How I Spent My European Vacation

How I Spent My European Vacation

We decided to spend our children’s inheritance on a European Vacation.

Since I was planning on being a burden to them all along, I figured we could splurge.

We found a great cruise that took us to Spain, France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey over 12 days with only 2 days at sea.  We would get to see Florence, Rome, Venice, Athens, Istanbul, Naples, Mykonos, Toulon (Aix en Provence), Barcelona and Ephesus.  We booked the cruise in November for Mid April sailing and settled back to see what kind of excursions we could take.

While looking over our choices, we decided that since we were already in Europe, we should see more of Rome and continue onto Paris.  We convinced two of our friends to meet us after the cruise in Rome and go with us to Paris.

I joined a discussion group on Cruise Critic which had people going on the same cruise as we were.  Everyone was sharing experiences and wanted to share side trips.

On previous cruises we usually met on the initial day of sailing as a group to get acquainted. I stupidly asked if anyone was organizing such a get together and was amazed when several people appointed me as the coordinator.  I did not volunteer!

I contacted the cruise company’s group coordinator and asked for a meeting place on the day of sailing.  They replied they would have an “official” cruise critic meeting on the 5^th day and would that be all right.

No, I said, it would not.  We wanted to meet on the first day so we could meet the people we would be sharing small private excursions with.  The fifth day would be too late.

They then offered the 2^nd day at 10 AM.  Since we would already be off the ship on our first excursion by then, it seemed like a bad idea.

The ship’s reasoning for those days was on sail away day, the officers wouldn’t be available to meet with us.  I didn’t care about meeting the officers and asked for a meeting place for an “unofficial” meeting of our own.

They suggested a bar off the lobby.  I agreed and posted on the discussion board asking for names and numbers so we could tell how many people wanted to attend.

We got 64 people to sign up.  When I told the group coordinator she told me the bar they had suggested was too small and offered another bar near the casino.  I agreed and asked for at least a bartender to be present.

I posted the new location and time, plus the time and location of the “official” Cruise Critic meeting so people could attend both,  printed up name tags and waited.

In the meantime, we had booked both ship tours and private tours.  We posted the private tours on the discussion boards and got other couples to join us so the cost per couple was way less.

We also booked our hotels in Venice, Rome and Paris.  Booked the train from Venice to Rome and a plane from Rome to Paris.  We also booked a private tour of the Vatican to avoid the crowds. (money was no object since technically it was our children’s)

We flew to Barcelona.  Loved the city, had one day there to sightsee.  The next day boarded the ship.

Barbara and I went to the bar early to set up for the “unofficial” meeting.  We had our name tags set up for everyone and even had some blanks for people showing up without telling us.

There was no bartender.

I went to the next bar and convinced the manager there to send over some waiters.  We were gong to have 64 people at the bar, how could they lose.  He agreed.

The get together was a success; everyone appreciated the nametags so they could find the people they were sharing trips with.  Some people didn’t make the party so they would have to be found later.  It turned out one of the people we were sharing a trip with were our next door neighbors on the cruise.  A happy coincidence.

The cruise started.

Every day we had to get up at 6:30 or 7 to make our excursions.  We would spend all day out, come back exhausted from all the walking, climbing, shopping, and be in bed by 11.

We saw wonderful things. Met great people.

Despite being warned (you can guess who said that) not to speak with anyone, I managed to talk with people on every trip. Also all the Cruise Critic people recognized me from the get together and knew who I was since I had given out the nametags.  I felt like the Mayor of the Cruise.  Even some of the Officers knew who I was because of the meeting and would say hello to me by name. Barbara just kept rolling her eyes at me.  I can’t help it if I was popular.

Barbara and I decided since we were going to Venice, Rome and Paris after the cruise we would not eat in the specialty restaurants.  After the second night, the hostesses recognized us and gave us window seat tables every night.

On the first sea day, the “official” cruise critic meeting took place.  30 plus people showed up.  The ship had set up coffee, cake and tables for us.  The officers arrived and were impressed to see so many people.  I was later told that the normal number who show up was 10.  The officers introduced themselves and left.  Kind of a let down after the buildup to the meeting the ship’s group coordinator had given me.

