[slideshow]
Blonde and Brunette were on our favorite sort of trip the “Severance Package Celebration Getaway”. Blonde had suspected for months that the company she was working for was headed for The Big Bang. However, having been previously employed by the same group of companies she watched The Clock of Doom tick down to blast-off secure in the knowledge that she would get a good severance package.
Immediately upon receiving word in mid-January that Doom had in fact been achieved Blonde rushed to her office, called Brunette and said “I got severance! If you can find us a one week trip to somewhere warm for about $1,500 each it’s my treat”. You can ask Brunette to do many things and she’s a generally obliging lass but rarely the human equivalent of a speeding bullet. Offer her a free trip to somewhere hot where she can swim and she breaks the travel-booking version of the sound barrier. She immediately located us an excellent deal for a week in Turks and Caicos, including round trip airfare from Boston.
Our accommodations were at the Royal West Indies Resort in Providenciales. It’s somewhat annoying that there really isn’t a bad thing to say about the place. We had a large suite which was clean, comfortable and had all the needed amenities (except George Clooney). They even had a pool that practiced child apartheid so adults could enjoy some quiet and solitude in a presumably pee-free pool. The resort is on a smooth, soft beach with turquoise water. The surf knew when to be be frisky and when to do the aquatic version of the missionary position thus offering a small but well-executed range of water experiences.
The only downside to the trip was the cost of food at the restaurants in Turks and Caicos. We didn’t have a meal plan for our bargain getaway thereby making it much less of a bargain but no less enjoyable. Well maybe a little.
Brunette always makes a list of restaurants to try. We went to several to eat and a few where we just looked at the menus and high prices and tried to slither away invisibly. When prices are so expensive you feel cheated if the meal doesn’t leave you constipated for weeks it’s generally advisable to move on. (At least I didn’t make a joke about flushing your money away and that joke was right there taunting me.)
One restaurant we’d been told had a magical setting and a sophisticated menu was Coco Bistro. We were only able to secure a reservation for our last night on the island. We easily walked there but were not thrilled to realize that it was not anywhere near the water but along a flat, dusty road. However, they had a lovely outside garden dining area that created the illusion of being on a Caribbean Island – which we were (sort of, the islands are in the Atlantic, but why quibble?).
We had tarted ourselves up in order to be of an acceptable caliber of tourist to dine at this establishment. Generally hoity toity restaurants that are well reviewed have servers who give diners the personal background of every morsel offered for purchased. Example: ” Our chicken was raised on a prejudice-free, libertarian, vegan ranch where it never heard a discouraging word and was in a Zen-like state immediately prior to its head being chopped off. As a result it doesn’t have the taste of bitterness from a difficult life in oppressive poultry circumstances and has a whiff of surprise about it”.
These recitations are where Blonde and Brunette desperately avoid eye contact and try to give the impression of giving the descriptions their proper consideration. In reality we are trying not to giggle or snort water (or wine) through our noses as the prattle goes on and the Pretension Meter sticks at the high end of the range.
However, on this occasion some of the featured items only had short-form Hawaiian birth certificates so, as staunch Fish-Birthers, we needed additional documentation as to the provenance of the fish being offered. Brunette was interested in the salmon entrée and inquired of our server “Was this salmon farm-raised”?
The server looked very taken aback by the question. Tourists are so stupid!
“No madam”, he said condescendingly, “salmon is from the sea. It is not from farms”.
Cue the culinarily sophisticated sisters as we did the snorting wine from our nostrils and laughing until we’re sobbing routine. For the rest of the evening (and it did take quite a while for our disgusted sever to reappear) we kept envisioning little fish on a tiny farm, grazing on bucolic pastures. Perhaps one evening the fish farmer and his wife would invite a traveling salesman in to spend the night and meet their beautiful guppy daughter……