Lori Zuckerman

In the 1980s I went to the Dominican Republic with my family and friends. There were 60 of us, and there were problems from beginning to end, but it was hysterically funny because we rolled with it all. That was where I learned that what you remember after a vacation is the joy, not what went wrong.

Our luggage was lost it at first, and then we had to go into a field near the airstrip to find it. We could not locate every one's bags, but I had mine, so I became el supermercado for all of us. If someone in my group needed shaving cream, deodorant or anything more delicate, they went to my room. There were almost no amenities and several of us got Montezuma's Revenge, so the less said about that, the better.

If it was bad and it could have happened, it happened, and it could have been a truly awful experience. Instead it was fantastic because there was a perfect mix of people who knew how to laugh at all the blunders. In a foreign country, it is essential to rise to the occasion, which is exactly what we did. If it could go wrong it went wrong, but we rode it out for the two weeks we were there. 

It was one of my most memorable vacations. Every day we were laughing so hard, wondering what was going to happen to us next, and every day was an adventure. It was pure fun, and all of us who went on this trip are still close to this day.