In the meantime, Barbara and I had been getting hors d’ourves and chocolate covered strawberries every night.  I assumed everyone was getting the same.  I was wrong. Only us.  I never did find out why, just ate them.  We had so many at one point we gave some to our neighbor.

The cruise was great; we had a good time and saw amazing things.

As usual, things just happened to me.  Entirely not my fault.

In Venice, we got dropped off by the water taxi and were told our hotel was just down the next street.  It was raining and we couldn’t find the street.  After a while I asked a policeman and he gave me a landmark to turn at.  Turns out the “alleyway” I kept passing was the street.  We were soaked by the time we got there.  Fortunately the rain stopped and we could enjoy the rest of the day in Venice.

Barbara is very good at lots of things.  Taking pictures is not one of them.  She can’t see any images in the LCD screen and consequently most of the pictures of me are headless.

Several times she was so hapless (she actually pointed the lens at herself at one point) that people noticed her difficulty, took pity on her, and took the picture for her.  Thank God or I wouldn’t be in any pictures from the cruise.  Our friends took my picture in Rome and Paris.

In Ephesus, we met Rick Steves, the travel writer who was making a new show on Ephesus.  When we told other cruise mates they were jealous.

In Venice, I met an artist in the Jewish Quarter.  She told me she had an office in the US.  When I asked her “where,” she told me Florida.  I inquired further and she told me “somewhere in Sunrise Lakes”.

For those of you who don’t know, it is a retirement community 10 minutes from my house.  Her “office” was a woman in a condo taking orders. What are the odds??

At the Louvre, I met a young lady who could be a double for Cameron Diaz.  Of course I had to ask her for a picture with me so I could send it to my children as the real Cameron Diaz.  Once again I got the “look” from Barbara.

I took a picture of Barbara eating Gelato that made her appear angry (she wasn’t) and I didn’t realize it did.  When I sent it to the kids and family everyone asked each other “What did he do now to piss her off so much?”  We had a hard time convincing them everything was ok.

In Paris, our friend who was with us, recognized the Barefoot Contessa and went over to say hello.  Barbara didn’t recognize the name or even know there was a food channel.  As an aside, while eating in the dining room of the ship, Barbara said to me, “I could get used to this, not cooking I mean.”

I nearly gagged on my food.

Barbara and I usually like to dance.  We were listening to a piano player play and sing some Elton John songs.  I asked her to dance.  She refused on the grounds we would be the only ones dancing.  I turned to a man sitting next to us and asked him to dance with his wife so we wouldn’t be the only ones dancing.  Despite not speaking English, he got what I said and they began to dance.  Barbara had no choice but to follow.  People applauded (I may have been a little vocal in my attempt to get Barbara to dance), and then the piano player took a break.  Bad timing.

In Ephesus and in Istanbul, we saw signs that said “Genuine Fake Watches”.  I love truth in Advertising.

 

My usually conservative friend made me buy dice with pictures of Karma Sutra positions on them.  The night we were too tired to go out to dinner, I told him we had been playing with the dice and were exhausted from duplicating the positions on them.  He was proud of us.

What higher praise could there be for 2, 60 somethings?

   

Truth in Advertising

Me and you know who before the guards took me away

A College Freshman's Dream

 A College Freshman’s Dream

I was in my second semester of college at Queens College in New York. 

I received a phone call from my high school buddy who had gone to Florida State University.

He told me that his girlfriend, who was on the Florida State Drill Team would be coming to New York the next week with her drill team to be on a TV show called Hullabaloo.  He requested I get take care of her and her 14 teammates.  He wanted me to show them around the city and make sure they had a good time.  He gave me her name, the name of the hotel the team was staying at, and the date and approximate time they would be arriving.

Of course I agreed. Visions of tall, beautiful, southern belles filled my head.

My next problem was arranging for 14 other guys to go with me.

I had joined a House Plan at Queens; it was like a fraternity but without the rules and affiliations.  There were plenty of candidates for the Drill Team dates.

That Monday, I went to school and got a group of guys together for the expected date that Saturday night.  Needless to say, I was very popular that week and somewhat of a hero in the House Plan.

On Thursday, the girls arrived in New York City.  I called the hotel and was put through to my friend’s girlfriend.  She was expecting my call.  

She had told her teammates about me and they had agreed to go out with my friends on Saturday night after the TV show.  I told them I would arrange to pick them up at 10PM at their hotel in Manhattan.  We would have 5 or 6 cars so they would have to break up into groups.

