Day 204 - Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

Even in Cayman the weather was grey and gloomy - in sympathy perhaps with the horrific events of yesterday, the full horror of which has now come to light, with over 80 teenagers shot dead in Norway by an idiotic hate-filled xenophobe, who also bombed Government Buildings in Oslo earlier, killing at least 7 people. I hope they lock him up in solitary confinement for the rest of his days, feeding him curried dishes and exposing him to nothing but Bollywood movies, recitations of the Koran and constant evidence that Norway is becoming an even more multi-cultural and inclusive place. Unbelievable that somene who is convinced in their own mind that he is better than other people is actually a low-life disgusting toe-rag.

I headed out in the rain in the afternoon, by car, and dined in Chicken Chicken, which according to itself, serves The Greatest Chicken In The World and like every other restaurant in North America and the Caribbean that makes such lofty claims, it actually does nothing of the sort.  A quarter-chicken with mashed potato, coleslaw and corn-bread (sponge cake) with "Home-made" "lemon"ade cost CI$12 (€10.50) and appropriately enough was fairly fowl (snigger).

Evening time now, and it's off to Heliconia in the Camana Bay precinct for a Blue Jack Night - a fund-raising event for which Maples had sponsored 20 CI$50 tickets, one of which I was a grateful recipient. The "charity" was the Cayman Branch of the United World College foundation, which gathers together Leaving Cert/A Level/High School Final Year students from all over the world to attend school in UWC colleges in Canada, Swaziland, Wales, the US and other locations. As coincidence would have it, my sister Olivia received a two-year scholarship to the Lester B. Pearson UWC college on Vancouver Island back in the 90's, and her Caymanian classmate Sacha was here this evening, in purely an attendance capacity.

So with each free ticket came a glass of champagne and $25 worth of gambling chips for use at the blackjack and poker tables. I enjoyed an hour's blackjack at the delightful Aubrey's table, and $25 became $35, which could be used on making bids for various silent auction items ranging from a Lady Gaga CD, to works of art, to dinner with the attention-loving and highly self-important Orchid, chairperson of the Caymanian UWC committee, who enjoying drowning out the room every five minutes with inane and usually highly clique-ish announcements. I instead opted for $10 Golden Nuggets, each of which had a number linked to a mystery lucky-dip prize, and I bought some extra ones besides, seeing as I hadn't actually contributed any of my own money to date. My swag included a CI$25 go-karting voucher, a CI$25 coffee-shop voucher, two UWC t-shirts (pure joy!), a bottle of Pina Colada mix (just add rum), an underwater disposable camera and a CI$10 vocuher for my favourite Cayman restaurant - Casanova! Magnificent success!

Fair play to all concerned - the night must have raised many thousands of dollars from the sponsorships, auction bids and the busy cash bar, offering some of the most reasonable drink prices on the island, such as a bottle of Heineken for CI$4 (€3.40), a number of which I very much enjoyed. Knowing that everything shuts down at midnight in the Caymans, I left a little before the end and grabbed a Papa John's Chicken Peppers and Onion pizza, where the smallest available size was a dang large 12 inches for CI$15 (12.75), and back at the Grand Caymanian, I managed to wolf half of it down.


Wishing Norway all possible strength

Contentment : 14 / 25
Excitement :    2.5 / 10
Memorability : 5.5 / 15

Overall Score : 44% (70th out of 204)