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 Editorials | Opinions | April 2006 
Buenos Dias Spring Breakers
 Marie Christine Cannizzaro - Stanford Daily
| | Cabo, I mean really, could it be any more cliche? |
When my friends and I heard that everyone was going to Cabo for Spring Break, we were nothing short of disgusted. Cabo, I mean really, could it be any more cliche? It was almost as bad as going to Tahoe over MLK weekend or — God forbid — Aspen over Winter Break. We are not the Cabo-for-Spring-Break type of girls. We are dessert-before-dinner girls, kiss-on-the-first-date girls, wear-white-way-after-Labor-Day girls. So we went to Puerto Vallarta, which is definitely several miles south of Cabo.
The cheapest ticket to PV (as we affectionately began to refer to the exotic locale) had us flying from SFO on an airline that may or may not be named after a cold state near Canada. This airline — I’m going to call it “Malaska Airlines” for lack of a better pseudonym — evidently fashioned its fleet from fish bones and husky pelts.
Whenever we encountered minor turbulence the plane would shake as though we had just hit a giant flying moose. I would have found the captain’s recommendation to “pull your seatbelt a little tighter” rather quaint had I not been vomiting uncontrollably into my Coach handbag, but circumstances being what they were, I could only pray that a flight attendant would go berserk and ram the beverage cart over and over into my partially conscious body until I took a permanent siesta. Unfortunately, the plane landed before the crew could perform any mercy killings (to my knowledge).
But if the flight was hell, life was heaven at the Lindo Mar Resort. “Lindo Mar,” for those of you who don’t hablar español, means “Great Bar” in Spanish. And, true to its name, the resort had an extensive bar next to the ocean complete with a bartender who would — get this — actually speak his native language with me. At last, five years of Spanish class and broken conversation with my Mexican relatives culminated in exchanges such as:
ME: Una piña colada, por favor.
BARTENDER: Para llevar?
ME: What?
By the end of the trip, I could tell that he and I had formed a special connection. We would play this game where I would down several piña coladas muy fuertes and then hand him what I guessed was the appropriate amount of currency. He would point angrily at the bill and yell the Spanish word for “more,” and I would laugh as I stumbled away, saying that I couldn’t possibly drink any more today. What a crazy guy.
But the best part of the trip was undoubtedly clubbing in town with my posse of gorgeous girlfriends, doing what we do best: getting hit on by sleazy American guys. Now being the professionals that we are, we have secret hand signals to indicate when we need to be saved from a particularly shady character [Ladies: I strongly suggest you develop a similar code with your friends. Gentlemen: Forget everything I just said]. “Saving” a girlfriend usually involves physically lodging oneself between the friend and Shady McShaderson. It may also include statements such as, “She has a very large boyfriend,” “She has a strange rash” or “Hey, look! A wet T-shirt contest!” This last one was particularly effective, because everywhere you turned there actually was a wet T-shirt contest in some corner of the club, with some bevy of beauties drowning their political aspirations along with their clothes.
It was an incredible week, and I was very sad to leave the Lindo Mar and my bartender friend. As we took off in our plane, I looked down on the beautiful coastal town of Puerto Vallarta and thought about how lucky I was to get in touch with my Hispanic heritage and have a real cultural experience instead of some cliche Spring Break. It’s just what every single girl needs — to bond with her girls and seek out something beyond the Stanford Bubble. I should do this more often, I thought. And as the plane shakily flew off into the sunset, I clutched my stomach and tried not to throw up. But this time I was smiling.
Marie would like to thank Sarah, Lindsay, Laura, Alice and Cate for an amazing vacation. Comment on this article at www.stanfordsingle.com. |
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