I prepped my group. We consisted of freshmen like me on up to seniors. We made tactical plans of who would go with who based on who had cars and where we lived.

Saturday night came. We assembled at a rallying point and proceeded to Manhattan.  We parked the cars and went into the hotel.  We went up to the floor where the girls were and knocked on the door of the room my friend’s girlfriend was in.

She opened the door and was exactly what I expected.  Her friends were the same.

We piled into the room, and after some short small talk, divided up and went down to the cars.

The group I was with, went to Greenwich Village and into a popular coffee house where we saw a show and had some drinks (they only served soft drinks because they didn’t have a liquor license) and French fries.  We went to Chinatown next and then Little Italy for dessert.  We had a good time, they were fun to be with, and seemed to enjoy being shown around Manhattan.  We brought them back to the hotel around 4AM and went home.

Various groups did different things and I never did get the whole story about what happened, but all my friends were very happy on Monday and I remained popular if not a legend (perhaps in my own mind only) on campus.

I spoke with my friend at Florida State and he told me the girls had a good time and his reputation benefited from the “fix up” he had arranged.

I often wondered what these girls thought of us. 

Queens College was mostly Jewish, and all the guys I took with me were Jewish.  I was sure the girls were not.  I have no idea if they even knew we were Jewish or what that meant (I was sure there were no Jews at Florida State).

Maybe this was my small contribution to bridging the religious gap in the South. 

Or maybe I give myself too much credit.

The iPad Dessert

                                                            The IPad Dessert

When IPads first came out, I thought they were a waste of money.  After all, I had a computer and a smart phone, so what did I need the IPad for?

 Over time, I came to view them with avarice and wanting.

As I got older I can read my emails and go to web pages with greater and greater difficulty on my iPhone.  The images and fonts are too small and I “don’t need” glasses.  Therefore the answer is a larger screen, hence the conversion to seeking an IPad or tablet.

This past holiday season, I began looking at the IPads and the Android Tablets to see if I really wanted one and how much were they going to cost.

I watched the ads, went to the stores and was still undecided by the time Chanukah came around.

My wife watched me go over these things and sweetly decided she would get me one.

She and my daughter-in-law went to Brandsmart (an electronics and appliance store) to purchase tablets for me and our daughter-in-law’s parents.

Since they didn’t know very much about the tablets, they asked a salesgirl for advice. Unfortunately, the salesgirl either didn’t know anything or was told to sell a particular tablet to neophytes.  This particular tablet is an off, off brand, but it is inexpensive.

Based on the salesgirl’s advice, they bought two 10” tablets.

A few days later, my wife presented me with the tablet.

I set it up and tried it out.  It was horrible.  It could get emails but didn’t have the memory to run the web browser or do much of anything.  In addition it had a battery life of 2 hours! 

Over the next few days I played with it to see if I could get it to work better.  It didn’t.

I packed it up and brought it back to Brandsmart where I was told I only had 5 days to  return it and this was the 6^th day.  I had never heard of this policy at this store and had a spirited conversation with the return manager.  The outcome was they refused to take it back and directed me to the manufacturer for relief.

I tried contacting the manufacturer.  As per their web page I tried to email them using their form.  It refused to take my complaint.  I called the 800 number and was told I had to email them or fax them to file a complaint or ask a question.  The 800 number was strictly for sales.

I faxed them my questions about improving the performance of the tablet as per their instructions and lo and behold they have never answered.  A wonderful company to be sure.  In case you are wondering it is called Tivax.

I resigned myself to just using it for emails when I was away from my home or country.

I recently went to visit my daughter out of state.  My wife and I told her of our difficulties with the tablet.  She immediately determined I needed an IPad like her husband and son had.  She proceeded to investigate pricing and specs on the various models.

Now, Apple doesn’t allow discounting on its various models, a practice I think is illegal based on the Sherman Anti Trust Act, but what do I know.  However, some stores have “open box” units available (units used for demos) and also refurbished units, as does Apple on its website.

I suggested we try BestBuy as a source of “open box” units since I had bought an IMac that way there.

