was located on Sandy Beach, which is basically a huge sandbar with good surfing waves. I had never surfed so one morning we all decided to take a lesson. I consider myself pretty athletic, so I really envisioned myself being pretty decent at surfing. Um, not so much. Our first mistake was that we didn't have any rash guards. Rash guards are those shirts the surfers wear. I figured that my chest hair would be a natural rash guard much like how hobbits have hairy/leathery feet that act as a natural shoe. Not only did I get scraped up on my chest and some fierce nipple chafing (sorry), but I got a ton of surf wax in my chest hair. Between that, the constant banging of my ribs against the board, and the horrible sunburn on my back from paddling around all morning, I can say that surfing was WAY harder than I thought it would be. I only got up on a few waves and that's because the surf instructor pushed me into the wave (which was essentially what we were paying him for). I did learn some surf lingo though, like "hey brah, you're sitting in my pocket". While I'd like to tell you that we were surfing on 4-5 foot waves, in reality they were probably a solid 1-2 ft. Later on in the week when we rented boards and ventured out on our own I had my ass handed to me by 4-5ft waves that I had no business trying to catch. The good/experienced surfers just sit on the board quietly, exerting minimal energy, and then they'll just turn and catch a wave. On the other hand, my shoulders were on fire from all the paddling I was trying to do to position myself. All said, I will definitely try again. At least I looked like knew what I was doing when I was out on the shore...
Isaac Newton's high school gym teacher once said "for every athletic activity there is an equal and opposite nonathletic activity", and for us that nonathletic activity was drinking. I'm not a big drinker by any stretch, but I'm pretty sure that the first day back in the gym after break my sweat could've probably been sold for $5 at Rick's. One night one of the guys had the bright idea of doing a Power Hour, which entails 60 shots of beer in 60 minutes for those who don't know. Doesn't seem too hard, but come Minute 45 you don't want to sip another sip of anything, water, juice, Nesquik, and certainly not beer, especially when you're drinking Medalla Light, which tastes somewhere between a Fresca, a Natty Light, and Pine Sol.
One night after playing several hours-worth of quarters and heading to one of the local bars we met four girls from Rhode Island. The four of us gentlemen were chatting with these marginally attractive girls for a while and it was getting late and one of us had the bright idea of inviting these girls back to play quarters with us. I didn't wear a watch for a week, but it must've been close to 2:30am. While I lauded the plan, I reminded my friends that we had finished every single beer at the house. One friend said he'd take care of it and then left. About 20 minutes later he showed up with a box full ($70 worth we came to find out) of Rum and Medalla which he had purchased from the owner of the bar down in the storage room. Of course, the girls were gone by this point and one of us had to carry the box back to our house. We convinced Big T, our German classmate, and Black Out Specialist, to carry the box home. The next morning we were in the kitchen eating some cereal, and T comes in and opens the fridge and says, "Holy Shit, who got us all this beer?". He didn't even remember hauling this huge box back to the house. We could've told him he got naked and carried the box home and still would've had no recollection. Basically, that was our five nights in Rincon. On the first morning in San Juan I asked the concierge for directions to the highway and asked him about the nightlife in Rincon. He said "There are beaches, and beaches with teeth, you know what I'm saying cabron?". No, I didn't, but later I understood that he was calling the women of Rincon "beetches with teeth". After five nights it was time to leave the beaches and beaches with teeth and step it up with a final night at the Ritz in San Juan.
Adios Rinconcito.
After waiting waaaaay too long to get our room, we finally made our way to downstairs ready for the last night. One of the guys asked the valet where the best place on the strip was on a Saturday night. When the valet responded "the El San Juan", we kind of didn't believe him, because we'd been there the first night and it was dead. Well, the valet was right, he was 1000% right. After gambling for the first time ever (I lost a little) but drinking a few of the largest glasses of scotch I've ever had (a "perk" of gambling and losing I guess), it was time to dance. The only issue was that you can't get into the club if you have flip flops on, which I had on as did my buddy. I was able to get in with the help of some girl and my buddy, well, he paid the El San Juan valet $100 to trade straight up shoes for flip flops. All I can say was that we all had a ridiculously fun time and that the flights the next day were pretty freaking miserable. The guys who checked luggage didn't get their luggage until the middle of last week. But despite the luggage snafu, we had an excellent week and all I can think about is of course more vacation and more sun. It was a perfect Spring Break.
This past week we started our school consulting projects and I leave in a few hours for San Fran for a week of work/play. I've had an excellent time hanging out this past week, playing ball, going to the gym, going out and relaxing. I'll write more about this consulting gig later, but the next blog will be from a hopefully sunny Silicon Valley.
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