My Vacation w/photos
OK, so I am back from a WILD time in Cancun. Now most of my party pictures haven't been developed yet, but I do have a few cute ones and a few candid ones. So you can read about my time in Cancun Friday 08/20: I pickup Lauren at around 10 PM...our flight leaves at 5:30 am so we figured we stay up all night playing Xbox and just sleep on the plane.
Saturday 8/21: We get to the airport and everybody is there ready to go...I guess I forgot to mention that there were 10 of us who went. It was me, my very good friend Lauren, my mother, my aunt Patty, my good friend Mary and her mother Marie, Mary's Brother (and also my good friend) Tony and his wife Natasha, Mary's boyfriend Justin and his mother (who is also Tony, Mary and my boss)Georgia.
We board the plane on time and get to Cancun at 10 AM. When we walked outside the airport in Cancun, we were completely overwhelmed. Between the swealtering heat and humidity coupled with the chaos that can result from traveling with a large group in a country where English is a second language, we were lucky to get to our hotel with such ease...THANK GOD!!!
Oh the hotel. It was gorgeous. I am so glad that we ditched our original hotel for this one. We stayed at the Riu Palace Las Americas. It just opened this past February and it was by far one of the nicest places I have ever stayed.
I wish I had better photos of the hotel but this is all I have for now. That is just a small portion taken from the balcony.
This one is one of my favorites. The hotel architect designed the upper pool to look like it merges with the sky and the ocean. So when you are walking out to the patio, that is what you see. It is breath taking.
The landscape around the hotel was lush. Very beautiful.
Our beach was awesome too. The water was crystal clear with a turquoise shimmer. The sand was white and completely pollution free.
This is a picture of the upper pool from up in the room. There is a lower pool (you can't see it in these pics) that has a really cool pool bar and a swim up bar (my personal favorite!!)
Now I just want to add, Lauren and I shared a junior suite. When we entered our room, we found that our phone didnt work. We would complain to the front desk 5 times a day from today until Monday night. There will be more about this later...
Later Sat. evening, Tony, Natasha, Lauren and I went out to a dance club called Bulldog Cafe. It was a blast. Tony and I were pounding drinks. I was drinking beer and vodka-sevens in between. Then Tony and I start throwing back the sambucca shots;-)
Sunday 8/22: We layed out in the sun all day long. Lauren and I, thinking that we are such dark skinned people, don't need SPF so we skip right to the dark tanning oil. Needless to say, she and I weren't in the sun for another 2 days!! Ouch, first time I have ever burned!!
Later that evening all 10 of us meet down in the piano bar to have a few drinks. Well, this is where the fuckin fun for the evening starts.
(me getting my drink on)
(even in the a/c it was hot!!)
Much to my surprise, my mother and Justin have polished off 6 BOTTLES of champagne before we all got a chance to get down there!
(my mother drinking champagne with Justin)
My mother had to have been the most obnoxious, loud-mouth embarrassment by this time.
(my mother with Tony, who was encouraging her to be disorderly all night long)
She was swearing like a truck driver (very loud) and just being that drunk that everybody looks at and rolls their eyes at. Everybody in our group thought whe was funny and they were encouraging her antics even more. I, however, was really embarrassed and suggested that she go up to her room for the evening. With that she through a fit and screamed at the top of her lungs "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" like a little child throwing a temper tantrum. I just wanted to POUND her at this point. It was like total role reversal--me taking on the role of parent and her as child. So everybody, seeing how upset I was getting, got up and winked at me saying "ok we're going up to bed now," hoping that if she thought that everybody was going to bed, my mother wouldn't put up much of a fight to go to her room. So we all get up and this was the result...
I was MORTIFIED!! People looking at us from all angles. She fell and couldn't get up!! Now I'm pissed. I tell her to "get the fuck up you drunk son-of-a-bitch!" and all she can do is laugh and cause a scene. She is total dead weight, not even making an effort to help us help her up, so I grab her by the hair and pull her up by the hair...
