E’s job at The Very Nice Restaurant affords him a certain number of perks, including free nights and major discounts on food and services at several Very Nice Hotel chains, including the Ritz-Carlton, the Four Seasons, and some others all over the world.

On the advice of several of his coworkers, we went here:

Let’s get something out in the open right now. My family grew up going on camping trips for vacations. I’m totally good in a tent with a sleeping bag and eating food that’s been cooked over a fire or on a little camp stove. So, try and imagine my eyeballs when I saw that we got to stay here:

Here’s our hotel, smack in the middle of this beachside lineup.

Suffice to say, I felt a little country-come-to-town wandering around that place. I was constantly asking E who I was supposed to tip (anyone who arranges things for you or gives you something you asked for) and who I was not to worry about tipping (anyone who brings you something you didn’t ask for, or anyone who assists you while you are in a bathing suit and obviously do not have money).

I took advantage of the free steam room and the seven-headed shower in the spa, enjoyed the complimentary L’Occitane bath goodies every day, and got an amazing pedicure. We had one meal at the restaurant and one meal with room service just because we were feeling lazy. But beyond that, we really skipped out on all of the fuss and were just our normal, beer-and-burger kind of selves.

Except the Bud Light was $7 per bottle and the burger was made of grass-fed, free-range, pilates-doing, inner-peace-having cow, and cost $18. Plus tips.

Seriously? We actually stopped at the grocery store before we got to the hotel and loaded up on bread, cheese, lunchmeat, hot dogs, yogurt, fruit, beer, soda, and chips. We even brought the mini George Foreman grill down there with us so we could make hot sandwiches in the room. Even at the Four Seasons, and even with 50% off at their restaurant, we’re still cheap.

There were red flags on the beach much of the time, but we had some beautiful sunshine, enough for good walks and a 20-mile bike ride down the island.

This pier was about a ten-minute walk down the beach from our hotel, and it goes out to where the water is about 40 or 50 feet deep. We saw  a school flying fish being chased by barracudas – tricky to photograph, but so gorgeous. Here’s my attempted shot of the flying fish – look in the lower left of the picture.

The Four Seasons is on an island between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intercoastal Waterway. We had to go over a drawbridge to get pretty much anywhere, and for some sort of growing-up-landlocked reason, this totally thrilled me.

The ocean side was full of hotels, and the waterway side was lined with huge homes – some probably bigger than the hotel – where the supa-rich docked their supa-expensive boats.

It can be an expensive town. Even the taxis are Lincolns and Cadillacs. No, not just the Four Seasons club car. I mean the TAXI you wave down on the street. And even it has complimentary candies and bottled water.

We took a day to go deep-sea fishing, and although it started out kind of gray-ish, it ended up sunny and perfect (minus the first hour, in which I was uncomfortably – but not barfy – seasick). Here’s our little boat:

And here is E reeling in a freaking 7-foot sailfish.

Flickr Video

That was completely amazing. We ended up letting the fish go (as you can see) because we weren’t going to eat it, sell it, or mount it. That pinkish thing in its mouth is actually the fish’s stomach! Sailfish, I kid you not, will spit up their own stomachs to rid themselves of a hook if they can, and then gulp it back down once freed.

There’s your trivia for the day.

(And no, I didn’t catch anything.)

Aside from the bike ride and the fishing, we really spent most of the time just wandering the shore searching for coral and shells, laying around by the pool if it was nice or in our room if it was not. We only did one night out on the town and it was okay, but we chose to spend our last night in Palm Beach eating a delivery pizza  and watching movies instead of going back across the drawbridge.

It was just better that way.

Neither one of us could get more than two bars of cell service while we were on the island. I didn’t even get to read my guest bloggers’ posts until Saturday because we chose not to pay extra for wifi in the room. Although it was pretty frustrating to feel so disconnected at first, I have to admit that it was kind of sad to look down at my phone at the airport and see all the bars lit up again.

And, in keeping with the frugal nature of our swanky trip, I didn’t buy a single souvenir.

But I think I’ve got the best one right here anyway:

And that was our vacation.

Hey everyone! I’m Jenn, and you can find me over at my little piece of the web, you’ll grow to love me (seriously, you will. Don’t ask questions.)

When Rebekah asked me to guest post, I asked her what she would like me to write about. She answered “BOYS”. I suppose as the token single girl AND as the token college girl, I’m expected to have lots of stories about boys.

I thought about telling you all about the time that I got dry-humped, but that story has been told (complete with illustrations.)

So since Rebekah is in Florida with her boy, I decided to write about the time that I went to Florida with a boy.

My last relationship was about two years ago, and about this time in 2008 we decided we had had enough of the Boston winter and were going to jetset down to Florida and bask in the sun (where I proceeded to do a little too much basking and not enough sunscreen-applying.)

Neither one of us had ever traveled anywhere with a significant other, and we were both a little nervous. We ended up having a great time though, and I learned a few lessons along the way.

