Dad's House » travel

College Spring Break – Island Style

dadshouse — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:33:19 +0000

The Dad’s House Spring Fever contest has me thinking back to my best college spring break vacation. It actually started out as my worst.

I was doing grad school in New England, and everyone and their brother had booked their college spring break to Jamaica. By the time my girlfriend and I tried to secure our spring break trip, every flight to the island, and every hotel (in our budget) was totally booked.

No way were we spending our grad school spring break in the States. We weren’t much for the drunk partying mobs or flasher crowds. Plus, I had my heart set on the Caribbean being part of my east coast college experience. I figured I only get so many college spring breaks in my life. I had to make the most of it.

We knew we wanted sun and fun on a tropical island. At the time, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue featured bikini models in the Dominican Republic. The scenery was beautiful. It seemed like a can’t miss.

Our New England travel agent booked us into a hotel two blocks from the ocean in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Perfect!

Um… on paper.

Santo Domingo is a city. El Presidente occasionally drives by, escorted by machine-gun toting soldiers in Jeeps. As for the ocean – it was two blocks away. Waves crashing into rocks and breakers, but no beach.

We spent one night (crying) in our hotel before finding a travel agent on the island who could fix our vacation, pronto. She spoke no English, but between my girlfriend’s Italian and my high school level Spanish, we managed to explain that we wanted a vacacione a la playa.

Turns out we were on the wrong side of the island!

The Dominican travel agent put us on a bus that morning to Sosua on the north of the island. Talk about a college spring break being saved! We had white sand, warm weather, a beautiful hotel that reminded us of the TV show Fantasy Island, plenty of cheap rum, ginger beer, and lime, Vespa rides, bus rides into town with locals (some carrying roosters with shaved heads to the cock fights!). It was a great mix of romance and fun activities.

Okay, so it rained a bit every day (typical for a tropical island.) But the sun came out plenty. We got tan, and a little sunburned, for sure. Sosua gave us a great island-style vacation, and a memorable college spring break.

And in Sosua Beach, there was no El Presidente or any machine-gun toting soldiers.

Perfect.

Got Spring Fever? Blog about it! Then enter the Spring Fever contest. Contest closes Thursday April 2, 2009 Noon PST. Prizes for the best entries.

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Fondue

dadshouse — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:37:08 +0000

When Ilina from Dirt & Noise wrote about making homemade fondue, I immediately wanted to pour myself a glass of white wine. Call it Pavlov’s bell.

It wasn’t always like that.

Years ago, when I was still married, I took a business trip to Switzerland with a colleague. Boondoggles being boondoggles, my wife came along too. The three of us visited Neufchatel and Lucerne, before heading to Munich for three days of drinking beer with breakfast and jaeger tea after dark.

Switzerland is famous for its fondue, so of course one night we went for some. We ordered a cheesy fondue and sipped half-litre beers while the restaurant prepared our meal.

The fondue place was jumping. We were in a French-speaking part of Switzerland, and had no idea what anyone was saying. The buzz of an unknown-to-us language added charm. While we waited for fondue, an older gent came over and started talking to us in French, animatedly pointing at my friend. We had no idea what the old guy was saying. We hoped he wasn’t trying to cop a portion of our cheesy fondue.

Electric Fondue Maker

I finally busted out some Italian. (Is there an Italian word for fondue?)

Parla l’italiano? I asked.
Si! Si! he said.

Turned out the old guy thought my friend looked like some English soccer player, Bobby Chartone. (We later learned the Brit’s name was Bobby Charlton. Damned if there isn’t a resemblance!)

When our fondue finally came, we heard other patrons laughing.

“They’re laughing at us,” I said.
“No, they’re not,” my wife said. “You take things too personally.”

We dipped bread in the hot cheesy fondue mixture, and ate. The fondue was quite good. But we heard more laughter.

“I’m positive they are laughing at us,” I said. “Everyone is looking.”
“They’re just enjoying watching us eat our first real fondue,” my wife said.
“They don’t know it’s our first.”

Finally, a Swiss chap came over. He spoke broken English. (I’m a big believer in learning some part of the language for any country I visit. But all the French I knew was Je voudrais l’eau. I was thirsty a lot!)

“First fondue?” he asked.
“Yes!” we all chimed.
“We thought so.” He gestured at the other faces in the room, everyone looking, smiling, nodding encouragement.

“First thing,” he said, “you must continually stir the cheese or the fondue will burn on the bottom.”
“Ohhhh,” we said. We immediately started stirring the fondue every time we dipped a piece of bread. Someone in the room shouted oui!

“Second,” he said. “No beer. It will make the cheese into a stone in your stomach like a rock.” He clapped his hands into a ball for effect.
“What should we drink?” my buddy asked.
“Two things with fondue – either tea, or white wine.”

We ordered wine. When the waiter brought it, the entire restaurant broke out in applause.

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Skinny Dipping at Club Med

dadshouse — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:57:06 +0000

In a few weeks it will be November, and then we’re into the holiday season. For some divorced single parents with shared custody, when you don’t see the kids this can be a lonely time of year. A solo vacation can be a great escape. But who says you have to be alone?

There are plenty of group vacation adventure tours from Backroads, REI Adventures, and O Solo Mio. Or if you just want to hang out with other singles, play tennis, hit the beach, dance at night – Club Med isn’t a bad way to go.

I did a week vacation at Club Med in Turks and Caicos over New Years one year. It was a blast. I read, sunbathed, chatted with people from all walks of life. But the best part was meeting a Cuban woman on day one. Dark hair, olive skin, nice curves. (She’d look great in a micro bikini or body paint, like an SI Swimsuit model!) Apparently, I was the only guy man enough to approach her on the beach that first day. And get this, I did so because she was reading a book on spirituality that I’d read. (A killer approach!)

Yes, we woke up together all week. Club Med vacations can be like that. A shallow quickie fling, but just what I needed at the time.

The most memorable part of our “romance” was skinny dipping one night. We stumbled off the Club Med dance floor and took a walk down the beach. Starry sky, lapping waves, cool breeze, warm ocean. Neither one of us had skinny-dipped before, and we suddenly both knew we had to do it right then. We tore each others clothes off, then ran into the water together. We floated and touched and kissed. The starry night was amazing. Being present to that moment with her was surreal. Outside sex is always a rush.

So, if you’re looking for your own skinny dipping story, or you just want to sunbathe and read a book on vacation, give a look to Club Med. Maybe you’ll meet a hottie Cuban.

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