Two Weeks of Fun and the 3-1-1

Yesterday marked my highly anticipated (by whom, I don't know) return stateside, and the first day since May 13th that I didn't consume some sort of alcoholic beverage. I've had to dust the cobwebs off of this blog and I apologize for being such a delinquent blogger. I was always told that the most important aspect of writing a blog was to write entries at a consistent pace. I've likely lost a couple readers due to the inactivity, and I'm just hoping this audience loss doesn't put my reader count back in the single digits. All that said, I'm about to break some personal blog length records this afternoon. In this blog I will be discussing my 5 Year Penn Reunion, my gluttonous trip to Aruba, and then my trip to Toronto. I've missed you all. Truly, I have.

It was great getting back to Philadelphia for the weekend and catching up with friends and also people I never get to see. Since we were only there from Friday to Sunday there was a lot of moving around, drinking, and cramming as many meals into two and a half days as possible. In general, people looked the same. Some people hold up very nicely, some people don't hold up as well, but that's natural selection, or something. People seemed genuinely jealous that I was back at school, which I guess was kind of nice, although I was genuinely jealous that the majority of the people I spoke to get a paycheck twice a month. Turning tricks just isn't as steady a job in this economy as it used to be. The grass is always greener on the other side I suppose. I think perhaps the craziest thing was that the 10 Year Reunion tent was chock full of strollers. It makes sense that five years from now a lot of my friends are going to be pushing strollers rather than pushing themselves to have that second or third Mex margarita (so good by the way). And speaking of progressing into adulthood, I know there was a table where people could register, and I know there was a table where people could get a hot dog, and I know there was a table were people could make a donation to the school, but did I miss the table where they were giving out humongous diamond engagement rings? Sweet Jesus, someone remind me to pick up one of those things next time there's a reunion. I guess some people had the foresight not to go into sports marketing and get paid Connecticut minimum wage upon graduation. Looking back, I think it would've been a wise decision to go into crab fishing like on the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch. You might die out on the Bering Sea, but you can also make $25,000 in just one week. Just one week. And just look at how cute these things are...

Awww. They have their father's eyes.

But you know what, it's not all about the money. It's about the vacations. On that Sunday of my reunion weekend I left for my trip to Aruba, my third trip to the Caribbean in three months. How am I paying for all of this on my non-existent salary. I'm actually sponsored by GEICO now, permanently, via ink. Check out my tattoo.

The truth is that back in March my friend mentioned that his parents had a timeshare in Aruba and he said that a few of us could go and stay in a suite for $150...for the week. Done. Aruba as you may or may not know is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, so the island is highly populated by the Dutch who are not only incredibly friendly, but also make an incredible oven. I swear to you, I've been waiting several months to make that joke. The first night out we met these girls from New Jersey who said that the night before a local Dutch-Aruban had so nicely offered to take them out on his boat at night for some drinks. Now that's what I call hospitality.

Three of us flew down from Newark and we met a buddy who had a connection in Houston. Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but vacations for me have typically meant laying low, nice dinners, perhaps getting in some exercise, and hanging out on the beach. I realized what kind of trip this was going to be when we found our fourth friend at the airport in Aruba sixteen sheets to the wind. When he sobered up a day later he explained how he was able to get so drunk on the flight down to Aruba. Some of you might be familiar with the TSA's 3-1-1 Rule. If not, here is it: "3-1-1 for carry-ons = 3 ounce bottle or less (by volume) ; 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag; 1 bag per passenger placed in screening bin. One-quart bag per person limits the total liquid volume each traveler can bring. 3 oz. container size is a security measure."

Our friend explained that in the 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag he was able to tightly fit ten 50mL bottles (airplane bottles) of Jack Daniel's. Firing up the ol' conversion calculator, 10 x 50mL bottles equals 500 mL of Jack, which equals, ~16 oz., which for you Guinness drinkers equals a little over a pint of Jack. But since they were in small bottles they met the TSA's standards. Somewhere, our Operations professor is surely smiling.