1. Make sure your partner is a “good traveler”. You don’t want to be THAT COUPLE that holds up the security line or throws a tantrum when United says your bags are going to cost $100 to check. You want to be with the man that calmly and patiently sorts out the problem with the rental car (and you want to be far far away while he does it, TRUST ME.)
2. Wear sunscreen. It doesn’t work so well when you’re burnt by the end of the first brunch. (Believe me when I say that hotel room activities are not as enjoyable when IT HURTS TO MOVE.)
3. Splurge. You’re on vacation! Go to the delicious Brazilian steakhouse for dinner and consume more wine than you ever thought possible, even if it means you skip breakfast the next morning.
4. Prepare yourself for the bathroom. All of the bathroom sharing you do while spending the night at each other’s places is nothing compared to when you discover that your man is “dropping the kids off at the pool” while also talking to his mom on the phone.
5. Take lots of pictures — just don’t put them on Facebook. I know you want to show off your tan to all your friends and make them jealous of the warmth you were in, but I guarantee that you’re going to want to burn every single one of those pictures when you break up and they only serve as a reminder of that time you went on a romantic getaway with that dbag that broke your heart.

Anyone else have any advice or lessons-learned when traveling with a significant other?

E and I are headed to Palm Beach, Florida on an early flight on Monday. Vacation!!! And we get to stay FOR FREE in one of the Very Nice Hotels, courtesy of his job at the Very Nice Restaurant. How freaking sweet is that?! It means we have extra money to blow on deep-sea fishing, and golf and the spa… mmm, spa. Spa with a hefty discount.

*happy*

Oh, and say what you will about the cold snap in the South right now… It hasn’t been above freezing in St. Louis for over a week, so THIS is looking pretty good to me.

As long as I don’t have to wear long underwear on vacation, it’s all good.

And while I’m gone, you’ll have a wonderful series of guest bloggers to entertain you! Three lovely ladies will be posting here in my absence, and you simply must come by and see what they have to say.

Have a happy week!

This one is from Jess at Classy in Philadelphia. Every Wednesday, you’re supposed to post a picture of yourself from somewhere you’ve been in your travels. This is kind of an old one, but in the spirit of remembering a decade, I bring you a picture of me, up high on the London Eye, in March 2004.

Lovely weather in London in March.

• I had a great time. Exhausting, but great.
• I’m sorry someone’s baby got elbowed by a swag-grabber, but I got shoved by an unattended toddler and no one made a fuss about his swag-grabbing mom that wasn’t paying attention to him. Call me callous, but it cuts both ways, ladies.
• The swag was good because it’s USEFUL. Was it excessive? Beats me, I’ve never been to BlogHer (or any big conference) before. At healthcare events I just got a bunch of useless pens and notepads. Are these companies buying my love? Perhaps – but they’ve bought my business with stickers (Picnik, I heart you already) and samples (those Gatorade powder packets for your waterbottle? Adore! Already bought some.). Oh well. As a LobbyCon-er, I didn’t get to go to the breakout sessions so I had some time to kill to chat with vendors at the Expo.
• I met many lovely ladies at the conference and at the parties, some of whom I have read, some of whom I’d not read and not heard of, some of whom have probably (read: likely) never heard of me. But if I met you at BlogHer, I think you’re great. I didn’t meet a single person there who I wouldn’t like to have a drink with again.

That last point – is that what everyone is referring to about cliques forming in the blogging community?

It’s been brought up in many posts – indeed, on BlogHer’s own website – I’m trying to sort that out in my head and not having much luck, so I do want to solicit opinions here. I think that anytime you put half a dozen girls down in a room, you’re going to start forming groups. Not maliciously, but everyone knows we gravitate to certain people for one reason or another. And when there are thousands? There you go. I met people and stayed in a smallish group because I was having a good time with those girls and quite frankly, I’m a little intimidated about approaching new people without old friends around. And now we all have some shared experiences and some inside jokes that we will spout about on our blogs because it makes us happy to remember them. And it makes us happy to make plans to meet up with friends again because we have bonded.

Does that make me clique-ish?

I like to meet and include new people and be included in others’ lives. I don’t think many of the people I know are deliberate about excluding people from their activities – but it HAPPENS, and often without intent. Everybody can’t be everywhere at once, so we can’t all share the same experiences and the same jokes where you-had-to-be-there. So why are people up in arms about people being happy about their new friends and writing about it on their blogs or Twitter?

Am I naive in thinking that no one really means for this community to shut people out?

Am I off-kilter for thinking that sometimes we are the ones who make ourselves feel excluded, not the other way around?

I don’t love the fact that I didn’t get to go to Vegas, or the fact that no one said “Hey, come to Vegas with us!” for that matter. Does that mean my blog friends don’t like me? Hardly. It is what it is, I guess. And people had a great time, awesome for them, and I can be happy that people I like had fun.

An analogy:

When a cell grows big enough, it splits and forms specialized cells. That’s the way life forms evolve and become advanced. And all of the specialized cells can work together to make a functioning life form that can have an impact on the world. When different types of cells attack one another, the result can be a cancer that destroys everything those cells built.

Are we the ones keeping our community from making the impact we want it to make?

What do you think?