"Down here we don't see color"

Well it's official, there are only two Self girls left. Two defiant, indecisive Self girls. The question is, which one of us will get married next, shoot, which one of us will have a boyfriend next! (thats more like it).

I met a local Bahamian who said the greatest thing I could ever hear, "down here, we don't see color."

I thought to myself as I glanced around the room at all the people, there were only 4 caucasian people in the entire bar, I was one of them. Not once did I feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or discriminated against. You know that feeling you get when you walk in to a room where you don't belong and you can feel the eyes staring at you from every crack and corner of the room, you feel you just don't belong- I didn't feel that when I walked into "Da Balcony" club/bar in downtown Nassau, Bahama. Growing up in a Dallas suburb, I know what the "ghetto" is, I know where not to go in Dallas as a young, white female, I know the gut feeling of danger in a bad part of town late at night. This didn't happen, and to be honest I was completely taken aback by it at first.

Every time a Bahamian treated me as a true person, not a tourist or a white girl, I knew Bob Marley would be proud, it was like an instant replay of One Love in the background.

Now about the actual trip, I wont go through day to day, but i'll give you a good run down.

Saturday: arrival, dinner at a 50's diner with the most amazing hot wings sauce and horrible service (or so i thought). Atlantis Casino, put in $40, came home with $80.

$22 Patron shots at the Casino, No Thank you!

Sunday: grocery shopping in downtown Nassau- a pack of 8 small chicken breasts - $32. A 1.5 pound package of ground beef $16. A pack of 30 bottled water- $22. Prices were steep.

Ahh, shuttle over to the Atlantis hotel, prepare for total domination. If you've ever seen the commercials for the Atlantis Hotel, you know it's famous for the big slide that goes through the shark tank... yeah, not so much. It's called Leap of Faith in the Mayan Temple.

I know truly believe everything looks bigger on TV.

Though the slide was still amazing and scary I expected a bit more, it being so idolized and all.

"The Rapids" aka the lazy river, not your typical Hurricane Harbor/Wet n' Wild lazy river, it's more hold on to your tube, holy shit! come out with bumps, bruises and bad wedgies kind of river. Rode that about 5 times before I started to get sick. There were rapids, twists and turns, huge waves, tube slides, caves, and more rapids.

Monday: Met Dr. Feel Good.

Courtney (my sister) and David (my brother in law) went downtown with the parents to get their marriage license. Cody, Jessica and I adventured to the beach.

Packed a cooler of Kalik Light beer, its the local beer tastes like Dos Equis without the lime. Pretty good, pretty expensive (4 24pack cases $156, and thats the cheap stuff, any imported American beer at least 2 times as expensive).

Hit the Atlantis Beach we laid out in the sun, played in the ocean, watched a man feed some crazy lookin fish. I was lackadaisically bathing in the warmth of the sun rays when the sun disappeared behind a man with a box on his head. "ey' mon 'ow bout some coconut drinks for da' ladies, I Dr. Feel Good, I make you feels alright!" This was m first encounter with Dr. Feel Good, and I can imagine that this man is pretty damn famous, maybe not with the locals but certainly with ay tourist that's knocked out or maybe I should say been knocked out by his coconut drinks. In his box atop his head he carried several small whole coconuts, a 12oz Gatorade bottle of rum, Hawaiian Fruit Punch, and Lemon Lime Gatorade. "De Incredible Hulk for yous ma'am," he says handing me a hairy coconut with a straw. One sip of that coconut drink, chills and goose bumps covered every inch of my body. DAMN! that drink was no joke. After about 10 minutes or so the drink was gone, and having had only 2 beer prior I was giggling, barely opening my eyes and asking weird questions about how high the sky goes until it turns black..

Dr. Feel Good made me feel just right.

Tuesday: more water park slides, lazy river and tube slides. This is where I came face to face with a pitch black tunnel an 80 ft drop, then another 50ft drop all in less than 10 seconds. It's name "The Abyss". It's almost too hard to explain the feeling you get when you see the green light and let go of the handle bars down into the unknown. a complete closed dark tunnel that leads somewhere you're not sure. I originally was going to go down the tube slide with my mom when my sister asked me to join her on this slide instead. I wasn't mentally prepared for this slide which made it even better. I am the type of person that likes to logically think out the mathematics of the slides before I proceed onto them, I like to know what I am getting into before I go, I am a planner. This- wasn't planned. This- was the most terrifying exhilarating thing I could have ever done. It proved to me that I can let go of my OCD ways and just live life. I know I know you're thinking, "Meghan, it was just a slide. There is no great big metaphorical analogy to it, just a slide, that's all." But to me, it's more than just a slide. I know it's called The Abyss, but maybe Atlantis should consider changing it's name to Leap of Faith instead- because that's what it really was, a leap of faith. The actual Leap of Faith slide, you can see the entire slide, and you can see where you end up waaay before you even approach the steps leading to the top of the Mayan Temple. The Abyss, I didn't even know it existed until the 3 time I hiked the stairs to ride the tube slide again. I will never forget that feeling I had the first second after letting go of the handle bar. Your mind goes completely blank, your adrenaline rushing from your toes to your nose, heart pumping at a rate I probably should be having a heart attack. I saw the green light, grabbed the handle bar and jumped in. I didn't know where I was going, I didn't know where I was going to end up, I didn't even know if I was going to make it out alive. I took a leap of faith on that slide and for a moment I was truly free. I wasn't thinking about work, or grad school, or my sisters wedding, I wasn't going over GRE vocabulary words in my head, I wasn't worrying about how much money I was going to lose in the Casino, or my friends I left back home. For those 7 seconds I was completely-- Me.

Wednesday- Friday: Rehearsal dinner where I told David how I really felt about him and made myself and the rest of the room cry. Took Drew out for his first night, had the most amazing barbeque ever!! Wedding day-Thursday: hit the pool for an hour or so to get those last bit of rays to tan my skin, and then the craze began. My frenetic sister was all over the place trying to make sure everyone and everything was perfect and ready to go. We didn't have any major disasters like I presumed which is always good. The wedding ceremony was beautiful, on the beach, sun was setting, perfect orange clouds in the background, two homeless doggies running around the beach, waves crashing in the photos, it was serene. lost $180 at the casino friday night at Let it Ride and Roulette. I suck a gambling. I'm thankful I don't have a gambling problem.

Every where we went, especially when we went out to dinner, the service.... AWFUL! Americans are always in a rush, the Bahamians- are not. they do not care, they do not rush, they do not bother with refilling drinks, everything is done on their own time. it's rather frustrating when you sit there for an hour waiting for a refill on water and im not exaggerating, I have 27 other people to back me up on this claim. We spent a total of 2.45 hours in this restaurant to accommodate all 28 of us, sure we knew it was a large party and would obviously take a bit longer than had it been 4 of us, but this was a bit ridiculous.

Getting off the airplane last night, talk about a major culture shock. I came back to fast paced, cold weather, technologically advanced and motivated place I didn't think was as bad 9 days ago as I do now. In the Bahamas I had a chance to take a deep breath and look around at what life could be like if people in America joined forces instead of arguing over which political party stands on which side of an issue. We all want a better world, so work together, not against each other.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and experience I will never forget.

Now it's time to get back to real life, graduate school applications, essays of woman's rights, social media, and kissing ass as I run frantically back and forth to the kitchen serving tex-mex food to hungry over weight Americans.