We went to her local BestBuy and spoke with a salesperson.  He assured us he had “open box” units and even units that were about to “expire” which was better for us since we could get a 15% discount on a combination of open box and “expiring”.  Expiring meant that the unit had been in the store too long and was about to cost the store interest.

I agreed to take one of these units and the salesman went to get one.

After a short period of time, he returned with two units which were open box, but not what I wanted and more expensive than we had agreed on.  He said he didn’t have any others and never had any expired units, despite having assured us he had plenty.

We left the store and tried another BestBuy, a Target, a Walmart, and an Office Depot.

We returned home without an IPad.

We then went to the Apple site to see what they were offering. 

My daughter found a refurbished unit with more memory for a discounted price.  I bought it and had it shipped to her house since that’s where we were.

A few days later, the unit showed up.

I set it up and went to get a drink.  By the time I got back, the unit was gone. 

My wife had taken it; and she and my grandson were busy downloading games.

Even as I am writing this, she is playing various games and downloading others.  The tablet is now called: “Barbie’s” and Siri directs her comments to my wife.

It occurs to me that this is our “dessert” thing all over again.

She doesn’t want one (dessert or tablet), but once I have one, she takes at least half, or in this case whole.

I’m going to have to keep my reading glasses with me.

Joining the Gym

Joining the Gym

Now that Barbara and I have more time at home, we decided to join a Gym.

There is a big gym near us and it is a member of the Silver Sneakers network (hard to believe we qualify).  We went over to see what the deal was.  It turns out that our Medical Insurance supplement pays for our membership in full so we went ahead to register.

We sat down with a counselor who asked us a series of questions about what our goals were, etc. 

Not being able to help myself I told him Barbara’s goal was to get in shape for her second husband to be.  She didn’t deny it!

After thinking about that, he said most of the women were getting in shape for their first husbands to be.  I thought that was pretty funny and true.

I signed Barbara up for a personal trainer for 3 sessions, since she had never been in a gym before and was unfamiliar with the various machines and exercises.  I asked for a “drill sergeant type”, but Barbara, rolling her eyes in familiar way, vetoed that idea.

We got a tour of the gym.  It’s very nice, with an indoor pool, sauna, hot tub, steam room, racket ball court, basketball court and lots of machines and weight stations.

We then proceeded to the most important phase of joining: buying snazzy workout outfits for Barbara.

My daughter had already given Barbara a list of items to purchase and where to get them, Target.  So off we went.

$150 later, Barbara was suitably outfitted and we were prepared to start.

Our free membership had now cost $280 dollars including the personal trainer for Barbara.

That Monday, we went for out first sessions.  The personal trainer had called to make sure Barbara was coming and met us at 10AM.

I went off on my own and would catch glimpses of Barbara with the trainer during the hour.

At the end of the hour, we met up in the front.  Before leaving, we went over to the scale and weighed ourselves.

Barbara went first.

“The scales wrong,” she promptly declared. “It’s off by 6 pounds. The scale at Publix (our local supermarket) doesn’t say I weigh this much”.

“Really,” I said, “let me see what my weight is.”

The scale seemed to be 3 pounds off.

The Publix scale has been wrong in the past, usually under-reporting in an attempt to get people to buy more fattening food.

A woman who had been standing behind us spoke up.

“Let me on the scale, I weigh myself all the time here,” she said.

“Sure,” I said.

She got on the scale, adjusted it and declared it accurate, much to our chagrin.

Maybe she was a plant from the gym to get us sign up for some diet program.  No such luck, she left without saying a word other than “see ya”.

Barbara and I looked at each other. 

“I might have gained a little,” Barbara said, “but my clothes fit”.

“Yeah maybe its all the cake, cookies and chocolate,” I offered as an excuse.

At any rate, we seemed to have our work cut out for us.

We went home and Barbara “rested” for the rest of the day.

On Wednesday we returned to the gym and split up to go our separate ways.

Looking around, I realized that 65% of the people there were our age or older.  The Silver Sneakers were much in evidence.

We returned home and Barbara again felt the need to “rest”.

On Friday, we went again and once more Barbara felt the need to “rest” afterward.

She seems to like going and doing the exercises. However, she is not prepared to do anything afterward. 

This coming Monday, she has a doctors appointment in the afternoon and has told me she isn’t going to the gym on Monday morning, because she will be too tired to go to the doctor in the afternoon.