As we get 1/2 way through the lobby, things get ugly. She starts crying and telling me that she "fucking hates me," because "you don't give a shit about me." You know, the usual had-way-too-much-to-drink shit. We get her up to her room and she falls again!! This time we paniced because she fell down the marble stairs in her room and did a summersault down them. I was sure she hurt herself, but she was fine. I would spend the next hour and 1/2 restraining her and watching her cry herself to sleep.
Monday 8/23: Lauren and I wake up and we are burning up!! Oh my god, she had HUGE blisters under her eyes and her nose was swelled up. She looked like a monster, but of course I didnt tell her that. I put some of my Clinique Moisture Surge all over her face and within minutes it started to look better. We decided that we couldn't go into the sun today so we would go shopping. So we go down to breakfast and then we go up and check on my mother who is puking her brains out and doesn't remember a thing from the night before. Thank God that she doesn't....for her own sake!! I tell her she deserves the pain and we leave. Lauren decides she wants to stay behind and take a nap so I go out to shop. As I'm walking down the street I am going over what items I am looking for in my mind. A cool pair of sunglasses (I have a thing for sunglasses), a cool pair of shoes, and maybe a pair of jeans (since I saw a diesel store in my adventures Saturday night.) All of the sudden some Mexican guy is motioning me up to his store. "Amigo, I have something for you," he says with his broken English. So I politely decline, but he will not take "no" for an answer as he pulls me from the sidewalk into his lame-ass store.
"You like t-shirts?" He says.
"No." I reply.
"You like sandals?" as he shows me a rack of welfare looking flip-flops.
"No." I said, now indicating that I am annoyed.
"You like shot glass?" he asks while pointing to all of the stupid shot glasses he has on display.
"No, I'm not interested." I reply.
Then, as if he is pulling out the big-guns, he pulls me over to a glass case, and mischieviously says, "You like glass pipes?"
He has an assortment of glass pipes lined up.
I said, "No I am not really looking for anything like that right now."
He responds with, "I can get you anything to fill it with amigo. If you like weeds, I get you weeds. If you like powder, I get you powder. If you like cracks, I get you cracks."
I was appauled. Well, maybe not appauled, but I didn't trust this jack-ass as far as I could throw him so I told him that I had to "find out what my friends wanted," and took off.
Tuesday 8/24: Aunt Patty gets really sick this day. She has second degree burns all over her back and is whimpering and crying on her bed in the fetal position. I have never seen her cry before and she has had 2 knee replacements, a fused ankle, and has been in a car accident that was so bad that she had to be resusitated. It was really scary. So we called the hotel doctor and he took good care of her. Within a day she was as good as new, but it was fuckin scary. She had HUGE white blisters all over her beet red back.
On a positive note, Lauren and I are called to the front desk and informed that somebody is on their way up to our room to help us move our belongings into our new room....A MASTER SUITE (and it WAS sweet)....because our phone problem couldn't be fixed.
Wednesday 8/25: Lauren and I went to a HUGE club called Coco Bongo. It was really awesome. They had these huge movie theatre styled screens that would lower and show the intro to a scene in a movie. Next, the place would go black, the screens would rise out of sight, and actual people would be flying around the club (from bungees attached to the ceiling) going with the theme to the movie. THere was one Spiderman act that rocked my ass off. We got drunk and almost pounded the shit out of these southern hicks (who dressed really bad) behind us because they kept spilling their drinks on us.
(lauren and I before Coco Bongo)
Thursday 8/26: During the day, Aunt Patty and I went Para-sailing. It was pretty cool. That night, we all went on a bar hopping tour. We got on this party bus thing and went from bar-to-bar (open bar for one flat fee) and got COMPLETELY HAMMERED!! I seriously (and I am SO NOT EXAGERATING) had close to 30 beers that night AFTER I discovered that the watered-down Long Island Ice Tea's weren't getting me drunk. It was a riot. We decided to walk home from the last bar (which was again, Coco Bongo.) It is like 4 A.M. now. Out of nowhere, this nerdy Japanese guy with a pocket protector and a lap-top computer approaches us (he reminded me of Long Duck Dong from 16 Candles.) "Da ya kna where intanet cafe is?"
