Blowfish and Liquor Get It Done Quicker

So, at what point does your highly desirable and long overdue vacation become a calamity of hysterical events that you don’t mind retelling so much anymore because enough time has passed to heal the wound? At this point in time, I suppose. I took a long overdue holiday to my beloved Caribbean (Dominican Republic, Punta Cana to be exact) and settled in an overly posh and not at all affordable resort made affordable to me by a family friend I was travelling with who had extensive travel agency connections. This “friend” of mine was only about a year older than me, so it’s not like our vacation was doomed an awkward mess of generational gaps. We both came to relax, stuff our faces, drink till we fell down and dance our asses off every night at the local disco.

With that out of the way, I was ready for seven days of pure and unadulterated young beach fun. The first three days were filled with alcohol (Cuba Libre and Caipirinha’s being the weapons of mass destruction), among several accounts of severe ocean soaking, over baking and hallucinating and making dozens of happy drunk pals along the way.

“What an insanely wonderful time I’m having”, I thought to myself.
“Could things get any better?”……and they did, for some moments later that day that I had the thought. We recruited about ten drunken hooligans to play with from all over the world, all staying in our resort. We decided it was a beautiful night to throw a beach party on the beach, naturally. The ridiculously expensive resort had beds. On the beach, they were king-sized. What the hell was this all about? They obviously intended to place them there for our evening beach bed party….except the little bugs that live in those mattresses that bit us all to hell disagreed with our reasoning.

After all of us were bitten enough times to prompt a move, the “friend” that I came with and I decided we were quite ravenous and due for some food. We decided that going to a Japanese raw sushi restaurant in the Dominican Republic would be a wise decision, what with all the Japanese that live on the island and all (sarcasm). Being slightly inebriated, I decided I would throw caution to the wind and order all crazy stuff I never eat. Be adventurous, they say.

“JAPANESE BLOW FISH AQUI AQUI”

Yes sir… me over here. I want some. And I had some.

We decided to go play pool shortly thereafter with some of our wild and crazy drunk friends. Yes, we continued to drink. Yes, we got shitfaced. Fast forward to a couple of hours later and we were dead asleep in our room. Upon awakening the next morning, I felt like I was run over by several buses. It had to be the inhumane amount of alcohol consumed last night. I felt strangely dizzy and delirious. I had trouble hearing sounds properly and was exhausted beyond belief. I went out to the beach and thought a dip in the good ol’ ocean would do be justice. Along the way, I bumped into friends from last night.
“Holy shit….your face is really swollen girl. You look like you’re hogging acorns in your cheeks for winter.”
I hesitated to look in the mirror that morning. I found a mirror and sure enough…I looked like a squirrel in harvest season. It occurred to me that perhaps it was just water retention. That is, until I passed out and couldn’t breathe.

I woke the next morning in a run down Dominican hospital, all alone, with my passport and wallet on the floor next to me. Mr. Cockroach, the size of my hand, was keeping watch over me next to my bed. I let out a gut wrenching scream. Thank God I speak Spanish. The nurses came running over to me with a telephone with my mom on the other line. She was getting ready to fly over here, what with me being alone and all. Turns out, I’m allergic to Japanese blowfish. Anaphylactic shock type allergic. For the life of me, I’ll never know why it took a day to develop.

Turns out, the stupid cow that I came on this trip with decided not to accompany my lifeless, young, blonde and blue-eyed, and potential rape victim in a foreign country body to the nearest hospital, for fear of something horrid happening to her. I want to thank the kind people of DR for not raping, robbing or selling my allergy ridden body off that day. Apparently, I arrived to the hospital in the crux of style in a nice air conditioned vehicle.
I spent the entire next day hooked up to an antihistamine IV, with my hysterical mother at the other end of the phone, plotting murder for this moron that I left me to fend for myself.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I will be there no matter what the emergency. You do not abandon an unconscious person in a foreign land. You just don’t do it. It’s like kicking a puppy; it’s not the saintly way. The day I returned to the hotel, my beloved drunken friends threw a small party in my favor. And we didn’t invite the bitch. It was a helluva good time that lasted almost two days. I’ll never make creative food choices while drinking again. Lesson learned.

¿Qué desayunaste?

What did you have for breakfast? That's one of my favorite questions as I am a die hard believer in breakfast all day. It's occurred to me that no matter how much I try, I find myself impossibly stumbling to recreate those serendipitious travel morning meals. Every place that I've been to, I can safely say that breakfast has always been so memorable that as I write this, saliva continues to dribble from my mouth ( No, I'm not currently hungry).

Don't get me wrong. I travel with a tight budget. I don't like to overspend on food unless it's truly worth it. As luck would have it, my morning meals always fell into the lower end of the dollar spectrum.Class, let's begin in Italy. The country is well known to have mindblowing food regardless of it all but I have never in my life experienced a creamier, luxurious and a more soul warming cappuccino. It cost me pennies and was the most amazing cup of java I've ever inhaled. Chase the cappuccino with some fresh cornetti and brioches (find an Italian bakery and buy these stat, although they probably won't be as good as from the mothership) and I've got Adriano Celentano singing a solo to me through my stomach. All for the grand total of around 4-5 American Dollars. I hate you Starbucks.

The Caribbean breakfast is something to experience. I'm not talking about the round of the mill buffet style garbage but rather the stuff that the locals can acquire and treat you to if they see a smiling friend in your eyes. In the Dominican Republic, there is the tantalizing and brilliant Mangú. It's green plaintains cooked in a way that will break your heart and added to fried eggs with fried salami and fried cheese. It will fuck you up if you have existing cholesterol problems so beware. Mexican food I can just talk about for monthes. I love it and have mastered many authentic Mexican recipes to the tee (and am damn proud of it) . Tortillas, huevos rancheros, super spice early in the morning...heaven for me. What escapes me, however, is a ridiculously good hot chocolate. Massive and delicious Mexican mugs of hot chocolate with milk among other things (egg yolks, heavy cream, masa (corn dough), molasses, vanilla, cinnamon and a number of other spices). You've never had hot chocolate until you've had an authentic Mexican one. Trust me.

I could go on and on about this topic, but I will come to a close with the most simplest of tastes and yet the most refined. When I was living in Spain some years back, my friends and I didn't have a kitchen area to prepare breakfast. We were left with the option of eating out ( expensive) or buying groceries and attempting to cook without an existing kitchen. Every morning, we went to the market by our place and picked up a couple of very simple ingredients; Manchego cheese, Iberico cheese, Iberico ham, Serrano ham, crusty bread, Coca-Cola, boxed red wine. We would take this back and enjoy little morning tapas with the best ham and cheese on the planet, chased by morning calimochos(50% wine, 50% Coke). Nothing, and I repeat, nothing is as good to me as Spanish ham and cheese. There are too many damn bans on their ham in the US but if you are lucky enough to get it elsewhere....get it! And eat it all on behalf of me.

Wherever you are in the world, go enjoy breakfast. It's a sin not to.


photo via trails.com