I’m hoping this isn’t a repeat of the “Bike” fiasco, where she rode her new “Barbie Bike” once and hasn’t ridden it in 2 years. To be fair, I only rode my new bike twice.

It really is a “Barbie Bike”, hot pink in color, 1950’s look to it, wide tires, rear brakes, no gears.  We found it already assembled at Kmart at the end of an aisle, with a spotlight on it (no, really).  We had to buy it.

I am hoping for a change in pattern, Wednesday will be the telling point.

Fun At Restaurants

Fun at Restaurants

I’m the kind of guy who likes talking to people at restaurants, particularly the staff. I enjoy kidding around with them and love it when they have a sense of humor.  Unfortunately my wife, son and daughter-in-law do not share this view and are pained when I do this (almost every time).

Occasionally I will do things in jest that others take seriously.

The other day, I had hired two men to do some physical labor for our office.  When they finished, I offered to take them for pizza since it was lunchtime.  One of the guys said his wife was coming to get him and could she come along.  I agreed since I was ordering a large pie and that would give 2 slices to everyone.

The wife arrived with her sister and immediately declared that she had just come from the doctor and a dietician and was not allowed to have carbohydrates, but her sister would join us.  She and her sister sat in the next table since pizza would violate her non-carbohydrate rule.

After a minute or two she asked, "since she was not eating would I mind if she had a beer."

After doing a double take, I asked her laughingly, “Let me get this straight, you can’t have pizza because it is a carbohydrate, but a beer is ok?”

“Well,” she answered, I really need that beer.”

About half way through the meal I turned to her and said, “You know, you didn’t have to give up the pizza. Didn’t the dietician tell you calories don’t count between 2 and 5PM?”

“Really?” she replied, “I didn’t know that, why didn’t that damn dietician tell me?”

“I don’t know, perhaps she is not up on the latest research,” I said.

Her sister then asked, “what if it’s 8 o’clock?”

“No, no, that would be after 5,” I answered.

“Oh, Right,” she said.

I returned to my pizza.  After a minute or two, I turned back to them and said, “You know about the weekends don’t you?”

They stared at me.

“Calories don’t count on weekends either,” I stated.

After 30 seconds the sister looked at me and said, “You were kidding about the calories, weren’t you?”

Realizing I had gone a little too far, I answered, “Well, only about the weekend,” and went back to eating.

I found this quite amusing.

There are a few other times that I think rival this, the following is another one.

Barbara and I were in a pancake house with another couple.  At the end of the meal the waitress came over and asked if there would be anything else.

“Yes,” I said, “you can give the check to that table over there,” pointing to a random couple at another table.

Now when I say this to other wait staff, they usually ask if I know the other people, or look at me askance, or laugh.   That was not the case here.

“Ok,” she said and left.

My wife, lacking my sense of humor started glaring at me.  Our friends looked on confused.

The waitress presented the check to the other table.

I watched amused as the guy tried to figure out how his bill was so high since it was just the two of them.

Barbara called over the waitress and insisted I tell her to get the check back. 

The waitress had assumed (you know what they say about people who assume) immediately ran over and grabbed the check away from the couple.  I offered to pay both checks to appease Barbara, but the guy at the other table had a sense of humor about the whole thing and laughed with me and the other couple with us.  Barbara of course, much to my amazement, was not amused.  The waitress was somewhat flummoxed about the whole thing.

The last incident I will mention (I seem to have a lot of anecdotes but will only mention one other) actually was unintentional on my part (no, really).

Barbara and I, along with our kids, my parents and friends of my parents who I had known since childhood were eating at a Chinese Restaurant near my home.  It was of course a Sunday (see Jewish eating traditions).

It was the couple’s anniversary.

I slipped away from the table and went to pay the bill in order to secretly treat them for their anniversary.

Not wanting them to know I had done that, I asked the owner of the restaurant to tell them that it was the restaurant’s policy to treat everyone at the table when a couple were celebrating an anniversary.  She agreed.

When it came time to leave the owner came over and announced that the bill was on the house because of their “Anniversary Policy”.

Unfortunately, she did this in a rather loud voice, so that other people around us could hear her.

Now this restaurant is near a very large retirement community, and since it was Sunday night, it was filled with these same retiree’s (see above reference to Jewish Eating habits).

