Upon finishing up my meeting I called Lorraine who had told me to give her a shout. She wanted to hear how everything went. After, she added that she was across the street at the wine bar having drinks with her girlfriends and wanted me to come over. I still had reports to finish up, and some other work to do, but I thought about it for another split second and decided F it. Life is too short to make work more of a priority when fun opportunities like this arise. I decided the work could wait. The best experiences come from meeting great people when traveling, I had to go with it. After lying down for a quick 20 minute nap, I freshened up and headed over.
4 chicas awaited me, along with a glass of wine and a plate of crackers and cheese. Two were Guatemalan (including Lorraine), one Belizean, and the last from the US originally I believe, South Carolina. 4 great girls and I listened as they told stories about how they ended up in Belize, where they met their husbands etc., and just enjoyed the girl’s night. More than anything, it just felt great to be somewhere that I felt I fit in, more or less. I wasn’t surrounded by sketchy guys that were trying to take me home, I could just sit back, relax, smile and laugh with some great girls that I could relate to. I was happy with where I was, and planned on going back home shortly to finish up the reports and relax for the night. Until, Lorraine went to the bathroom. “Do you know what’s happening?” One of the girls said to me. “Huh? What do you mean?” “Well”, she said “today is Lorraine’s birthday and her husband is throwing a surprise birthday party for her at their house! You have to come!” Well, what do I say to that? No it’s Thursday night and I have the opportunity to hang out with some cool people but I’m gonna go home and do work now? OK fine, don’t twist my arm. I’m in. They made some ridiculous story up about how one of the girls had some sort of appointment, but then she decided to cancel it, and they were going to go somewhere and I was going with them but they had to stop at Lorraine’s house first? If I was Lorraine I would have been wondering what the heck was actually happening! So anyways, we took some to go cups of wine of course (certainly can’t do that in the US!) and we were on our way down the street in a range rover. Lorraine knew as soon as we arrived, she saw her friend’s cars, the balloons, and all the shadows from inside the house. I had a few more drinks that night, met some cool people (most of which were actually born and bred in Belize, which I was surprised to hear about), while mingling on my own. Everyone was very welcoming and accepting of me, it was so nice. I was told that I just HAD to go to the birthday party the next night. My thoughts had been that I was going to try to stay at San Pedro since I was going there during the day, so I had to weigh the two options. I could have a great day snorkeling and then spend the night quietly and alone, or I could have a great day snorkeling and come back and spend a loud night around lots of company. Well it was my last night of survey, last night in Belize. I had to go out with a bang.
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