Punta Cana Three-Oh!

The 30 Things I Learned On My 30th Birthday Trip in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic To celebrate our 30th birthdays, a few friends and I (and Val) went to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. I thought we'd look back on 30 years of living, but it turned out to be a great and fun learning experience. Here are 30 things I learned on my 30th birthday trip to the DR, in no particular order... 1. Don't ask people if they are Irish Twins (siblings born within same year). They will most likely be confused or think that you're insulting them by calling them Irish and/or calling their parents promiscuous. 2. Don't forget to leave the floaters in pool. Every night we received a flyer that highlighted events for the following day and always reminded you to leave the floaters in the pool--floaters being floating rafts of course. 3. Mariana is the best negotiator I know, personally or famous. She negotiated getting herself and Val rings that were $55 each for $20 each, primarily just by repetitively saying "Senor....no." Okay, maybe she also offered to give them the pretty blond (Val), but it was fun to watch. Consider this, the same discount applied to the Yankee payroll would result in A-Rod getting about $10 million a year. 4. You could potentially cost a foreigner their job by teaching them common American phrases, but it's hysterical. During beach volleyball, an "enthusiastic" Mariana kept telling our attendee/teammate Joanna, "You my sexy bitch!" Finally, Joanna returned the phrase and continued to do so whenever she saw us at the resort for the remainder of our stay. We just hoped that she wasn't saying that to all other women staying there. 5. The second best way to Punta Cana is to miss your flight, catch a flight to Santo Domingo and catch a 3 hour cab across the island to Punta Cana. Yes, this happened to Alyssa and Dana, but they made it to the resort for the first night and we had a blast. 6. If you have some great neighbors, the best time of day in the DR is Backyard Time. Hammocks, drinks, music, room service apps, Lishnoffs, Coontzes, Lyss & Dana. Nuff said. 7. When playing golf, remember what ball you are playing. If the game gets a little competitive you might be accused of playing the wrong ball. Even if that ball is the only one in the area where you landed. 8. If an amusement park ever had a ride called "Being Driven Around in the DR", it would be really scary, cause a lot of accidents in peoples' pants and be shut down immediately. I can't tell you how scary our ride was. Our driver Francisco seemed to gravitate toward cyclists and farm animals. 9. The Charlie Sheen "Winning!" thing is much better yelled out loud than on Twitter. We even learned how to say it in Spanish and had one of our waiters repeating "Ganadon!" (Note: I think the correct pronunciation is ganador or ganando, but ganadon is what we yelled) 10. Don't think that blackjack tables with lower limits will allow you to play longer. $5 tables brought the rare sight of Lishnoff at a gambling table...and disposed of him quickly. Also, don't make stupid moves at the blackjack table with Mickey or he might call you an dummy. He did to some guy that saved the dealer from busting and made everyone lose the hand. 11. It's impossible to get tennis lessons on vacation when the tennis instructor is...on vacation! The resort offered morning tennis lessons, which I attempted to take but the instructor was on vacation early in the week. He showed up later in the week and took great pride in avoiding people who wanted lessons and he also enjoyed locking the basketball up so Mick and I could not shoot around. 12. Any phrase referring to a horse is most likely accurate. A few of us went on a 30 minute horseback ride and at the halfway mark all of the horses peed simultaneously for a long and loud period. I can't imagine how a race horse pees. But I can tell you how hung a few of these horses were. Yuck. 13. Champagne has many uses--it can be used to make mimosas, poured on peoples heads when they win something, drank after toast. However the best use of champagne is to put it in a bucket of ice, put that bucket in front of Mickey and enjoy the show. 14. There aren't many bicycling rules in the DR, but there at least two. 1) It's not safe enough to ride outside the resort without your resort companion. 2) You can't ride if the bicycle loses its handle bars. Okay #2 might be universal. 15. Trademarks mean nothing south of the equator. On the ride from the airport we noticed how leisurely they used sports logos on bars that they had no business using. Down the beach, they had a strip of small, sand floored shops with cement walls and curtains for doors where they sold island made crafts and souvenirs. What was odd about these shops? They were named Macy's, Kohl's, Target and Sears! This lesson was reinforced when I got back and read a story about Jay-Z and Big Papi settling a dispute. Apparently, Papi went to the 40/40 Club and liked it so much that he opened a club in the DR...called Forty-Forty! 