The Ten Top Things Not to Do When in the Tropics

Holla!

I am back!!

We had 7 glorious days in the Dominican Republic of weather in the 80's and when we pulled in our Upper Peninsula of Michigan driveway early Saturday morning (around 1:30 a.m.) it was a balmy -13 degrees! (yep, you read right...that is 13 degrees BELOW zero!) Just about a 90 degree difference, folks!!!!

My wonderful, sweet, saintly, (and any other adjectives to describe one who you are forever grateful to) brother had snow-blowed our driveway that day so at least we could drive straight into our attached garage and rush into the house without having to wade in waist-high snow to get into the house. (He told me yesterday that it had snowed every day that we were gone and that the snow was indeed: waist high!)

I am not sure we were on the same planet. Perhaps we did space travel on the way home in the jet?

Anyway, during our L----O---N---------G flight home I had plenty of time to reflect on the Ten Top Things Not to Do When in the Tropics, because we saw a lot of them.

So, here goes:

1. If you are pregnant...(or even if you are NOT pregnant), for-the-love-of-God, please do NOT wear a thong bikini bottom if your ass is the the shape, size and form or an Orangatang (spelling?) ape.

2. If you like those God-awful, stenchy, stinking, putrid, make-anyone's-eyes-within-50-feet-water-endlessly cigars....please do not light one up and chain smoke them. (Every lobby, beach, palm-tree laden walkway had some idiot (even women) smoking them everywhere!)

3. If you like to sunbathe topless, please go ahead. But don't flaunt the girls.
(It was obvious that plenty of the topless sunbathers simply wanted to shock others or get attention to themselves by purposely laying out, backs arched like in Playboy, right next to the main walkway into the beach area.)
So, Okay, already....we SEE them....!

4. If you are male and have had about a 100 too-many beers, please, I beg of you, do not wear speedos tucked under your enormous belly.
I mean, I don't mind that you are overweight, (really! because I have a weight issue too)....but speedos?
Isn't that adding insult to injury?
And aren't you the ones oggling the topless wonders who are arching their backs by the main walkway into the beach?
(Good God, I hope you don't mate one of them).

5. Parents....please parent.
There was an open-air theatre at our resort where every night around 8 p.m., they had a show on-stage where the little kids were invited up to dance with clowns, etc. Cute.
But not so cute when the show was over and the parents had wandered off to some beach bar and left the little darlings there on stage to run screaming in circles and behind the stage, etc.
There were adult shows that followed at 9 p.m. every night, and those same kids would just run wild up and down the stage right up to the start of the adult show...still screaming and playing with the stage sets.
Parents? .....no where in sight.
(Maybe they were still topless at the beach or strolling in their speedos?)

6. Please do NOT treat the local workers like the scum of the earth.
I saw French, Canadians, Russians, Americans all roll their eyes or throw a verbal snit if they didn't get coffee immediately upon sitting their sunburned arses down to their spoiled-life tables in the dining room and be downright rude to the resort workers working hard to please everybody (for less-than-minimum wage, to be sure!). They would rudely fuss, frown, flick off any attempt at the workers when they offered them more beverages than I care to admit.
These bad tourists are the reason we all get labeled as awful to the locals, I am sure.

7. If you bargain at the local markets (which is expected), be polite about it.
I saw rude people who would act like the local's homemade wares were garbage (and face it, some of it is to a lot of us....but they hand-made them to try and make a living, people!)
Just be polite, and say "no thankyou!"....but don't make faces or laugh at their products and throw them back on the shelf!

8. Wear sunscreen people!
We saw people who were in the sun so long, they literally glowed orange-red and had blisters on them by the end of the day.
I saw one lady in her 70's whose skin was so leathery, it looked like what is stretched across a bongo, only with more wrinkles and age spots than my latest connect-the-dot puzzle book has.
Yuck.

9. If you have thighs that rub together when you walk (and you KNOW WHO YOU ARE!), puh-leeze do not wear those mini denim skirts.
I mean every time you leaned over to pick up your sandals, I had to hold my breath that I didn't have to see your woo-hoo!
It just isn't pretty.
Do you OWN a mirror?

10. I don't want to offend all of you smokers, but OH-MY-GOD, must you smoke everywhere, all the time?
Even on the wonderful beach, where tropical breezes were wafting up, we had to search for a little spot of fresh air to enjoy the beach. (Not to mention the aforementioned cigar-smoking beach-goers, also!).
Then there was the family who were in the lobby/lounge area....all playing cards. I thought: "How nice, look at them...vacationing together, spending "family time" playing cards...and THEN...they ALL (even the 2 teenagers with them), pulled out these foul-smelling, skinny combination cigarette-cigar Tiperello-type things and all lit them up. Immediately a blue cloud of stench surrounded them (and the surrounding 50 feet circumference).
We moved, and so did several others around them.
They didn't have a clue.

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But, all in all....we did have a wonderful time.

It was one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. (Bavaro Beach in Punta Cana).

White sand and many, many coconut palm trees.

The sand? White and powdery...not a single pebble or rock to be found. You could walk barefoot on it and into the ocean without shoes/sandals and it felt heavenly between your toes. The water was shallow far out into the water, so you could jump the large waves rolling in.
Days sunny and in the 80's and nights balmy and in the 70's.

Wonderful...simply wonderful.

I SO needed it.......

However, despite the below-zero weather upon coming home, our bed felt exquisite and that first hot shower (they didn't believe in warm water showers in our resort in Punta Cana) was GREAT!!!

I missed blogging (sick isn't it?) and now today we are both down with flu-like symptoms...runny noses and pounding headaches.

Maybe it is the tropical-weather-withdrawal-flu?

I figured the only anecdote/cure to be found was to start blogging again.

So, I took one dose with plenty of fluids and I am sure I will feel better tomorrow!!!

I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz....I just clicked my red sparkly shoes together and am repeating (three times, of course!): "There's no place like home...there's no place like home",..."there's no place...like............home........"