Adventure of the month

As both of my regular blog readers know, I am a stickler for the rules in this lifelong game of Count the Countries. Merely landing in an airport doesn't count; a territory and its motherland only count as one and I don't care if a country is barely larger than the average shopping mall (I'm looking at you Vatican and Monaco, little commercial enterprises that you are), if the UN recognizes it as a country, it counts. The fact that my latest conquest, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, fell within this very specific set of criteria was probably the best thing about my less-than-ideal visit to this north African nation. However, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I should mention that it wasn't the oft-mentioned threats of crime or flesh-eating bacteria that dropped the turd in the proverbial traveling punch bowl. It was a pair of much more intractable foes that thoroughly and mercilessly stymied our every attempt at proper sightseeing.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that it’s summertime in the southern hemisphere and you are a wealthy Argentinian. In order to keep up your social standing, you want to go somewhere where you can both see and be seen. What do you do? Easy, you take a jaunt across the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay and find yourself a posh spot at the “it” seaside resort of Punta del Este. You then discuss these plans with everyone you know, doing so in a sing-song accent that strives to be as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard. New hypothetical, your work has you hanging out in Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, for four days. It is springtime and Punta del Este is a bit on the dead side. You will soon take to Montevideo’s town square to cheer their soccer team as they qualify for the World Cup. You will roam up and down the colonial streets and learn that beer is only served in magnum-sized bottles (which you will carry with you during your roaming, because soccer hooliganism requires it). You will marve...

This past Thursday, I did something I had not done in close to twenty years. I went to a theme park. More specifically, I went to Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL. The reasons for this suddenly renewed interest were pretty simple: I had a day off in Lakeland, FL, a place where there is absolutely nothing to do, and I found discounted passes for FL residents online. And the roller coasters. Let's not forget the roller coasters. But to be fair, they have always had those.  That is what I remember most from my long ago visits.  The down side is that everyone else wants onto those coasters, too, meaning that in order to go on a one minute long ride, you have to invest an hour or more waiting in line, usually while being forced to listen to some hyperactive, overly chatty child. In the cost/ benefit analysis that goes into making such choices, Lakeland's Lakeland-ness, its over-saturation of strip malls and retirees, tipped the scales. We were doing the 30 minute road trip...

With an average rainfall of 18.29 inches per year, it is unlikely that you will get rained out in Honolulu. For comparison's sake, my hometown of Miami clocks in at 58.53. This was repeatedly pointed out to me, a couple of years ago, as I sat indoors watching it pour during the time that I should have been sipping mai tai's on a sunset sail. I had done all of the the research before arriving on the island and had sold about a dozen people on the idea. Based on both their price ($30 including unlimited drinks) and excellent reviews, I had booked all of us aboard the Na Hoku II . On the given day, I had taken "it's only a passing cloud" as my infallible mantra. I may have done an anti-rain dance.  It did no good. In the end, we were all left sodden and minus one dazzling sunset (but not exactly thirsty, luckily, you can still get those mai tai's on land).

Last Tuesday, I was relaxing at home.  I had just popped in a yoga dvd and was about to go into downward facing dog, when suddenly the phone rang.  It was work.  They wanted to know if I could be at the airport in an hour and the only info they could provide was that I was going somewhere with the airport code KTN.  It was google that told me I was going to Ketchikan, Alaska. Out went the dvd as I quickly tossed a couple of sweaters into my bag. By early evening, I was on the ferry that connects the Ketchikan airport to the mainland.  It was dark so I could not fully appreciate the vista before me, but having been here once before, over a decade ago, I knew it was going to be good.

This summer presented a new and unwelcome challenge. For the first time in seven years, I would not be spending July and August in Amsterdam. The sweltering corollary to this fact was that I would be spending those months at home. In Miami. Where the climate is only a few degrees cooler than that of the sun and the humidity is such that it has been known to provoke a man into trying to chew off a stranger's faces. Seeing as I have been a vegetarian for over twenty years, chances are good that I would have trouble digesting human flesh so an immediate solution was necessary. That's where the opportunity to go to San Juan, Puerto Rico for three weeks came in quite handy.  Sure, it is still hot as a mofo down there, they have no canals, tulips or quality cheeses to speak of and the opportunities for international weekend getaways are non-existent but we were walking distance to a beach (as opposed to the onerous 15 minute drive I would have to undertake at home), cold Medall...

A couple of things I learned during a recent extended stay in Boston: DO:  Get the hell out of Boston. There are only so many times you can do the Freedom Trail and all 99 flavors of Sam Adams beer start to taste the same after a while. DON'T:  If you're Bostonian escape plan involves Martha's Vineyard, don't assume you can just show up and get on the next ferry. This applies even if you have researched the itinerary (and printed it out), mapquested the route and timed it just so in order to arrive with sufficient time to purchase the tickets. You (or more precisely whoever is driving the car) will get hosed. The reason for said hosing is that the parking for the ferry is nowhere near the actual ferry, a fact that is conveniently omitted from most travel sites. Therefore the driver will have to drive back from whence they came to park the car (or seeing as we are in Massachusetts to "pahk da cah") in a remote lot and board a bus that will return them...