"No Introduction Necessary"

I got to go on quite a date Saturday night with a boy in my ward, Justin. This was one of those pick-a-name-take-them-out scenarios, and it was great because Justin and I get along really well and are great friends. I knew we'd have a good time without any drama or awkward-asking-for-a-second-date trash. What I DID NOT know was that it would be the best night of our lives... well, at least Justin's.

I took him to the Cheesecake Factory in Murray since he has never been there and I love it. We put our name down and they said the wait was 85-90 minutes. HOLY DANG! I told Justin that the whole purpose of the date was CF, so we were going to wait it out by walking around Fashion Place Mall.

We spent some time sitting in massage chairs and checking out the latest gadgets at Brookstone, then got sick of it and walked around some more. As we passed Zales Diamond Store, I saw a black man with a posse, and he was dressed like a pimp. Long green coat all the way to the floor, sunglasses in the shape of hearts, with diamonds... a staff in one hand and a chalice in the other, which was encrusted with diamonds. A green top hat, and hand bling that said "Magic" on one hand and "Juan" on the other. His posse was not nearly as ridiculously dressed as he was, but were still tough-looking and very non-Utahn.

I turned to Justin, "Look at that guy. Who does he think he is?!?!" I thought that he was a local, just being silly at the mall. They also had a posse member video-recording everything. Justin beamed from head to toe. He said, "Lindsey, Lindsey... do you know who that is?! That is the personal spiritual advisor to Snoop Dogg!" I laughed... but he was serious, and apparently correct.

So, I knew nobody would think this was as funny unless we had pictures to prove it. "Justin, I would totally go take pictures with them if I wasn't so afraid of getting jumped." "Jumped?! No way! These guys are the best KIND of black guys!" "Okay, let's do it."

So Justin and I walked up to them and the video camera went immediately on me! Okay! Justin said, "Hey man, can I have a picture?" and Bishop said, "Yeah, man, come here," to which one of the posse members remarked, "No introduction necessary." Nope, not for Justin. He knew EXACTLY who Archbishop Don "Magic" Juan was! After I snapped a photo, they walked away! I realized I didn't have a photo! Dangit, is that so lame to follow them and ask for one for me as well? Shoot shoot shoot what do I do? WHAT DO I DO?! Luckily, they stopped for a minute and I walked right up to them, being brave, and noticed a posse member with a BYU Cougars t-shirt on over his real clothes. I laughed and said, "Hey man, nice shirt." "Oh thanks, you know, I just bought it over there. I spilled something on my other shirt!" I thought to myself, "Wow, you have no clue what you're wearing." Maybe he's a cougar fan at heart. Then, I, Lindsey Michelle Andersen, walked up to the man himself, the archbishop, and said, "Hey, can I have a picture?" He snuggled right up to me and said YES! Justin snapped the photo, but sadly it is blurry. Sorry everyone.


The story continues. Don't you worry. After my photo shoot with the Don Juan-ster, another posse member leaned over to us with a card and said, "Hey, did you guys get an invitation to the party tonight?" Yep. That's right. We were then handed a flyer with a picture of Don on both sides, dressed in his pimp gear. The party was for a birthday for some guy named "Country Chris" and was in downtown SLC that night. It was appropriately labeled "The 1st Annual Players and Playettes" Party. By this time, we needed to get back to CF in case our dinner time was ready, so we said thank you and left.

The food was great, and it added to the glory of the night. Justin told me over and over that this was the best day of his life. HAHA! So, as we were driving away from the mall/restaurant, both yawning and sniffling because of our colds, I decided to make the night even more fun. "So, Justin, you have a choice. We can go home, or we can go check out the party." You can guess what we did.

We parked a block away from the party and walked over near the club. A few guys tried to stop us about half a block away but we just walked on. "Hey, hey you guys! Where you goin'?!" Justin replied, "Uh, this way." "Hey hey, you guys goin' to the party?" "Um well we got an invitation from Don himself" "Yeah man, you gotta go" but when we got up there, it was closed off, with bouncers out front. We just kept walking and went back to the car. Oh it was fun, though.

You can check out his official site to see more gloriousness, but the homepage is a little risque. Might just want to click on the biography or photo gallery or something. I'm glad I was with his biggest fan, Justin, and that even moms doing their shopping asked Justin who the guy was because he obviously knew.