As we got up to leave, I could hear several of them saying:

“I didn’t know they did that.”

“Wait till I tell the girls at the pool.”

“ I’m going to make sure I come here with my friends when it’s my anniversary,” and other words to that effect.

I could only imagine the chaos that would ensue in the coming months when hundreds of retirees tried to collect on the “Anniversary Policy” they had just heard about

I felt it best to exit the restaurant quickly.

We didn’t return to that restaurant for some time, for obvious reasons.

Dessert

Dessert

I am definitely a dessert person.

I would rather eat the dessert than the entrée. 

I love fruit, cakes, pies, cakes and pies that contain fruit, pies  and cakes that are custard filled, pudding filled, cannolli fillings, chocolate fillings, ice cream, ice cream pies, tarts, cookies, pastries of all kinds, donuts (especially Boston Crème), melon, sherbets, melon with sherbet, pie ala mode, etc.  You get the idea.

I don’t feel the meal is complete unless there is dessert.

When I was growing up, we always had dessert with every dinner. It was usually a fruit or piece of cake.  Many times it was a canned fruit that had been chilled in the refrigerator.

When I started going out with Barbara, her family didn’t have this sacred tradition.  When I mentioned it, her mother and grandmother offered me canned fruit the next time I was over. 

While I appreciated their effort, they didn’t chill it.  Warm canned fruit is awful and should come with a warning label.  I quickly showed them the error of their ways.

Once we were married, dessert was almost always included in our dinners.  Something we continue till this day.

When we go out, I always want to see the dessert menu at the end of the meal, and usually Barbara has always wanted to as well.

In the last couple of years, Barbara has declined to have dessert.  When I ask her what she wants, she says she doesn’t want any.

Being the exemplary husband, I make sure to ask her twice.

“No, no,” she answers, “order what you want”.

“Are you sure,” I always inquire, “You don’t want anything?”

“I’m sure, get what you want,” she answers.

So I do, usually some dessert that involves fruit in some way.

Inevitably, she gives me “the look” when the dessert arrives.

“You had to order that!” she says somewhat archly.

“What?” I answer, “You said you didn’t want any and I should order what I wanted”.

“But did you have to order that?” she answers. You know I wanted (fill in some chocolate dessert without fruit), so why did you order that?”

“You said to order what I wanted,” I reply

Once again there is “the look”.

At that point she usually picks up the extra fork or spoon that the server has brought and starts eating my dessert.

“I would have gotten you your own,” I say.

“No, no, I don’t really want any, I’ll just taste yours”

With that half my dessert disappears.

This has become a regular routine between us.  Our family and friends have become accustomed to it, but still laugh about it.  My daughter-in-law in particular gets a charge out of Barbara’s pretense of not eating desserts.

Now lately, I have noticed other couples having their own routines when it comes to desserts.

Usually the wife will have some variation of Barbara’s response, but they will usually hedge their bets by offering to share something they can both agree on.  This works out well and no “looks” are exchanged.

A variation of the dessert ploy recently occurred when we went out to dinner with a couple who shall remain unnamed.

The husband has been watching his weight his whole life but also loves dessert.

At the end of the meal, the dessert menu was brought over and Barbara and I went through our regular routine.  We passed the menu to the other couple where the husband eagerly studied it.

The server came over and asked “what would you like to have?”

The husband eagerly looked up at the server and just before he ordered he glanced at his wife.

She gave him “the look” and subtly shook her head “no”.

His eagerness turned to sadness and he forlornly said to the server, “Sorry, the Warden says no”.

I didn’t feel so bad about “our routine” after that.

Para Sailing at the Beach

Para Sailing at the Beach

It was Labor Day and our friends Gina and Mark invited us to go to the beach with them.  They have a membership at the Harbour Beach Marriott Beach Club.  That means we get preferential treatment at the resort and enjoy the amenities of the hotel without having to take a room.

We went to Gina and Mark’s house, bringing apple pie and ice cream for a barbecue later (coffee ice cream for him, black raspberry mint chocolate for the rest of us).

We drove to the hotel and staked out a place on the beach with complimentary lounges, umbrellas and table for drinks.

Mark and I went in the ocean while the girls read on the lounges.

While in the ocean, I was just standing there and observed the para sailing boat going by.  I had never been on one before and was somewhat curious about it. I had always wanted to try it.

