So last week, my cousin had a wedding in Aruba. I was super happy for my cousin, but unfortunately the wedding was to be held in the island known as Aruba. Of course, I had to deal with my arch-nemesis, the airport & airplane combo. It was devastating, no doubt.
But as soon as that horrific experience was over, I was ready to have some fun out and about in Aruba. I was raring to see something I’d never seen before, after all I was out of the country, I was out of my state. What would it be this time? I remember thinking to myself while I was in France, “GODDAMN I AM COLD RIGHT NOW.” While in Spain, I thought to myself, “GODDAMN I CAN’T UNDERSTAND THESE PEOPLE RIGHT NOW.” While I was in Argentina I thought, “GODDAMN I AM A 2 YEAR-OLD CHILD RIGHT NOW.”
So what exclamation of god-damning would I be doing this time? How would this differ from my home. Let’s see, maybe I can make a list of the differences that I personally saw.
MIAMI
– Warm Tropical Climate
– Beaches (Of Unsatisfactory Condition)
– People (Mostly Ugly) in bikinis and swim trunks.
– Reasonably priced items
– A variety of stores in which to choose from
– Can often find restaurants that give out free-refills
ARUBA
– Warm Tropical Climate
– Beaches (Of Mostly Unsatisfactory Condition)
– People (Mostly Ugly) in bikinis and swim trunks.
– Absurdly overpriced items
– Absolutely no variety in stores in which to choose from.
– Filled with locals who thrive on tourism and very clearly want your money
– Would be hard-pressed to find the crazy son-of-a-bitch restaurant willing to give out free refills.
So far there is pretty much one key difference between my home of Miami and the island of Aruba, and it is the fact that I was thinking, “GODDAMN EVERYTHING IS EXPENSIVE RIGHT NOW.”
There’s nothing that isn’t overpriced. You’ll see how I mentioned free-refills, because that’s something people usually take for granted. Reasonably priced drinks are also something taken for granted. When you order a beverage at a normal restaurant, you’d expect it to run in the range of maybe 1 or 2 bucks, but you get the benefit of free-refills. In Aruba, your delicious beverage will cost $4.00 per drink, and of course they serve you the smallest glass they have filled with expanding ice that sucks out most of your beverage using ancient Aruban technology.
Then while you walk around Aruba, you go searching for some stores that you could possibly by something touristy in. There’s plenty of those around, except they are literally all the same store. Every single tourist shop you enter will sell the exact same tourist things that last one sold, and the only difference is how they are priced ($100 for a gift card or $101 for a gift card). They all sell the same shitty marble turtles, they sell the same shirts that say shit like, “ARUBA: THIS IS ONE HAPPY ISLAND (Until you see the prices).”
I’m only kidding about the paranthetical, I probably would’ve bought the shirt if it had actually said that. No, the shirts simply boast about how they are the happiest freakin’ island ever goddamn they are the happiest people please for the love of God give us some money we have so many families to feed.
The next type of stores you will find in Aruba are jewelry stores. That’s it, there are 2 variations of stores in Aruba: tourist stores and jewelry stores. The odd part is that you will find upwards of 4 or 5 jewelry stores next to each other. You’ll see a jewelry store, something like “GOLDMAN’S JEWELRY: 70% MARKUP (NOW 50% OFF)”. Right after that store you’ll see a second one, “DIAMAN’S JEWELRY STORE: WE ACCEPT SOULS AS PAYMENT!” Right after that one, you’ll see the third jewelry store (“SHAMELESSLY EXPENSIVE JEWELS: WE DON’T BEAt AROUND THE BUSH.”). After that, there’ll be a fourth and a fifth one right next to each other without anything in between them. It’s baffling to be perfectly honest, how could those stores possibly survive with so much competition.
Overall, Aruba was pretty bad. I don’t see much of a reason to go there (unless you really don’t like money, then it’s pretty awesome actually). We spent a whole week there for something that should’ve been 3 or 4 days, so overall Jamison Trumpets was not pleased with his vacation.