Mini, but still alcohol.

Upon commencement of the courtesy in-flight beverage service our friend put these 10 mini bottles on his tray table and told the stewardess to keep the Coke's coming. After arriving he ordered a few local Balashi beers from the airport bar, and didn't remember any of the rest of the first day or night, which included a delicious fish dinner and a fun night out at the bar. I'm pretty sure his credit card will remember though. That first night pretty much set the tone for the trip. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun. A lot of beach, a lot of pool, a lot of throwing around the football, and too many Balashi's to even count. Oh, and I caught this little thing when we went deep sea fishing

This was especially exciting for someone like me who pretends like if I was stranded in the jungle or in the wilderness I could fend for myself and find food and make shelter. To catch your own fish at 8am, and have it for lunch at 11am, well, if that doesn't absolutely reek of the pioneering/Live-Off-the-Land (or Sea) spirit, then I don't know what does. Granted I was neither responsible for baiting the line or actually filleting the damn 25lb. wahoo. And I actually didn't cook it either, we paid a restaurant to do that. And, yeah, we chartered the boat as well. So in summation, the modern Live Off The Land (or Sea) spirit is more like having the money to pay some poor local fisherman and cooks to do your dirty work, so you, the tourist, can pose with a fish you reeled in and can have a few pics with it so you can post it on Facebook, which I did.

The weather in Aruba was perfect and it was a fantastic vacation. I highly recommend Aruba to anyone, especially if you only have to pay $150 for the week. The Aruban sun got me nice and dark for the wedding I had in Toronto on Memorial Day weekend. Of course, if I didn't have an airline complaint at some point my vacation wouldn't be complete. My connection from Miami to Toronto was delayed because someone, while inspecting something else, determined the tire tread wasn't sufficient. Who is making that call and why is that call being made while there are 200 people aboard a plane vs. when the plane is all tucked up in bed for the evening. And more importantly, why do I continue to fly American Airlines.

I got to Toronto, changed and went to the out-of-towners dinner which was a lot of fun. We (the fraternity brothers of the groom) decided to go out to a club the night before the wedding. I went clubbing in Toronto once before, probably close to ten years ago. I was visiting my grandparents and my grandmother set me up with her hairdresser's daughter to go out on the town. The hairdresser's daughter (a great name for a movie by the way) picked me up and brought along a friend. I guess she figured if I was some sort of serial killer at least one of them could run away and get one of those mounties with their horse to chase me down and throw me in jail. It turned out that I wasn't a serial killer, and we all had a nice time. I don't know much about the Toronto club scene, but there was an extraordinary number of girls at this place, and the girl to guy ratio had to be at least 3:1, which I'm not sure you can that find anywhere else in the world. I was talking with this girl and she was telling me she was a country girl and she loved country music and she just moved to Toronto. I thought she was going to say she was from Tennessee or Kentucky or something, but it turned out she was from Ottawa. So, if you meet a girl and she has no discernible accent yet she says she's "country", she's probably from Ottawa.

I am of the camp that thinks everyone looks better when they're all dressed up, so I was looking forward to putting on my tux. My current tux is a stop-gap, as it is my Dad's tux from the '70s altered to fit me. So while in some ways it is cool and vintage, in other ways, the waistline is incredibly high and it looks like my ass starts somewhere in the middle of my back. Let's just say that Travolta: The Blog might have been a more appropriate name if you had seen me on Sunday.

Look at those lapels. They just don't make 'em like that anymore. No really, I don't think they make lapels like that anymore.

The two week odyssey was capped off by a very nice and emotional family event and now I'm back in the U. S. and A. I don't think I've eaten as well in the past year than I have in the past two weeks. I don't think I've slept less either, but it was all in the name of fun. I'm looking forward to the rest of the summer in NYC and I promise I'll be writing in this space at least once a week.