Not so Hot Holidays

For me a holidays is a break in a city, where I can visit museums and sip lattes by day and go clubbing and drink by night. Or Vegas! I love Vegas! You can drink and gamble and people don’t even judge you! They judge you if you don’t. It’s like the expect you to be bad! How can you say no to that?
For my holidays, I don’t need to sit by the pool, because, well… I have a pool at home. So for me a cultural break, involving walking in circles around a city, getting lost, eating strange food and talking to odd-looking natives who smile strangely at me when I hand them my camera and say ‘Pho-to!’ is pure joy. I assumed that this appeals to everyone. Not so. Some people have very strange holiday choices. Such as:

Ayia Napa
I don’t get the appeal. Personally I found the beautiful Church in the town centre surrounded by all those neon monstrosities much more appealing that the bars and brawls that Ayia Napa has in abundance. Maybe they have the Church there so people can go pray for the sins committed the night before. Nevertheless, despite bringing in money to the country, Ayia Napa is ghastly. I used to like it. But maybe that’s because I was drunk. Take everyone there sober and they’d be swimming home.

Camping
Why anyone would sit in a fabric hut and sleep on a soggy mat is beyond me. Some say to get back to nature? You want to get back to nature, then try walking to work and living without broadband on a Thursday in Nicosia. Camping are for people who have everything and need to pretend to be martyrs for a while. No running water, no lavatories, shops or electricity. Why would you do that?

A house in the country
Some people do the odd thing of renting a small house in the country, like in some random county in England surrounded by sheep and forests and haunted castles and sit there, without… much! And drink. And do nothing. And talk. Why would I want to talk to you when I can blog you?

Then there are the holidays that don’t like you. In my case: Summer Camp when I was 14. It actually turned out to be Church Camp, which explained all the prayers and Bible stories (that I enjoyed) but they threw me out after swearing! Oops! Maybe they had the feeling that I was to become a Jew! Now I’d gladly go to Jewish Camp! I can imagine us learning Jewish Karate, and business skills and ways to turn everything you touch kosher!

*****

Then there was this other time when I went to Paris and bought a t-shirt saying just that on it. ‘Are you from Paris?’ someone asked me. I was flattered but replied ‘Do I look like I am?’ ‘No. Where are you from?’ he asked me. ‘Jerusalem.’ I replied. ‘You do look Jewish.’ He stated as if finally seeing the obvious, or maybe he was one of these people who just got back from Ayia Napa.

Another time, I wore another of my t-shirts that read ‘I heart TJ’ which stood for Tijuana. A Mormon from Kentucky wanted me to give it to him, because TJ were his initials. I said that if he wore a t-shirt saying ‘I heart TJ’ then he’d be lying, and that’s a sin. I am from Jerusalem you know. As if that’s not a lie. Someone else thought it stood from Tom Jones. It doesn’t. When I explain to someone where Tijuana was (Mexico-US border) they asked if I was from there. ‘Do I look like I’m from TJ?’ I asked. He said he didn’t know what a person from TJ looked like. I said they looked like me. ‘No’ he said ‘you look like you’re from Vegas.’ I guess I do! Or maybe Jerusalem*

* But if I wore a t-shirt say ‘I heart Jerusalem’ it’ll have to read ‘JerUSAlem.’