Restobar

Today, the morning was pretty rough, because I stayed up until 4am Skype chatting with Gerrae, then as soon as I fell asleep (or as it always seems when you don't sleep) my dad called. Really it was about 6 when he called. So I went ahead and stayed awake, had some breakfast at 7, and ran a quick errand before coming back to the hotel.

When I got back, I was trying to decide between sleep and using my free spa entry, but I decided that the spa would still be there when I woke up. And it was. So after being interrupted by room service for the second time, I decided that I'd slept enough and wanted to spa now.

I opened up my little balcony doors to let in some sunlight while I got ready, and periodically looked outside just to see how many people were at the pool and such, and just to have a look every few minutes to gauge activity. So I finished up my shower, made my hair neat, and decided on an outfit to put over my bikini. I was making sure I had everything I needed; room keys, book, then I went to the balcony to look out one more time and I was surprised to see some action happening that was not happening before. I had only looked outside a million times. This time, there was a guy in a glass box by the pool posing naked in the most outrageous/suggestive poses! I say that as if being fully nude isn't already suggestive. Lol, or actually, what's the word for the stage after suggestion? Porn? Full on asking for it? or maybe even art, depending on who you ask. I don't know. But suggestive is, like, cleavage, or a wink. This guy was naked. Outside of the box, there was a photographer snapping photos from all sides and an assistant. Upon closer inspection (from my balcony) the glass box was pouring water on him. Reminiscent of the ad photos found on the hotel site's homepage. *surprised eyebrows* It was at this point when I began to wonder "what exactly did I sign up for, here?" as I headed to the spa. I thought the photo shoot was probably a promotion for the hotel, since they were having it poolside in front of an audience of hotel guests, but when I saw that the front desk staff were just as surprised as I was to see that, I wasn't sure anymore.

After initially thinking "hm, that's something you don't see everyday" when I stumbled upon this 'gay boutique hotel'; when I started checking out the website, it made perfect sense. First of all, their booked, forever (which led me to free spa access), and secondly, it's a really nice and very trendy hotel. There are a few "I"s un-dotted and "T"s uncrossed, but it's just like a gay bar, or any facility or event catering to a minority group in that it provides somewhere where a certain group of people are allowed to go unjudged, feeling welcomed, and being treated to luxury in this case. And as they stress on their website, it's "heterofriendly". And on top of that, they have two other locations in vacation hotspots where people want to be. I can imagine that those are booked as well. For me, I was attracted to how nice it looked for the price, and also it's THEE reason college girls at UM go to Necto on gay night. No gross drunk dudes are gonna hit on you, and you may even leave with a new friend! The rooms are great, the showers are sexy, and the overall atmosphere is very calm and relaxing.

After spending a few hours at the spa, I was hungry and it seemed like every guest had gone to their rooms. It had cooled down a bit outside. While at the spa though, I was able to get a closer look at the model, because they came upstairs to shoot some pool scenes (not nude). I was surprised to see that he had tattoos and I wondered if these photos were actually for anything. Who knows. I went downstairs to the restobar to get food and noticed that all of the glass columns around the pool were actually waterfall showers, which took me back to that first though about what types of parties they have here. Then I saw a flyer for a pool party that they have on Sundays that pictured men in the boxes. "Oh"

I ate and chatted with my family and had the beeessssssssst banana milkshake of my life, came back to my room and RSVP'd for the Tango show scheduled to happen in about two hours. I may go down to see, but for now I'm gonna relax for a bit.

There's more luxury in a shared experience,

TB