In the fall of my junior year of college my roommate and I decided that we wanted to have an adventure.

We found a pair of cheap tickets to Grand Cayman Island, and asked a British scuba instructor whom I'd briefly dated if he wouldn't mind if we stayed with him and his roommates for a few days. Fun, right? Well, as it turned out, something had very majorly been lost in translation during our phone conversations to plan the trip, because when we arrived we discovered that British Scuba Instructor was very seriously not interested in me, in having two girls staying with him for a few days, or in speaking or smiling. Ever.

Now, that would ordinarily be the kind of situation where one goes and finds a hotel room, but the plane tickets had pretty much tapped us out, so we just figured we'd stay out of his way and hang out on the beach as much as possible. Except it then poured rain almost the entire time we were there, making that a little tricky. Oh yes, and it was freezing.

So it wasn't the best vacation I've ever had. Except for one night, when one of the scuba instructor's roommates took pity on the sad, damp American girls and took us with her to some kind of annual Pirate festival. I put a bandanna on my head and long striped socks with the feet cut out of them on my arms (because that seemed pirate-y), and we ignored the rain and ran around the streets laughing for a few hours, forgetting about the scuba guy and school and everything, really. We went back to reality a couple of days later...but for that one night, forgetting was nice.