The Provinces: Now With 50% Less Clothing

Sometimes the city can get a bit oppressive, the hangover a bit unbearable. Enter Bournemouth, England's "gem on the South Coast" (well, at least according to the tourism website). I woke up last Saturday to a sky of endless sunshine and the beat of Ice Cube's "A Good Day" in my head (or was it because we played it on the stereo?), and headed south in search of sandy beaches and sun-tanned birds. Let me recollect.

As often happens in England, our "sky of endless sunshine" is replaced with a "sky of endless cloud cover" by the time we get into Bournemouth Saturday afternoon, but as I'm traveling with calloused Londoners, we proceed to the beach undeterred. We may have to wear sweatshirts when wading into the frigid water, but we're on the beach man! Plans to sleep on the sand that night are reconsidered, and we decide to scour town to find a place to stay. An extensive search (damn Stag and Hen parties) for cheap hotel rooms yields bunk beds for a few of us, while the other guys are left to spoon on a single double bed. Discussions shift toward the appropriate positioning of grotty bunk beds to the ladies.

The early evening is spent observing an endless progression of scantily clad women (my bad, Hen parties, you're aight after all - except for that one with saggy old women in devil outfits) while sipping beers outside a bar. As the party moves inside, I find myself speaking to one of the hottest girls around, and she, inexplicably, seems to be thrilled by our conversation. Am I being Punk'd? It's like some type of utopian pick-up, really. "Oh, you're from the States? I love the States! What, you used to live in New York? I want to live in New York! You now live in Kensington? I'm moving to Kensington this week? Let me give you my number (seriously, she took my phone from me) and we'll hang out IMMEDIATELY when I get into town!" What? Is this happening? Meanwhile, the bar is filling up with tanned girls in what may be the best fashion trend ever: short shorts. Get on that, ladies.

The rest of the night, like most of this caliber, gets a bit foggy, although pictures and credit card receipts suggest that there was a fair amount of drinking, a bit of nipple sucking (can I say that? Unfortunately, it wasn't me), and at least one violation of the "1/2 your age + 7" rule. Evidence also suggests a late night pizza stop, which, given that the walk home took about an hour (vs. 15 minutes on the way there), was clearly off the beaten path.

The following day was spent on the beach (with sun, no less), and even a brief highway breakdown on the way home (I highly discourage waking up to the sound of your friend's car's exhaust colliding with the road) couldn't sour the mood. By the time I got home that night, I was already plotting my next trek out to the English provinces.