The photo of my sister and I, clad in traditional black and red Austrian lederhosen, still sits proudly on my parent’s living room table. At the tender age of four, they whisked me (along with my sisters) away on a whirlwind tour of Europe, where we purchased the infamous lederhosen that I devotedly continued to sport for years —at birthday parties and special occasions. As embarrassed as I may be to admit it now, I loved the lederhosen. As far as I can remember, family vacations have been a yearly tradition, and the lederhosen were just one bizarre yet charming memory of one journey. We always travel together as a family, and the destinations have been many: Japan and India for family reunions; Nice, France for scuba diving lessons; or a bumpy road trip through Italy (during which I fell in love with the eternal city, Rome, for the very first time). This year, in an attempt to escape foggy San Francisco and find solace on tropical beaches, we headed to the Caribbean for our annual family vacation.
Each morning I struggled to pry open my weary eyes. With every splinter of light that directed its rays through the keyhole of a window in our room, I drifted deeper into my dreams. My entire body awoke with the overwhelming feeling of consuming one too many cocktails the night before. The problem was that my nights were spent sans alcohol. I didn’t spend my nights sipping on vodka tonics or shooting tequila shots and showing off my not so stellar dance moves. I spent my nights impatiently waiting in line at the buffet with what seemed like 10,000 other starving and overly-eager passengers on the Norwegian Cruise Lines’s Norwegian Spirit, the cruise ship that was taking us from frosty New York City to the sunny Caribbean Islands. My fellow passengers enthusiastically crowded the buffet, taking every possible opportunity to slyly cut in line or shove you aside as if the procession was leading to the stage at a Rolling Stones concert. In reality, it was leading to cold mashed potatoes, soggy over-salted stewed meats (of every variety), and a mediocre pasta station filled with greasy meatballs and a fatty cream sauce so slippery with oil you could almost feel your arteries clogging after a single bite. I don’t think Mick Jagger would have been too impressed.
