Vacation, Why

Holiday, many of us take one a year and spend a not insignificant amount of our hard earned cash to enjoy some time away from our everyday lives. I am no different, though my husband and I tend to have a couple of favorites and we stick to them. We both like Caribbean Islands, the ocean, the sun and breezes from the sea.

Vacation…time away from the mundane, the daily drag of life, you can’t wait for the first day despite knowing you still have to get through airport security and porn x-ray machines. Crowded airplanes full of families with children struggling with far too many over-packed carry-on bags. If you travel out of country you will need to traverse Immigration, with Passport in hand queuing up to await you turn up to 30 minutes, if your luck though it will be far less.

Astonishingly, it seems no matter how long you might have waited at Immigration when you arrive at Luggage Claim, your bags will not have started on the round yet. What you find instead is notification your luggage will be arriving at Claim number X, all your plane mates will have their children lined up at the front of the claim like the Defensive Line of the New York Jets; keeping this blocking line does not a bit of good, bags come down when they come down, if your bags come first you must either knock them down to reach your bags or wait for them to leave. Your choice, I choose to politely ask once for them to MOVE and then mow them down.

Before you can finally exit the airport and begin your well-earned holiday the last obstacle is Customs, if you are lucky you look innocuous and touristy enough for you and your bags to pass through without much more more than a cursory question and answer regarding the contents of your bags and your purpose, with the right answer and a lack of shiftiness on your part they will pass you through to your well-earned and much anticipated holiday. Well, this might not be entirely true if you rented a car you might still have a wait. Not necessarily a wait in line, just a wait while your car is located and you are then transported to wherever your rental car might be off or on airport grounds.

Finally though the true holiday begins, bags are flung into the rental car and you are on your way. So why then are we usually somewhat disappointed by what we find upon arrival?

Lumpy beds, too soft or too hard pillows, bathtub / shower combinations with plastic shower curtains that chase you around the shower sticking to your wet  body, towels that feel as if they are made of Luffa and sheets that feel as if they are in fact fine grained sandpaper. Those are just the beginning of the disappointments. Disappointments you always forget when the holiday is over. Unless the hotel is truly ghastly you forget the truth of the room and amenities that did not live up to the trailer provided by the hotel that convinced you to pre-pay for that miniscule discount you received for doing so.

Did I forget to mention if you travel to resort areas this time of year you will also face the dread Spring Breakers? Oh yeah, this is my favorite. Barely out of diapers and out of their parents supervision, wandering the hallways and beaches drinks in hand and generally bad behavior close to the surface, Spring Breakers. Wandering out of elevators where they have lit up their first cigar, thanks. Spring Breakers, who failed to understand yet the idea clothing, even bathing suits are intended to cover our most private parts from public consumption, public exposure while certainly good for tan line control leaves you open; yes really open. By the way did I mention most of you young women have put on that Freshmen 15 and should likely considered something a bit less revealing or at least a trip to WalMart for a larger size before Spring Break.

These were just my general observations. First day observations at that. Yes, we are on vacation, some place I love in fact, Bahamas, yes that is where we are this week. For seven hopefully sun soaked days we will sit on the beach, visit with family, eat wonderful foods straight from the sea and possibly do a bit of shopping.

We are at the same hotel we stay at most times we travel here; the same hotel we met at nearly 15 years ago. We know what we get here; there are rarely surprises for us. I think though we forget the things we don’t like in favor of the reasons we stay, the tradeoff’s.  We like this part of the island, we like the convenience and the beach. I like having a deck where I can enjoy the view of the ocean, my morning coffee and a cigarette without disturbing my non-smoking husband. Works well for us and I enjoy sitting outside listening to the waves, watching people on the beach and huge ocean liners coming in to dock for the day.

Before the week is out I will share some of the reasons I love it here, probably some other caustic observations.