My pedometer tells me that it takes 3754 steps to cross this resort from one end to another. This is a very short distance,in my opinion. Yet almost everybody uses small vehicles to be driven from one restaurant to another. It’s great that the vehicles are available for the elderly and the disabled. I feel immense joy when I see that people in wheelchairs have access everywhere, can travel, and not be excluded. But why do the young and healthy people avoid walking?

The grounds are fenomenally beautiful. They are like botanical gardens with little plaques explaining where the plants come from. There are peacocks and pink flamingos. There are shaded walkways, so you don’t have to walk in the sun. In the evenings, there is a cool breeze. Yet people choose the vehicles.

Mind you, these tourists are not Americans. There are barely any Americans here. Most people are from Europe. There are crowds of Spaniards, many Russians and Germans, quite a few Dutch. Also, there are some Argentinians. I’ve seen a couple of Quebecois families.

As a fanatic of walking, I find this very strange.

I know everybody must be bored to tears with my post on Russian television, so I will make this brief. I watched a segment on Israel last night and the commentator said, “The Jews came to the desert and turned it into a garden.” That’s a big thing for a Russian channel, so I was glad.

On a vaguely related note, a Dominican waiter said to me, “I knew you were either Russian or Ukrainian but I didn’t dare to venture a guess because Russians and Ukrainians hate to be confused with each other.”

N and I act like the typical representatives of our cultures here. I’m chatty, expansive and friendly, while he is silent, mysterious, and sombre. I’m just so hugely happy to be among Spanish speakers that I’ve become super sociable. Speaking Spanish just feels so good, it’s like a physiological pleasure.

I’m reading Gillian Flynn’s new novel Gone Girl (which, by the way, is a perfect beach read) and there is the following passage in it:

Being a Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth while somehow maintaining size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry ; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind,  I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl.

Now, a question : do you think there are really women who do all this to get men? And if so then, why? Who needs such a man around? Is it that hard to make a living? I mean, OK, it’s hard, but maintaining this fake persona is an insanely difficult task. Unless the guy in question is a billionaire, I don’t see what return one gets on all this effort. Especially in the US, where there is such a shortage of women willing to put up with men on any sort of a serious basis, that a woman only needs to have a pulse to get suitors lining up.

Then again maybe I’m so relaxed here on the beach that I’ve started taking trashy beach reads too seriously. In all probability this Cool Girl is just the author’s invention. Right?

I found a great question on a blog I follow:

When did you first realize you were an adult? And what were some of the major growing pains in becoming an adult?

I feel kind of embarrassed. . . OK, hugely embarrassed to answer this question. But I can’t conceal this shameful truth from my readers. My answer is in May. Of 2012.

N. and I were staying at the Millenium hotel in St. Louis (you can see the hotel in the photo) to celebrate N.’s birthday. In the afternoon, he was at work and I went shopping to my favorite stores. Then I had lunch at an Indian buffet and walked over to the hotel for a Skype session with my analyst. I also kept publishing posts about all of this. As I was walking, I suddenly stopped in the middle of the street.

“Oh, shit,” I thought. “I have a job, a husband, a blog, and an analyst. I’m an adult! When did that happen?”

The Millenium hotel has this revolving restaurant on the top floor which is where N. and I went later in the day. Of course, I shared my discovery with him.

“Have you realized that you and I are adults?” I announced happily. “We can do anything we want!”

We giggled for an hour, thinking of all the things we could do as adults. (Eat only ice-cream for a week! Sleep all day long on Sunday! Spend money any way we wanted!)

I think the graduate studies delay one’s adulthood a lot. The grad school lifestyle makes it extremely hard to feel grown up and responsible for one’s own life. Grad students are too dependent and their lives are too scripted for that.

What about you? When did you first realize you were an adult?