Bodies In The Sand, Tropical Drink Melting In Your Hand

Hi everyone, I’m La from Rad Fanny. I was thrilled and flattered when Angela asked me to guest post, but as the time grew closer and closer, I started panicking about what to write. And I came up with? Nothing. I’ve guest posted for others before, and always had a topic in mind, but lucky you, not today! We’re just going to see where things go. Speaking of today, it is my IBF’s birthday, so if you want to go wish her happy birthday, go ahead! I’ll wait. (drums fingers on the desk, whistles, looks around) Great! Glad we got that taken care of. Because she is awesome, and I love her to death, and I hope that she has the most fantastic birthday, ever.

So I’m only like 90% jealous that Angela is off in Italy (or 100%), and her being on a vacation of sorts made me think of the first real vacation I took as a young adult in college. Me and seventeen-ish of my closest friends decided to go to the Bahamas. To start things off with a bang, when we got to the airport, one of my friends became violently ill. And it managed to travel its way throughout the entire group (except for me, thankfully) throughout the week. We boarded the plane, and started the trip from NYC to the Bahamas. It was an overnight flight, and by the time we got there, most of us were well rested and ready to enjoy our time off. Until we got to our dwellings. It was a townhouse that they rented out to poor college students such as ourselves. It had two floors, two bedrooms, one bathroom, and two collective beds. And I’m not kidding you when I say we slept at least four to a bed. There were also a few couches downstairs.

And? There were rats. Lots and lots of rats. The first of us to spot one of the giant, mutant rats was one of the guys, and he started shrieking, grabbed the first thing he could find, which turned out to be a soup pan, jumped up on the couch and continued screaming. I have photographic evidence of this moment, and it still makes me laugh every time. The rest of us were trying our very best to stop the tears of laughter streaming down our faces, and find our own places on top of furniture. Needless to say, we didn’t spend much time in the “hotel”. Being college students, we somehow managed to drink for free for an entire week, and somehow find ways to steal alcohol from all of the local establishments. We went on a “booze cruise” and ended up with jugs and jugs of rum punch that sat on the table in our kitchen all week. Not refrigerated. And we drank it all week. And our friend Jeff left with the nickname “Pukey”. I don’t think I need to elaborate.

We did a lot of sightseeing, sneaking into fancy hotels, going to flea markets, got offered a lot of drugs, some of us got cornrows, we parasailed and went on jetskis, and spent a lot of time just relaxing on the beach. Our townhouse was pretty far away from the main part of town, so we had to take taxis or walk a really long way. One day, we couldn’t get a cab, and we were all horribly hungover, and a Domino’s Pizza guy happened to be driving by, and we asked him to give us a ride into town. He had a tiny little sports car, and we still managed to cram six of us into it, and we all just sort of stared at each other as he was smoking weed in his delivery car, and started eating the pizza he was supposed to be delivering. All in all, a tremendous vacation. Even though our returning flight got canceled and we spent thirty-six hours in the Bahamian airport hungover, sunburned, and cranky. I hope one day to be able to return and maybe kick it up a notch and stay somewhere without rats. So here's hoping that Angela is having a kick-ass time in Italy and she comes back with all sorts of wonderful stories, none of which involve rats and/or gastrointestinal distress.

Comments

[courtney]

I haven't been to the Bahamas, but that sounds like it was a fun trip and the non-refrigerated rum punch? Tasty.

[Molly]

Now I want to go on a trip. Immediately!

[Abbie]

I too have never been to the bahamas. Hopefully that'll change soon.
I didn't know weed was that available there.
Not that I'd want to try it.

[distracted spunk]

La, your post makes me giggle the way you wrote it. I haven't been to the Bahamas since I was like seven.

[Miriam]

I loved being in the Bahamas and your trip sounds like it was so much fun...now I want to go play...

[bing]

This sounded like a crazy and awesome college trip. Makes me wish I was still in college on spring break!

[TasterSpoon]

I've never gone on vacay with a whole BUNCH of friends, but it sounds like the funnest thing ever.

A few years ago some friends were talking about going on a cruise en masse, but it never panned out, and recently I talked to a (different) friend who did that with some of his buds and said it sucked rocks.

[Carolyn]

Ah, yes, the Bahamas. I had quite a nice hotel [thankfully there were NO rats] and a fabulous time [we were there for a family members wedding], but the weather was horrible, as we were dealing with remnants of a destructive hurricane :|

Clouds, hardly any sun and rain...in the Bahamas? I should have stayed in Jersey. Kidding!

[JP]

Yay for the Beach Boys!

I think I saw a rat in the Bahamas, too. But maybe it was Belize.

[RisibleGirl]

Ya know- just the mention of rats makes me want to jump up on my couch. Rats freak me out like nothing else.

::shudders::