More Favorites from the Cruise

1. While we were driving in the shuttle back to our car, Tori tried to say goodbye to Carli since she won't see her until Christmas once she hit the airport. At the same time, we drove by a Gentleman's Club with a large sign that simply read, "NUDE"... she looked up and read the sign out loud, but it came out like this:
"Carli, see you in a couple weeks, man. Nuuuude."
Don't worry, there was another family in the shuttle with us, with little kids. It took us all a minute to realize what happened.

2. "We need to find Frank a wife for these cruises." - me... opening my big fat mouth before thinking, like I always do.... then I looked at Tori and Carli with eyes like, "What did I just say? I am an idiot."

3. Everything on the cruise that was awesome was saluted by Tori saying, "Ooster what? Dammmmmm!"

4. I apologize for the spelling errors in the last post. I am too lazy to fix them and I don't even know where to start.

5. These will only make sense to Tori, Spence, and Carli, but... Take an L, Drop a D, etc.

6. FBPP, FBQW, etc. My friend Adam yelled during volleyball last night, just to get a reaction out of me, "FBPP!"

7. To clarify, Matt was the one who drove my car. I never said which guy it was.

8. Matt hooked up with his girl, and we're all very excited for him!

9. Carli's porn-star photos that she uploaded onto facebook.

10. Carli getting caught taking pictures on her own camera of the Carnival pictures available for purchase, then the guy taking her camera and erasing them and almost arresting her.

11. I was restless at 2am one night and went for a walk along the ship. I went on the deck in my flip-flops, slid on water, and gracefully jacked up both my knees when I fell on them. They still hurt sometimes. I'm sure I looked drunk.

12. "This is us sober!" - we yelled that about every time we were being crazy.

I am now a part of that 6% statistic!

In my days at the BYU, I learned useless trivia about the travel industry. One thing I remember is that only 6% of Americans had been on a cruise. I remember thinking that was super low but that it made sense. Well, I definitely am a part of that statistic now! WOOT! For pictures and captions that explain a lot of the trip... please visit my facebook album.

A quick rundown:
Day one: We didn't have any cruise documents because they wouldn't print from my computer. This was especially awesome since I didn't think they were necessary. Good thing we got there plenty early and they ran our passports and found our documents after running back and forth asking people what to do! We had driven all through the night and were exhausted and confused! We got on the cruise finally and were pretty much overcome by elation. This worked out great since the name of the ship was the Carnival Elation. The boat rocked quite a bit and I got pretty sick that night. Dinner was awesome. Our room was bigger than we imagined. The food was amazing and we had 24-hour ice cream cones available.

Day two: I got up and exercised a bit on the top deck. I then got in the elevator to go back down to our stateroom, and the two guys I had just checked out in the hot tub got in with me and some Asians (which demographic made up about 1/2 of the cruise). I did not have any makeup on, I have see-through eyelash disease, my pants had holes in them, and I was in pjs. Naturally, I was looking away, trying not to be seen by these hot boys. The Asians asked one of them, "Where are you from?" The cuter, shorter one answered, "Utah." WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT?!?!?!? I couldn't pass up the opportunity so I said, "Oh what? I'm from Utah." "No way, what city?" "Orem." "Get out, that's where I'm from!" Yep. Matt lives by Harmons. Two miles away from me almost my whole life and I met him in an elevator on a cruise to Mexico. Kurtis, the taller one with red hair, is from Idaho. They are siblings in law. Matt's sister married Kurtis' brother or something like that. So we talked for a bit but I mostly just wanted to go put on makeup and tell the girls I found the hottest boys on the ship and they're Mormon. I started walking off but Matt mentioned we'd see each other around and I was like yep and walked away. I walked as fast as I could back to the stateroom and yelled "I found them!" Tori jumped out of bed and Carli decided to change into a shirt with sleeves since the boys are Mormon. HAHAAH. So, yeah, they're 21, Matt has been back three weeks from his mission to Ukraine, and Kurtis has been back three months from Mexico City. I'm way too old for them but we had a great time anyway. I described them to Carli, and she decided to go find them. She did, and knew them right away. I joined her (with makeup) and we talked to them for a bit. They asked if we wanted to jump off the boat with them to go to Cabo the next day, then said they'd find out our stateroom number somehow and wake us up. We did a bunch of activities.... ate a lot... got ready for formal night, took pictures on the ship, watched a movie, and went to bed.

