oh the places you’ll go.
— dr. seuss —
i never really travel to warm weather destinations, especially islands. the last time i went to a resort with an actual sand beach in a foreign country was mexico several years ago, but i love spending time with my family and they are very much warm weather people. invitation to jamaica accepted and a few days after i finally returned from germany i was off again to the sunny caribbean.
upon arrival in negril, my mom, step-dad and the millennials (my little sister and her two besties, who i made pose by a tree like it was their senior picture) looked like they had already been there 10,000 days based on their tans. i had spent 4 weeks of the past 8 blending in with a complete lack of tan in scandinavia and germany, so i clearly needed to go purchase some SPF 1000. honestly, if i didn’t actually have matching DNA results from 23andme.com with my sister i would never think we are related. i also apparently missed the foam party by flying in a few days after them, probably for the best.
i’m just not built for the sun, or heat, or sitting still. while they were lounging in the sun, soaking up the vitamin sea, i lasted 15 minutes before i had to pull my lonely chair to the shade where i proceeded to take pictures of my sweating red stripe. working on vacation, i’m so dedicated, what can i say.
as the days passed, we ate lobster, drank every day, were all pulled up on stage to act like complete idiots in front of the entire resort (chelsey was probably the most baller because when she was asked to sing the first song that came to mind, she started rapping vanilla ice, ice ice baby), kylie braided everyone’s hair, we spent a solid hour talking to a local girl about kylie jenner and her alleged pregnancy, read some books (i recommend, beneath a scarlet sky by mark sullivan), strolled along the beach and even went to the gym (well, chelsey and i did, everyone else sucks), but after that, there isn’t much to do on an island when you aren’t basking in the sun’s rays and have a severe case of the can’t sit stills… so how do you change that narrative?
you change it by jumping off a 27’ cliff at rick’s cafe (after several drinks, of course). as i approached the ledge, i was completely terrified. i told myself i had to just do it without thinking because if my mind started working there would be a million percent my last remaining brain cells would question my sanity and whether i left my worldly possessions to the right people in my will. i didn’t jump fast enough and i stood on the ledge for at least 30 minutes before 2/3 of the millennials had jumped (chelsey first, she is all business and my cliff jumping hero). obviously i couldn’t be shown up by these youngsters, so eventually i jumped…..and lets just say i won’t be doing that again anytime soon, but you only live once right?
the last order of business was being recruited by a club/bar promoter to go out for drinks and dancing at a local place down the street. 2/3 of the millennials were down, but i decided to supervise, being as i am older and wiser (wink, wink). we were loaded up on a ginormous bus, for just the 3 of us (we’re VIPs, didn’t you know??) and dropped off 15 minutes later. the guy on the bus did have the chance to ask what our nicknames were, which ended with marissa saying “white cheddar” (she’s originally from wisconsin), chelsey saying “vanilla ice” (after her stage performance from the other night) and me saying “cori” (because i lack any sort of nickname creativity). i’m super fun to hang out with, i swear……
we walked into the club and were 3 of 6 people there. the other 3 were clearly recruited from their resort, similar to us. because you create your own fun no matter what the situation dictates, we proceeded to dance, drink and enjoy the night, with or without anyone else being there. then out of nowhere, in walked a pack of jamaicans ready for a friendly dance-off. it was like a scene out of west side story, but with dancing and not killing. it was really amazing to watch and see the choreography they came up with. these kids (i say kids because most of them were in their very early 20’s, maybe i should say babies? young ones? lil guys?) really were talented. they tried to recruit us to join them but i held out, knowing my moves were more like elaine’s from seinfeld instead of anything this crew had going on. i mean, we can’t be good at everything, that would just be boring.
eventually the sun and sea came to an end and it was time to head north, jon snow style. it was good to see the fam, good to see the sun, and even better to have a 3 hour direct flight back to boston and no case of jetlag. maybe there is something to this whole caribbean travel thing…
keep reading, keep checking in… i promise it gets better.
NEXT BLOG: heading home.
conquering continents 