Mark and I returned to the lounges and I continued to watch the para sailing.

“How much do you think that would cost?” I casually asked, pointing to the para sail boat.

“I dunno, $100, $150”, Mark answered.

Gina looked at me expectantly.  She expects me to do rash, impulsive, stupid things.I have no idea why.

“Are you really considering it?” she asked hopefully.

“Thinking about it. Where do you think they have set up?” I answered.

“Probably over by one of the Tiki Huts over there”, Mark said pointing to an area that had boats and jet ski’s for rent.  “I’ve done this before some years ago”, Mark continued and then told a story about he and a friend of his having done it previously and how the friend had gotten nauseous and vomited while up in the air (we shall leave his name out of this to protect his reputation). Fortunately Mark declined to go into detail.

Barbara started looking at me suspiciously.  “You’re not serious”, she said.

I stood up.

“Where are you going”, she demanded.

“Just want to see what the deal is”, I replied and before she could object further I was walking off in the direction of the rental Tiki Hut.

I got to the Tiki Hut, having stupidly not taken my sandals with me to walk on the hot sand.  I was greeted by two young lovely attendants who proceeded to tell me about the marvelous time I would have if I went para sailing.

“How much?” I asked.

“$95 for 15 minutes” the blonde said.

“Is there a discount if I am old?” I inquired hopefully.

“No, we charge extra for age”, one of the guys at the booth replied smiling.

The negotiation continued.  Me negotiating, they staying firm.  We settled on $95.

“I have to go back and see if I can get my wife to do it with me.  Can you write something to her telling her how safe and fun it would be?  Put in “Doctor Prescribed”, maybe that would convince her.”

The brunette looked at me like I was from Mars, but the blonde played along and wrote out what I asked for.  I trudged back to the lounges.

“How much?” Gina asked.

“About $100” I answered.

Barbara gave me the “look”. I gave her the note from the blonde.

“I’m not going; are you crazy?” she said. Barbara is not a “ride person”

“Aw come on, it’s probably safe and definitely fun.  We could do it together, no fun without you”, I said imploringly, but knowing there was no hope.

“Maybe Mark could go with you”, Gina offered.

“I’ve already done this”, Mark said.

“You’re not really going to do this” Barbara said, repeating objection from before.

“I wonder if I could take my cell phone and use it to take pictures” I mused, while studiously ignoring her.

I proceeded to call the para sail people and ask them.  I was told only if I wanted to get it wet. I declined to take it.

“What the hell” I said, “I’m doing it”, and started towards the Tiki Hut with my credit card in hand.

“Is your insurance paid up?” Barbara demanded.

“Wait up, I’ll come along and take some pictures of you from the ground” offered Mark.

We proceeded on while Barbara continued to give me the “look”.

We arrived at the hut, I paid and proceeded to the shore along with 2 guys and a couple.  We got on an inflatable and were taken out to the boat. 

I more or less successfully transferred fromn the inflatable to the boat and we took off.

The two guys went first, then the couple.  They were saving me for last.

Eventually I was strapped in and hooked up to the para sail.  The boat turned into the wind, the sail inflated and I was off. The tether extended out about 1,000 feet from the boat and I was about 400 feet up in the air. 

It wasn’t scary, I didn’t get nauseous or dizzy, and it was like sitting in a swing.  A very high up swing. 

Unfortunately the water was murky and I couldn’t see much in the way of sea life under the water.  Never the less, it was fun  It was worthwhile doing; if only for the favorable impression I made on my grandchildren when they saw the pictures of me up in the air.

I made it back to the group and we went to lunch. Surprisingly Barbara was being a good sport about it.

We ate lunch, had fun with a waitress who had a sense of humor (she wanted to charge our meal to the room, I said sure, 912.  She asked for the name on the room “see if there is a Levy” I said.  If not that room any room with Levy. It became a standing joke), and went back to the beach.

We left the beach and returned to Mark and Gina’s for the barbecue.  When it came time for dessert we all had pie and ice cream.  Turns out, Mark likes Black Raspberry and mint chocolate too, who knew?

One the way home Barbara said “$100, you had to spend a $100?”.

“Yes,” I said, “when will I ever do this again?”

 

Surprisingly she took it well, must have been because my insurance was paid up.