So we make fun of him for a few minutes, give him bogus directions, and stagger back to the hotel.
Friday 8/27: Mary and I are having breakfast and these two ugly and rude hispanic broads are sitting next to us. It sounds like they are both a cigarrette away from a trachiotomy (sp?). **ok here is some quick background info--Justin (who, again, is Mary's boyfriend)was going to Argentina straight from our vacation in Cancun because he will be doing some kind of study-abroad type of thing there.**
OK, so Mary gets up to get something more to eat. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see one of these broads sizing me up. So I turn to her and she says in her deep, raspy smoker's voice, "Where are jew from?"
"New York." I reply. "where are you from?"
"Argentina." She says.
I proceed to tell her that Mary's b/f is going there tomorrow for 3 months to study.
Her eyes widen and she begins to protest his plan, claiming that he will be killed or imprisoned. Mary comes back and she begins to fill our heads with horror stories about what a bad place Argentina is. Slowly, our group enters the room one-by-one to bare wittness to this women's tales. Justin comes in and she gives him one look and runs her finger across her throat implying that he is a dead man. Georgia (Justin's mom) is sitting there in hysterics. The women looks at Georgia and says "how many children do you have?"
Georgia replies "I have 3 boys."
"Oh good, then you will have 2 left after your son is killed in Argentina." The women says coldly.
We leave the dining room in hysterics. Georgia goes back to the room and calls the US embassy in Argentina and also Justin's father who has an office there. Both assure her that this woman is a lunatic and that things in Argentina have settled down. It was a bad place in the mid-nineties.
Saturday 8/28: We all go our seperate ways. Justin to Argentina. Georgia on an earlier flight home. Tony and Natasha to Florida for a week. Lauren, Aunt Patty, my mother, Marie, Mary, and I back home.
It was an awesome trip. I know I am leaving a lot out...especially as far as photos go, so there will be more to come soon.
Saturday 8/21: We get to the airport and everybody is there ready to go...I guess I forgot to mention that there were 10 of us who went. It was me, my very good friend Lauren, my mother, my aunt Patty, my good friend Mary and her mother Marie, Mary's Brother (and also my good friend) Tony and his wife Natasha, Mary's boyfriend Justin and his mother (who is also Tony, Mary and my boss)Georgia.
We board the plane on time and get to Cancun at 10 AM. When we walked outside the airport in Cancun, we were completely overwhelmed. Between the swealtering heat and humidity coupled with the chaos that can result from traveling with a large group in a country where English is a second language, we were lucky to get to our hotel with such ease...THANK GOD!!!
Oh the hotel. It was gorgeous. I am so glad that we ditched our original hotel for this one. We stayed at the Riu Palace Las Americas. It just opened this past February and it was by far one of the nicest places I have ever stayed.
I wish I had better photos of the hotel but this is all I have for now. That is just a small portion taken from the balcony.
This one is one of my favorites. The hotel architect designed the upper pool to look like it merges with the sky and the ocean. So when you are walking out to the patio, that is what you see. It is breath taking.
The landscape around the hotel was lush. Very beautiful.
Our beach was awesome too. The water was crystal clear with a turquoise shimmer. The sand was white and completely pollution free.
This is a picture of the upper pool from up in the room. There is a lower pool (you can't see it in these pics) that has a really cool pool bar and a swim up bar (my personal favorite!!)
Now I just want to add, Lauren and I shared a junior suite. When we entered our room, we found that our phone didnt work. We would complain to the front desk 5 times a day from today until Monday night. There will be more about this later...
