Surf + Sand = Fun

While on the topic of vacations I got thinking of some of mine. In my short life I ve run through the entire gamut i.e. the good the better and the best:D.Well there s no such thing as a bad vacation is there??...Some I can write about and some I dont wanna. So here are a few notes from my memories on a couple of them

10 day bike trip through the beaches of Manglore

Well I dont ride a bike and am just a reluctant pillion rider. And this trip had 10 days and nights full of it. Riding through vacant beaches, racing with the surf, trying to bring in ships with a flashlight in unused light houses, collecting perfect shells bare foot in the white sand, helping fishermen clean their nets at night, listening to their many stories with my cousin adding the gory stuff to make it interesting... well I could go on and on. I had desperately needed a break so I took up my cousins offer on a whim and I can truthfully say it was one of the best decisions I made at 18. We had to visit his paternal grandmother on the way and since she was the best story teller I ever knew the deal was clinched. I refused to wear a helmet. I was still at a age where bad hair day didnt mean anything and freckles were cute. So that meant the wind rushing through my waist length hair, red pricks all over my face where the drizzling rain worked like stone pellets, cuts and bruises where leaves and branches lashed at my face but fun it was. We went long hours wthout speaking...just soaking it in... and yeah we took no pictures. Maybe thats why I can close my eyes and relive it without the camera lens fogging the memories.The 10 days taught me quite a bit: there is a difference between the dawn and the dusk skies, fish tastes awesome when grilled on coal, people will feed you, talk to you, hug you even if they dont know you just because you have a smile on your face, fishes bite the feed in the wee hours of morning, freckles stay for life, the best way to dis entangle hair filled with sand is to chop it off, gawky older teenage brothers are not that weird, grandmothers will tell you their secret recipe for pickles if you let her know that she is the best of the lot and yeah grandmothers have a way of making your parents really really interesting.

4 days at a cottage in Alibaug

Yeah I am very much a beach person. So much so that the sight of snow for the first time at 25 just got a 'eh?' out of me. So coming back to Alibaug a cousins friend had a cottage in Alibaug that she rented out. Since no marriages were scheduled to happen that year 10 of my 25 first cousins on my maternal side in Bombay needed a different reason to meet up. So we rented the cottage. The back door of the cottage opened out on a lovely strip of Kihim beach which suprisingly was devoid of tresspassers. And the lovely couple who were the caretakers were also awesome cooks. So with my couzins and their partners and a couple of tiny tots we made one big happy family . Lazy days at the beach , teaching a three year old to make a sand castle, wiping his tears when a huge wave took it away, swimming out in the sea, drinking toddy, eating crabs, fishes , shrimps with rice cakes and bhakris, working up a tan (not that I needed it:D) that took 2 months to wear off were some of my faviourite things that long weekend. But nuthing beat hearing my couzins kid say his first cuss word in Marathi i.e. "Ailaa". Sigh!! ...Kids grow up so soon

Growing up!

A couple of weeks back we had a blizzard followed by a ice storm followed by a snow storm. No, I dont know what the difference is just that its a whole lot of snow.
I woke up early just to check the closure announcements and yeah the offices were closed just like the schools. :D.I did my happy holiday dance with whoops which is more like lifting both my feet at once and having a bad fall but more about that later. And then immediately woke up people in different time zones to check if I get paid for that day.
I was happy and not only because I had a unplanned holiday. I really enjoy doing what I do now and work days are fun. What I was tickled about was that I was having a paid vacation. The funny thing is as I child I was just happy to get a day off and yeah I did like going to school...everybody thought I was smart.. even the kids!. But now it takes a wee bit more to enjoy that holiday
Just when do we move on from thinking a fun vacation is lying on our backs with snotty nosed cousins playing imaginary battles with marching clouds to matching up the entertainment factor vs money spent? Well the price you pay for growing up:(