhat unusual but great nonetheless. My favorite was roti which is a type of meat pie, I had the goat meat and potato, yummy! The shark sandwiches with a rather spicey pepper sauce were addictive. Be careful of a pepper called "scotch bonnet", you will pay dearly. The seafood throughout this entire region is almost worth the trip itself.You can't really go wrong with any of the islands in the caribbean and as I said before they all meld together after awhile. I would check to see the status of violent coups d'etat's before booking any trips though. There are plenty of casinos for those who like to leave large amounts of money behind.The eye candy doesn't get much better than here, I fell in love about a dozen times.

Norway

Heaven on earth! Without a doubt the most the beatiful place I've been to. Sailing through the fjords heading to Oslo was a trip I wish never ended. Pristine beauty without equal, if you like that sort of stuff. The people were extremely friendly toward Americans and accomodating to a fault. The parks and flora are well maintained and sculptures and museums are everywhere. The food was quite interesting, not as much fish as I had expected but the smoked salmon was excellent. The best meal I ever had was in Oslo. Three of us went to eat and after exchanging gifts with the locals we sat down to smoked fish, salmon ball soup (not what your thinking), rainbow caviar salad and a wild game platter which consisted of grilled reindeer steak, snowshoe hare and wild duck. I was surprised to find some of the best ice cream, butter toffee crunch, in the world here and the coffee was second only to the Tunisian brew. Also gorgeous women!

Oslo is a terrific city to just wander around, sip coffee or excellent tea at an outdoor cafe and take in the sites. Shopping is pretty good with the best deals on hand woven virgin wool sweaters, mittens and anything else that can be knitted. there's a lot of shops specializing in this and are duty free. The only down side to vacationing here is the cost. Oslo is very expensive but as far as I'm concerned it's worth every Krona. The scenary alone makes it worth the expense. Bring lots of film and a panoramic lens if you have one. One other thing you may notice here, no homeless people or bums hitting you up for change. Norway has socialized medicine and housing. It's an easy concept, you get sick, you go to hospital, you get treated, you go home, you don't get a bill. Maybe our government could learn something. It's my site and I can bitch if I want to!