O n Friday, March 5, at about 5 p.m., my 2004 Spring Break officially started. I sat at the wheel, my friend Scags rode shotgun and my friend Shamus camped out in the spacious backseat of my black 2003 Hyundai Elantra.Our original plan was to hop in my car and simply head somewhere south of Syracuse. Eventually, though, this plan crumbled for dreams of more stereotypical decadence. So we headed for Panama City Beach, Fla., 1,200-plus miles south of campus and 19 hours away.The drive took us right through the heart of ol’ Dixie. And it was all we dreamt it would be, full of confederate flags, ‘Rebel Pride’ bumper stickers, red dirt roads and the dueling banjos I could have sworn I heard while taking a quick bathroom break in some rinky-dink hick town in Georgia.In Alabama, we drove through US Highway 431 in order to reach our Floridian panhandle destination. As if the prospect of driving through Alabama wasn’t scary enough for us – we’d all seen ‘My Cousin Vinny’ – at least 43 white crosses lined the sides of the highway. Each of these crosses represented the roadside car crash deaths on this highway, which Reader’s Digest ranked among the top five most dangerous in the US in 2000.A few near-death experiences later, we finally reached Panama City Beach, where we met up with the four friends with whom we were splitting our five-person hotel room. We immediately hit up the beach behind our hotel, trying to get a primer for our pale skin tones. As we slowly turned to lobster red, we ran into our good-looking-but-insane Russian next door neighbors from Penn State. They would turn out to be the only other ‘yankees’ we met along our vacation, but their penchant for blurting out random sentences without any conversational transition made them tough to befriend. ‘Y’know, contrary to popular belief, size does matter,’ Olga told us in her strongly accented broken English after I asked her if she had any hard alcohol. ‘And I hate Dennis Leary. He’s such an asshole.’

FROM THE GET-GOConfused and startled by such comments, we decided to go get stamps from the nearby bars before their prices skyrocketed for the evening crowds. Upon returning to our hotel, we were surprised to find the hotel’s hot tub surprisingly empty.After heading to our rooms to grab some towels, bathing suits and beers, we jumped right in and realized why no one was in the water. It was lukewarm at best, and the water’s surface was covered with awkward white foam and dark speckles.’That’s dead skin,’ the security guard at the pool told us. ‘And someone was having sex in there before.’At first we pondered leaving the pool deck, disgusted at the prospects of the true source of the white foam. Nonetheless, we decided to remain. Catching an STD was the least of our worries, because, hey, it’s Spring Break. You’re supposed to get STDs. So we made the best of the situation, hooting and hollering at anyone who dared come near the hot tub and inviting them to our Not-So-Hot Tub Party. After a quick trip to the local bars, we called night one an early one, still tired from our road trip. KICKIN’ ITThe next few times we tried to hit up the ‘hot’ tub, it was too crowded for even party-starters like us to get in on the action. And we’re convinced that it was because we were that darn good at doing what we did there.So the next night, we headed out to a club called Spinnakers a few miles down the road. After a few less-than-impressive martinis, we headed to the outside concert venue where a surprisingly talented cover band played hits from ’80s hair bands all night long.We decided to pump up the crowd, so we headed over to the stage and started a mosh pit. After getting a rise from the band and a few of the crowd members, Shamus and Scags threw me up to crowd surf. I traveled a whopping 5 feet before being promptly pulled down by bouncers and thrown off the premises for ‘starting trouble.’ But within five minutes or so, Shamus and Scags followed suit, not realizing that I had been kicked out for appreciating the good tunes. The bouncers may not have liked it, but the band sure did – the lead singer rubbed Shamus’ head affectionately as he passed by the stage.

MORE OF THE SAMEThese four days and nights all sort of mesh together in my mind. There was a lot of drinking, a lot of tanning/burning and a lot of mounting and falling off of the mechanical bulls that were parked outside the bars up and down the Front Beach Road strip. There were scantily clad co-eds, wet T-shirt contests and girl-on-girl make-out sessions. These were the days and nights that most stereotypically fit the MTV Spring Break mold.Yet, somehow, to tell you the truth, it left me with a dirty taste in my mouth. The stereotypical stuff got to me, after a while. The girls were there, yes, and they were fun to look at but not much to talk to, especially with the minimum of six muscle-head pretty boys from North Carolina State University that surrounded each girl who seemed worth the effort.Somehow, though, those Southern girls seemed to eat it up. Sure, their accents are cute as hell, but there’s some sort of north-south barrier going on there that none of us could quite figure out.Sure, by the end of the week, I was burnt out on all things Spring Break, but the burnout was worth the good times and the kick-ass tan that should last three good hours in the shiny Syracuse sun.So, bon voyage, Spring Break. I’ll see you next year. Just not in the dirty Deep South.