When my brother informed us that he had bought a condo in the building where he had been sharing with his father-in-law, the wheels in my brain immediately started turning. BEACH TRIP. But while I love the beach, 3 weeks straight was maybe asking a bit too much. As it happens, while we were hanging with our good friends Ben and Tonya in Paris for a very special (and amazing) birthday extravaganza a second plot was hatched to do a family visit to their COVID escape bunker in Vermont (especially since our kids are similar ages). And thus the plan was hatched.

Unfortunately, Chika had business to attend to in Japan so we were forced to ride solo. Our first challenge was how to get both kids into the lounge in Berlin before our flight. Fortunately, Teo’s charms allowed him to avoid the usual limit and we enjoyed a brief oasis before takeoff (including breakfast ice creams for Kai and Teo, and a nice glass of sparking wine for me). The flight was smooth and uneventful with the only glitch being ZERO security officers at immigration when we landed. We settled in, taking care of some last minute logistics (e.g. bathing suits for Teo) and playing a bit of tennis before some shrimp scampi for dinner.

The next day we were off to the beach and all the required foods which must accompany beach life, starting with steaks and hoagies from Dino’s and homemade meatballs and spagetti dinner from mom before Michael and his crew needed to head back.

Monday we were able to catch up after ages with our ex-Chicago, current Las Vegas enclave of Wolfson’s. Nothing really changed, except we just have some additional youngsters appended on since the old days.

Tuesday started our private time, and with this we launched into our fishing exploration. While the surf fishing didn’t deliver any results, dad’s proposal to hit the inlet at Longport eventually resulted in multiple catches. Sadly, all were below the limit to keep them, but still a good achievement. We experimented with our menu bringing lots of fun additions to the mix (also using Pop-pop’s new electric grill purchse): meatball subs, hot dogs, corn dogs, grilled ham & cheese on rye, snow crab, flank steaks, rib-eye steaks, barley soup, sushi, and more.

In general we were able to make it to the beach everyday, and we used the one exception to see Oppenheimer in IMAX at the Tropicana. By Friday, families were making their way down, so we shifted into a small airbnb by the bay for the overlap (which happened to be conveniently located a few short blocks for the local bars, which Michael and I took advantage of on Friday evening.) Saturday, the beach congregation began, followed by our inhouse lobster extravaganza (13 of those bad boys), followed by a mega cousins drinking session, concluding the next morning with a boxing class with Melanie where I almost passed out from dehydration (lesson learned, at least hopefully). This was followed by a great bagel brunch (shoutout to Mike for hooking me up with my whitefish salad) with yet even more cousins to celebrate Riley’s birthday.

Sunday night was our highly anticipated birthday celebration for mom and dad at Chef Vola’s which did not disappoint. The restaurant has been in operation for over 100 years, was around the corner from my Pop-pop’s butcher shop, and served probably the best veal parm on the planet (butterflied veal chop, breaded and fried, smothered in rich marinara and drowned in mozarella). Even the salad was a hit.

Monday, we made our pilgramage to Ocean City with our extended cousin crew. Within an hour we needed to abort due to massive storm system which had pulled in (except for Jeff who would not leave before getting his Kohr Brothers custard). Tuesday, we made it to the the great cheesesteak altar of the White House. While rumors had circulated that it had declined in quality, our team ran through our rigorous testing process and are happily able to confirm that it is still the GOAT when it comes to cheese steaks. Michael also gave strong reviews for the regular sub noting that the meat volume was above expectation.

Afterwards, we settled back into our routines, adding chill time at the pool (which was much less stressful than Teo roaming out way beyond his pay grade in the not-always-so-kind Atlantic Ocean). Thursday, we got to spend a great day with Uncle Lenny and Aunt Rose which kicked-off with a highly competitive round of mini-golf. Suprisingly, Dad did not take the prize leaving the window open for…. ME. Any comments regarding my role as score keeper will be ignored. We enjoyed a great shrimp scampi dinner prepared by mom with many new and old stories of childhood adventures down the shore.

Finally, it was time to move into the “turf” portion of the trip. Since I had a free hotel night expiring, we decided to splurge for an overnight in NYC at the Conrad Downtown. We decided to mix-up our standard dim-sum venue, and test out Golden Unicorn which I had seen in a number of friends social feeds. While I had eaten there back in the 1990’s, the new incarnation is sublime. Everything was great, including the service. My only regret was that I had only one stomach to fill… After dropping the car, we did some downtown exploring for Pokemon cards while the rain chased us about. Finally we were able to get into our room after 3pm. After a full day, we didn’t do a big night on the town and saved up for a big birthday breakfast for our friend Anri in the morning. While the boys dined on room service, I did get a chance to visit my B-school buddy Stirling and his wife Leah at their sweet new pad and pickup some peanut butter for Chika at Whole Foods. After breakfast, we went up to Absolute Bagels which is my personal favorite and I wanted to bring a bunch to Ben who loves bagels. I wish I could have bought stock back in the day, because now the line is outside the door and we waited over 45 minutes to get our stash. It was worth it, but will plan to go earlier in the future.

After a bit of a drive, we arrived at Chateau Mezrich, a great house nestled in mutiple acres in “Quechee” Vermont. After settling in, we stopped at a local gem of a spot, the White Cottage Snack Bar for some tasty surf and turf bites, ice cream, and adventurous stone skipping on the river. And to top that all off, we played a few games of doubles with Kai vs. Asher & Ben without being horribly destroyed (I am thinking there may be some value in resurrecting my tennis game from my teen years). At least Ben and I were able to score an initial victory over Asher and Kai claiming the prize of a full video day ban.

The following day, we drove out to Storyland, the northern Disney as some may call it. It was a great day with nice weather, so even our random Google maps routings were not so bad. Asher and Teo competed for who could eat the most junk food in one day, but the adults called it off before it got too out of control. We decided to whip up some meatballs and spagetti for dinner, and somehow ended up making about 5 pounds of meatballs. The following day we starting settling in to Vermont life, joining Ben and the pugs (Bagel & Cream Cheese) to the dog park, doing excursions into Woodstock and its nearby farms, attempting to mini golf (rained out, but we did enjoy some great pizza), and having front row seats to an epic women’s tennis tournament in Dartmouth (sadly Tonya’s team lost, but we think they illegally substituted some players so will need to see.) We wrapped up the week with a bourbon tasting, a grand finale fajita party, a tennis rematch which switched to ping pong rematch due to bad weather and ended up in an overtime tiebreaker (well played Kai), and a full on Exploding Kittens battle (where both Arya and Kai won rounds).

At this point it was getting hard to leave (the boys both were ready to turn around for the pugs), but we needed to get back to Berlin with tennis camp starting the day after we landed. Thank’s to Tonya’s great lunches we were able to avoid the roadside restarea schloch. We made a last pitstop overnight at grandma and pop-pop’s house for some excellent grilled burgers, morning workout/swim, and last minute shopping. To complete the royale flush, we managed to sneak both Kai and Teo into the airport lounge again and went to town (I even skipped the airplane dinner).

It was such an amazing trip seeing so many great friends and family we already thinking how to make it happen again. Thanks to all who showed us such great hospitality. Come get some in return in Germany when you can.