As a student, there are two things that pull me through 9am lectures, essay deadlines and brutal hangovers; Modern Family marathons on Netflix and the knowledge that summer is just around the corner. So what better than a combination of the two? Here it is, the Modern Family guide to the spontaneous summer holiday…
For students, summer provides an escape from messy kitchens, 9am lectures and meals that come in plastic containers. It has clear perks, one of the most important being that your dearest are finally nearest too. But nearest, after a week, seems very close indeed… ‘Oh, were you still asleep while I was hoovering in the hallway at 8:30am? That’s a shame! Well, seeing as you’re up…’ ‘So when you say you’ll be in late you mean at 9? 10? 10:30? 10:45? 10:46?’ As well meaning, loving and fabulous as our mum’s are, after a year at uni being able to leave clothes on the floor without receiving any kind of passive-aggressive remark (‘is your wardrobe just feeling a bit full today’) being home can begin to feel ever so less like a treat.
As soon as we’ve got our heads around how good it is to be home, the need to fly the nest once again begins to creep up on us. Enter the spontaneous holiday. Maybe the need to explore the world comes to you whilst watching a particularly inspiring re-run of Coach Trip (who wouldn’t want to follow Brendan around the world on a sweaty tour bus?!), or maybe it’s simply by seeing how damn pale your legs are. Either way, the only answer seems to be to jet off to somewhere that promises sun. In the movies, when a group of friends decide to be spontaneous, they end up in Madrid, Rome or anywhere else that promises a hot climate and hotter guys. However, in reality last-minute decisions (especially on a student budget) have far less exotic consequences. I mean, no one’s good at making decisions under pressure! One all-inclusive trip to Iraq anyone?
Nope, invariably the ‘spontaneous’ holiday will result in a week in a hotel (described as ‘rustic’ but more like rusting) whose availability in the middle of July suddenly seems painfully justified. But who cares! Wherever there’s sun, sea and sand, you’re living the dream, right?
In dreams, we all have a tendency to idealise quite a bit. The sea is a shade bluer, the cocktails a tad stronger, oh, and I’m the spitting image of Beyoncé. But once again, reality rarely matches the ideal. It doesn’t matter how much we’ve bikini-dieted, how many squats we’ve accomplished or how hard we’ve worked to find a bikini that gives more lift than 15 cans of redbull, nothing can prepare you and your self-esteem for the leggy glamour model who always happens to position herself right in front of you on the beach. No matter how confident you are with your body, the chances of not feeling like a sumo-wrestler or a five year old when confronted with ‘the beach bitch’ is incredibly slim (almost as slim as her thighs).
While you try to reassure yourself, there’s a part of you that knows your ‘more-red-than-brown’ skin and ‘super-boost’ bikini will never be able to compete with her natural bronze glow and her slightly less-natural, erm, beach balls…
So there’s only one thing for it. If the films are right, no matter how dingy the hotel or how glam the competition, if you head to any bar Señor Right will be along soon to make it all better. Granted, the waiter chatting away to you in the resort’s cheapest cocktail bar is more Borat than Banderas, but after a run in with what you can only assume to be a Miss World competition on the beach today, any male attention is more than appreciated. At home you wouldn’t give a guy like this the time of day, but whether it’s the cocktails or the sun that’s gone to your head, you find yourself playing with your hair and raising your eyebrow when you order yet another Sex on the Beach. And, as the night goes on, your cocktail choice seems to become less of an order and more of a promise. This is it, the holiday romance (or exotic erotics) you’ve been waiting for. You head to the bathroom to touch up your lip gloss, before returning to your seat feeling sexy, poised, and suddenly, majorly pissed off. For there he is; in your two minute disappearance he’s managed to worm his way around the bar and straight into another girl. In all honesty, you’ve seen him eyeing her up all night, but you can’t help but feel slightly cheated as she becomes the one more likely to take a ride on your Italian Stallion.
Was he the one? No. Is anything hurt except your pride? No. Was he only really talking to you in hope of you falling for him and getting him an English Visa? Probably. So far, the only thing you’ve gained from this holiday is an understanding of the phrase ‘no way Jose’ and a feeling of dread that you’ll be alone forever.
So what’s the cure to your disappointment? While some might opt for quiet meditation, solitude and reflection, an alternative method (favoured by most) comes in the form of your girlfriends, a bottle of Sambuca and the repetition of the phrase ‘Shots Shots Shots Shots!’
Nights like this usually start with declarations of how we don’t need men, (not when we have alcohol anyway!) followed by a blur; a blur of 2€ tequila, karaoke (invariably Girls Just Wanna Have Fun or Livin’ La Vida Loca) and comparisons of men to pretty much any farm animal you can think of. The desired effect is empowerment; the realisation that men and teeny women in teenier bikinis aren’t worth our worries. The result, however, tends to be more embarrassment. As the shame of vomiting over the balcony and the near-death experience that is the holiday-hangover (like a normal one but in 30 degree heat, no air conditioning of course) comes upon you all too quickly, the knowledge that your mum is waiting for you at home (with or without judgemental looks and the odd ‘tut’) is more than a happy thought. Everyone needs to be spontaneous at least once a year, but once a year is quite enough.
Image sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_(Modern_Family)
pandawhale.com
weknowmemes.com
iwastesomuchtime.com
snappypixels.com
http://www.fanpop.comwww.fanpop.com/clubs/modern-family/images/16798173/title/claire-dunphy-fanart