Later Sat. evening, Tony, Natasha, Lauren and I went out to a dance club called Bulldog Cafe. It was a blast. Tony and I were pounding drinks. I was drinking beer and vodka-sevens in between. Then Tony and I start throwing back the sambucca shots;-)
Sunday 8/22: We layed out in the sun all day long. Lauren and I, thinking that we are such dark skinned people, don't need SPF so we skip right to the dark tanning oil. Needless to say, she and I weren't in the sun for another 2 days!! Ouch, first time I have ever burned!!
Later that evening all 10 of us meet down in the piano bar to have a few drinks. Well, this is where the fuckin fun for the evening starts.
(me getting my drink on)
(even in the a/c it was hot!!)
Much to my surprise, my mother and Justin have polished off 6 BOTTLES of champagne before we all got a chance to get down there!
(my mother drinking champagne with Justin)
My mother had to have been the most obnoxious, loud-mouth embarrassment by this time.
(my mother with Tony, who was encouraging her to be disorderly all night long)
She was swearing like a truck driver (very loud) and just being that drunk that everybody looks at and rolls their eyes at. Everybody in our group thought whe was funny and they were encouraging her antics even more. I, however, was really embarrassed and suggested that she go up to her room for the evening. With that she through a fit and screamed at the top of her lungs "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" like a little child throwing a temper tantrum. I just wanted to POUND her at this point. It was like total role reversal--me taking on the role of parent and her as child. So everybody, seeing how upset I was getting, got up and winked at me saying "ok we're going up to bed now," hoping that if she thought that everybody was going to bed, my mother wouldn't put up much of a fight to go to her room. So we all get up and this was the result...
I was MORTIFIED!! People looking at us from all angles. She fell and couldn't get up!! Now I'm pissed. I tell her to "get the fuck up you drunk son-of-a-bitch!" and all she can do is laugh and cause a scene. She is total dead weight, not even making an effort to help us help her up, so I grab her by the hair and pull her up by the hair...
As we get 1/2 way through the lobby, things get ugly. She starts crying and telling me that she "fucking hates me," because "you don't give a shit about me." You know, the usual had-way-too-much-to-drink shit. We get her up to her room and she falls again!! This time we paniced because she fell down the marble stairs in her room and did a summersault down them. I was sure she hurt herself, but she was fine. I would spend the next hour and 1/2 restraining her and watching her cry herself to sleep.
Monday 8/23: Lauren and I wake up and we are burning up!! Oh my god, she had HUGE blisters under her eyes and her nose was swelled up. She looked like a monster, but of course I didnt tell her that. I put some of my Clinique Moisture Surge all over her face and within minutes it started to look better. We decided that we couldn't go into the sun today so we would go shopping. So we go down to breakfast and then we go up and check on my mother who is puking her brains out and doesn't remember a thing from the night before. Thank God that she doesn't....for her own sake!! I tell her she deserves the pain and we leave. Lauren decides she wants to stay behind and take a nap so I go out to shop. As I'm walking down the street I am going over what items I am looking for in my mind. A cool pair of sunglasses (I have a thing for sunglasses), a cool pair of shoes, and maybe a pair of jeans (since I saw a diesel store in my adventures Saturday night.) All of the sudden some Mexican guy is motioning me up to his store. "Amigo, I have something for you," he says with his broken English. So I politely decline, but he will not take "no" for an answer as he pulls me from the sidewalk into his lame-ass store.
"You like t-shirts?" He says.
"No." I reply.
"You like sandals?" as he shows me a rack of welfare looking flip-flops.
"No." I said, now indicating that I am annoyed.
"You like shot glass?" he asks while pointing to all of the stupid shot glasses he has on display.
"No, I'm not interested." I reply.
Then, as if he is pulling out the big-guns, he pulls me over to a glass case, and mischieviously says, "You like glass pipes?"
He has an assortment of glass pipes lined up.
I said, "No I am not really looking for anything like that right now."
He responds with, "I can get you anything to fill it with amigo. If you like weeds, I get you weeds. If you like powder, I get you powder. If you like cracks, I get you cracks."