16. If your resort offers a free x-rated television channel (channel 96 in our case), there will never be an instance where a joke about this channel will not be (a) hysterical and (b) appropriate AND inappropriate at the same time. "Hey, we hear you watching channel 96 in there", "I think I saw her/him on channel 96 last night", "Let's call their room and put the phone receiver to channel 96 with the volume on full blast"... 17. There's no way to stop "boph" Mariana and Val when they bring their AA game. On the next to last night, these two got carried away singing (amongst other songs, Jay-Z "Bonnie & Clyde": "How dey gonna stop bof us?") to the point that Mickey was about to dump a garbage can of water on them, only to learn that they disappeared for drinks and tipped the bartender by playing American rap songs of their choice. 18. Flamingos are evil, ugly and will Chase you if they're hungry. They look like cool, chill animals because they are associated with tropical places and they look friendly when they are in the form of lawn ornaments. But I dare you to get within 10 feet of them, like Val and I did in the garden at the resort. They were basically scarecrows to mine and Val's crows. We got out of there in a hurry. 19. You're never too old to be disrespectful to women, as long as you are from Boston, have a mustache and are named Phil. This guy would openly howl at women and at one point he did so to Dana and I had to stop consuming large quantities of alcohol to tell him that he was being extremely inappropriate. 20. I'll never be able to look at trash mags again without thinking of Alyssa and Dana (no offense girls). They brought a giant stack on vacation and I devoured them. I now feel sorry for Bachelor Brad and want to break Timberlake's back for breaking Biel's heart. 21. It's okay to not be alarmed if you hear a scream from another room, even if your sister/sister-in-law is in that room. It's most likely just a bug or something not harmful that is being screamed at. Although, you should not overlook the threat of Jordan van der Sloot. 22. The best way to clap consists of no clapping at all. All it entails is yelling out "Clappy! Clappy! Clappy!" It's extremely fun and effortless and I'll be bringing that to sporting events beginning this year. 23. If you opt to sing into a microphone in front of people, please know the lyrics. During poolside name that tune, I walked by the MC who was playing Aerosmith "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" and I named the tune so he wanted me to say it into the mike. However, instead of simply naming the tune, I yelped "....juuuust to heeeeear ya dreeeeamin!" So he disqualified me and gave it to someone in the pool. 24. You don't need to put sun block where the sun don't shine. Ahh, we all knew that one before the trip to the DR, but Mickey felt that he had to tell me that before I applied my sun block on Day 1. 25. The best way to tell people you're tired when you're 30 is also the best way to tell people you're tired when you're 3. You just put your head on the dinner table. Introduced by Mickey and repeated by others during the week. 26. Under normal circumstances, it takes about 10 people chanting "Do it!" to get me to do anything, but at a resort it takes about 5 and maybe 5 drinks. The thing I did was float across the closed pool at night on 3 floaters stacked up. Okay, 6 people were chanting because I forgot about the attendee who was supposed to be securing the pool who was also chanting "Do it!" 27. Superbowl 42 Giants over Patriots will live on forever. I had a couple opportunities to rag on Phil from Boston regarding that game. After Phil said, "I bet the farm on that game," I responded with, "Well, you're here Phil, so I guess the farm is back." Later I made a joke about SB42 being possibly rigged after he complained about a poolside hula-hooping contest being staged, of all things. 28. Just because you know you're an adult, that doesn't mean you know what you wanna do and what you don't wanna do. This was a direct quote from Mickey to Mariana, as he was explaining to her why she did not want to go horseback riding when she thought she did. 29. The best verb that I never knew before Punta Cana was "Coontz". When Mick made one too many dives and lost the ball during pool volleyball, I stated that he out-Coontzed himself. After scoring against Mickey, a girl we didn't know later professed that she de-Coontzed him. Let's just say that Mariana was rightfully less-than -with her choice of usage of the verb Coontz when told about this later on. 30. You don't have to go all the way to Punta Cana to learn something that you could have learned at the Starbucks around the corner. Mariana thought that Raw Sugar was especially called "Sugar in the Raw" in other countries. After Val confirmed that it's called that in the U.S., Mariana: "I never KNEW that!" We might be getting older, but the week was as hysterical as ever, especially when considering that there were a few friends who we wished were there. Hope everyone can make it in 5 years when I learn 35 new things somewhere different.