Day three: We woke up and made port in Cabo San Lucas. We took a water bus to the pier from where the cruise ship laid anchor. Once we were on the pier, the Mexicans just absolutely swarmed around us, trying to get us to use their snorkeling services, water taxis, etc. One was especially persistent. He asked where we were from and said he had a cousin in Salt Lake, who is a Mormon, so he decided to give us a deal. $25 per person for water taxi to Lover's Beach, snorkeling gear, etc. Spencer said his friends had just done it for $10 each and the Mexican wasn't buying it. Then he saw Spencer's watch. The watch was $80 a year ago, for which Spencer paid $35, and the Mexican asked for it. Spence argued with him for a minute, saying it was worth $80 and that he would give it to him if he let us all go do everything for free. Finally, he consented. WOOT! Raul, our water taxi driver, knew little English, but he knew enough to make jokes. "This is Lover's beach. The other side is called divorce beach. On Lover's Beach, two go on, three come off. On divorce beach, two go on, one comes off." Okay, Raul. We went snorkeling. I saw some swordfish-looking creatures, some big blue/green fish, a sea urchin, a starfish, and I swam in a school of little fishies. Wow it was amazing. The water is crystal. Oh man oh man oh man. I loved it. Then, we got lunch in town at a little cantina. The chips and salsa were amazazazing and Tori, Carli, and I were very attracted to one of the waiters. He was ADORABLE! We called him the triple M from that day on. "Mexican Man Meat" Carli and I agreed that after centuries of them checking out our bodies and ogling us, we had a right to want this one guy. MMM. We got back on the water bus and went back to the ship. Dinner was great. We watched a movie and went to bed. I started to think that our dinner friend Frank (Asian 31-yr old from San Diego) had a crush on Carli. That made things awkward for the rest of the cruise. Frank was freaking hilarious. He was like William Hung but more into pop culture. "This girl tried to sing Christina Aguilerra, but she was awful. She didn't even sound like her. She more just read the words." He knew more celebrity refernces than I did. What a hoot.

Day four: Another day at sea. Carli and I met up with Matt and Kurtis at breakfast and gave them a hard time for not jumping off the boat with us, even though none of us actually even went to the designated meeting place. Ha... we decided to play some cards in the card room for a while and they finally met Tori. Poor Tori had been pretty sick and she kept us up all night moaning with a fever. Matt and Kurtis then took us to the arcade after Tori went back to bed and played air hockey and stuff. Matt had me do a shooting game with him too. It was super fun. Our captain was hilarious every time he came over the speaker. He was Australian and said everything in a great accent. He would announce that day's alcoholic drink of the day... our favorite one he said was, "It has fruit in it. And remember! Fruit has vitamins in it. Vitamins are very good for you!" Imagine that in an Australian accent and you gotta love it. Dinner was great and I'm sure we watched a movie and went to bed.

Day five: We woke up and got off the ship at port in Ensenada. Oh I love Ensenada. I got earrings, gifts for my nieces and nephews for Christmas, two designer knockoff bags (one Chanel for my laptop, one Dolce & Gabbana giraffe print), and the best Coca-Cola ever. I was unaware beforehand that Mexicoke is way better than American. I brought home my bottle as a souvenir. We got fish tacos from a cart and lunch at some restaurant in the richer part of town. The waiter was so nice and brought us all desserts on the house. They looked questionable so i asked what was in it. "Oh just some coffee, Kahlua, some rum, it's very good." We felt so awful since he made those for us out of the kindness of his heart!!! Tori even pretended to drink it, which was funny because you could tell nothing was coming up her straw and she said, "MMmmm." I finally told him, "You know what? We don't drink alcohol. We're Mormon, but thank you soooo much. That was sooo nice of you! We feel awful!" He apologized and looked at us weird. I realized afterward that he probably thought we were all Spencer's wives. Wowow. Oops. We got back on the bus to go back to the ship and this guy jumped on with his guitar and started singing La Cucaracha and Feliz Navidad with us. He called me "Barbie" and the group of us "Spice Girls" and got off the bus once our driver got on. He was hilarious and worth the tips we gave him. What a fun, trashy, disgusting, sad, wonderful city. There were so many beggars, so I paid some little kid a dollar for five things of Chiclets. I understand that's a ridiculous amount to pay for Chiclets, but it was really just for him. Ohh good times. Back on the ship, we got a call in our stateroom. I answered it, "Hello?" "Hey who is this?" "This is Lindsey, who is this?" "Hey Lindsey, it's Matt." "AHH! You STALKER! How did you get our room number?!" "You mentioned it once and I have a great memory" hahahaha... so they came to our room and waited outside for an hour while we got ready, then we played cards with them, walked around, hung out the rest of the night. I got really sick and spent the evening in bed, imagining that any second an alien would jump out of my stomach like on Spaceballs because it hurt so bad. I'm sure it was a mixture of all the desserts at dinner (our last night, I had to get a lot of dessert) and the Ensenada food. Yikes. Spencer studied for his test and Carli and Tori went to the boys' stateroom and hung out for a couple hours.