I was appauled. Well, maybe not appauled, but I didn't trust this jack-ass as far as I could throw him so I told him that I had to "find out what my friends wanted," and took off.
Tuesday 8/24: Aunt Patty gets really sick this day. She has second degree burns all over her back and is whimpering and crying on her bed in the fetal position. I have never seen her cry before and she has had 2 knee replacements, a fused ankle, and has been in a car accident that was so bad that she had to be resusitated. It was really scary. So we called the hotel doctor and he took good care of her. Within a day she was as good as new, but it was fuckin scary. She had HUGE white blisters all over her beet red back.
On a positive note, Lauren and I are called to the front desk and informed that somebody is on their way up to our room to help us move our belongings into our new room....A MASTER SUITE (and it WAS sweet)....because our phone problem couldn't be fixed.
Wednesday 8/25: Lauren and I went to a HUGE club called Coco Bongo. It was really awesome. They had these huge movie theatre styled screens that would lower and show the intro to a scene in a movie. Next, the place would go black, the screens would rise out of sight, and actual people would be flying around the club (from bungees attached to the ceiling) going with the theme to the movie. THere was one Spiderman act that rocked my ass off. We got drunk and almost pounded the shit out of these southern hicks (who dressed really bad) behind us because they kept spilling their drinks on us.
(lauren and I before Coco Bongo)
Thursday 8/26: During the day, Aunt Patty and I went Para-sailing. It was pretty cool. That night, we all went on a bar hopping tour. We got on this party bus thing and went from bar-to-bar (open bar for one flat fee) and got COMPLETELY HAMMERED!! I seriously (and I am SO NOT EXAGERATING) had close to 30 beers that night AFTER I discovered that the watered-down Long Island Ice Tea's weren't getting me drunk. It was a riot. We decided to walk home from the last bar (which was again, Coco Bongo.) It is like 4 A.M. now. Out of nowhere, this nerdy Japanese guy with a pocket protector and a lap-top computer approaches us (he reminded me of Long Duck Dong from 16 Candles.) "Da ya kna where intanet cafe is?"
So we make fun of him for a few minutes, give him bogus directions, and stagger back to the hotel.
Friday 8/27: Mary and I are having breakfast and these two ugly and rude hispanic broads are sitting next to us. It sounds like they are both a cigarrette away from a trachiotomy (sp?). **ok here is some quick background info--Justin (who, again, is Mary's boyfriend)was going to Argentina straight from our vacation in Cancun because he will be doing some kind of study-abroad type of thing there.**
OK, so Mary gets up to get something more to eat. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see one of these broads sizing me up. So I turn to her and she says in her deep, raspy smoker's voice, "Where are jew from?"
"New York." I reply. "where are you from?"
"Argentina." She says.
I proceed to tell her that Mary's b/f is going there tomorrow for 3 months to study.
Her eyes widen and she begins to protest his plan, claiming that he will be killed or imprisoned. Mary comes back and she begins to fill our heads with horror stories about what a bad place Argentina is. Slowly, our group enters the room one-by-one to bare wittness to this women's tales. Justin comes in and she gives him one look and runs her finger across her throat implying that he is a dead man. Georgia (Justin's mom) is sitting there in hysterics. The women looks at Georgia and says "how many children do you have?"
Georgia replies "I have 3 boys."
"Oh good, then you will have 2 left after your son is killed in Argentina." The women says coldly.
We leave the dining room in hysterics. Georgia goes back to the room and calls the US embassy in Argentina and also Justin's father who has an office there. Both assure her that this woman is a lunatic and that things in Argentina have settled down. It was a bad place in the mid-nineties.
Saturday 8/28: We all go our seperate ways. Justin to Argentina. Georgia on an earlier flight home. Tony and Natasha to Florida for a week. Lauren, Aunt Patty, my mother, Marie, Mary, and I back home.
It was an awesome trip. I know I am leaving a lot out...especially as far as photos go, so there will be more to come soon.