Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures for this trip, but my family took a trip to Jamaica for Christmas in 2004. At this point, I’d been vegan for a year, and it was the phase where your parents still try to help while actually making things more difficult.
On Christmas Eve, I’ll never forget this. I was looking at the menu for the big ‘special dinner’ the hotel was having. An employee came to ask if I had questions about the menu. I said, “I’m trying to find what I could eat. I don’t eat meat or milk or eggs.” My mom comes over: “He’s vegan”. The lady has 0 idea what that means.
“I’m a really strict vegetarian. I don’t meat or anything that came from an animal.”
“Do you eat fish?”
“…? What plant does that come from?”
My mom thought I was so rude, but the lady was being obtuse. I just told you I don’t eat anything from animals, so you must think fish is a plant.
Other than that, it was a really fun trip. What I especially loved were the floating trampolines out in the bay. Jumping off a trampoline into the ocean is a simple joy in life.
The veggie burgers at Margaritaville are also good, and the staff were super friendly with checking ingredients and helping make sure I had good options.
Also, I’d just started getting tattooed at this point, and OF COURSE every dude on the island selling weed had dollar signs in his eyes when he saw me. Too bad, they all got major letdowns.
I’d love to get back to Jamaica again some day.
This entry was posted in caribbean, Jamaica, north america