Day six: we got up and waited for hours to get off the dang boat. We were all tired and a couple of us were sick and just so ready to get off! Once we finally got off, we found the shuttle back to our car in San Diego, and drove Carli and Spence to the airport to drop them off. Tori and I were ticked that we had to drive all the way back by ourselves, but Spence and Carli agreed to pay for 1/4 of the gas money each anyway, so we were okay with it. Once it was just me and Tori, we got on the freeway, and Tori got a call from Matt. They missed their train and asked if we could take them to Carlsbad. HAHA! So we went and picked them up. I said, "Wow, I never thought that those boys I met in the elevator on my cruise would be riding in my car." We drove them to Carlsbad, got lunch together at In-N-Out, then caravaned back to Utah. We stopped in Vegas together and got dinner. Once we were at Beaver, it was about midnight, I was sleep deprived and had been driving all day, and I still am rocking ("Sea-legs") in my mind, so the road was tilting from side to side and I found I was imagining myself driving the cruise, not my car. I decided I better not drive anymore. Luckily, Matt and Kurtis had offered to drive my car if I got drowsy, so I reluctantly handed the reins over to him and he got us safely back to Orem. We talked about the love of his life, my latest romantic news, and he wants Tori to marry this mutual friend they have. It was a funny drive. So, even though the cruise ended up more like EFY than a cruise, it was still a blast and we got new friends out of it. Plus, I went snorkeling in Cabo freaking San Lucas!

My favorite quotes from the trip:
"I am Rose Dawson! I have never been thus treated in my entire life! I wait in line for NOBODY!" - me waiting to get off the boat in Cabo
"We actually got really cheap tickets, and we will be shoveling the coal below deck with the crew." - me to Reggie, our shuttle driver.
"Wow, Lindsey, way to hold up the line!" - Tori laughing at me when I jammed the card reading machine, after just sticking my card on there thinking it would scan it that way, then shoving it in the slot when I embarrassingly realized you had to put it in the machine. Oh, you're supposed to pull it back out? Ooops.
"Ooster-what?" - me, looking at the name of the HUMUNGOUS cruise ship next to ours, the Oosterdam.
"Ooster-dammmm" - Tori
"What is that SMELL?" - me, every five minutes of the cruise, wherever we were.
"How much was it?" - Tori, when Carli was explaining our childhood fantasy of saving a puppy and being offered an award by the princess. She meant to ask, "How lond ago was this?"
"Good for you!" - Tori, in her sleep.
"Tori, I'm okay with it." - me, in my sleep.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!!! AHHHH!!! AHHHH!" - me, in my sleep
"White trash" - Kurtis, when we were playing a card game as his answer to "This is what you call someone who breastfeeds someone else's baby" (wet nurse....)
"Da**!!" - Frank, at dinner, looking at Tori's desserts.
"What? Did you say something stupid? because I sure didn't." - me, Tori, all through the cruise
"Lindsey! You gotta get more handbags! HANDBAGS!! HANDBAGS!! We can't leave yet because Lindsey needs more HANDBAGS!" - Spencer
"Owwieee, I'm sorry, uuhhhhghh" - Tori, in her sleep
I wish I could remember all my favorite quotes, but I can't. :(

Okay, this was long enough. Again, check out the pics to make this more interesting. This is more for my own journaling purposes anyway. I won't be offended if you didn't make it this far. :) I miss Mexico.