Happy Easter

Happy Easter! I think I attended quite possibly the strangest Easter Sunday service ever. Priests basically volunteer to give services on cruise ships in exchange for a free cruise – pretty good deal. The priest that gave the service this morning is currently at a parish in Juarez Mexico. The entire sermon was a chastisement of the Catholic Church and how the Bishops provide no outside funding for charities outside they’re diocese. He continued to rant about the ratio of priests to parishioners in Mexico, an extremely Catholic country, and the U.S. Apparently for every one priest in Mexico there are 5 in the U.S. He continued his sermon to question how the guests could consciously spend the money that they did on the cruise when he doesn’t even get a salary and basically begs to sustain a high school for the poor in Juarez. There was really no message of resurrection or new life conveyed for the Easter Sunday sermon!

I really missed Easter breakfast with my family. I’m sure they’re eating Easter Bread and frittata (well, maybe not the frittata) as I’m typing. There wasn’t anything special at breakfast except some dyed eggs and Happy Easter banners. Yogurt (notice no h!) and granola just quite doesn’t match my typical Easter fare.

Yesterday I had quite the adventure in Montego Bay. I ended up walking with my roommate, Steve, into town. Steve’s only real goal was to find beer – I’ve discovered that he’s pretty much an alcoholic, but that’s fairly typical for a ship musician. I’m definitely not getting sucked into their lifestyle and don’t see myself succumbing to it. So anyway we found a place called Jerky’s next to a Texaco and they had beer so Steve was happy. There was not much going on there so we decided to walk into the town center. We didn’t realize that there is a local downtown and a tourist downtown, and we happened to find the local downtown. We were the only white faces in probably a 3 mile radius. We got quite a few stares, but nobody heckled, threatened, or bothered us as many have warned about the Jamaicans. We did experience some racism as we sat down in a restaurant and received no service. After 10 minutes, we got the drift and left. We then saw the trombone player on the street and he pointed us towards the tourist area where we found a nice restaurant. I had jerk pork (yes, I purchased meat, but felt I needed to try the local specialty) with rice and peas and really good plantains. Very delicious meal and relatively cheap! We then walked about an hour back to the ship.

I don’t think I have too much more to report now, but I hope everybody has a wonderful day and finds some Easter Eggs for me!