Girls Goes to Mexico
Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet), Hannah (Lena Dunham), Marnie (Allison Williams) and Jessa (Jemima Kirke) from Girls head to Mexico’s Andaz Mayakoba Resort Riviera Maya.
Photo by Mark Chafer-HBO. Background courtesy of Mayakoba
If HBO’s hit series Girls has taught us anything, it’s that years of casual employment and bourgeois Brooklyn living can really take a toll on a young person’s psyche. Hannah (Lena Dunham), Jessa (Jemima Kirke), Marnie (Allison Williams) and Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) moved to New York City with wild ambitions but, as some of them near 30, their optimism is waning. Season 5 was particularly rough for Hannah, who watched her ex, Adam (Adam Driver), hook up with her best friend, Jessa. But after Hannah witnesses their explosive fight—principally about her—in the season finale, her spirits are considerably lifted. Now on a high, we can see her, in an attempt to get her besties to bond again before returning for their final season, plan a New Year’s trip they can’t afford—perhaps to Mexico’s brand-new Andaz Mayakoba Resort Riviera Maya, which, when it fully opens in January, will be the newest haute escape for sun-seeking urbanites. Never one to shy away from making the obvious uncomfortable, Hannah might reason, “Nothing will better help us see each other as we really are than yoga in tropical heat.” Surrounded by lush mangroves, tranquil lagoons and pristine shores, the beachfront resort’s serene confines will no doubt go a long way toward soothing any lingering girl-on-girl tension. If any remains, though, the property’s three pools and 10,000-square-foot spa can provide plenty of alone time.
Silicon Valley Hits Iceland
The third season of HBO’s Silicon Valley, which takes a magnifying glass to the tech set’s most comedic stereotypes, nearly ended in tragedy. But after Richard (Thomas Middleditch) was forced to sell his fledgling company, Pied Piper, his former business partner Erlich (T.J. Miller)—the personification of upward failure—saved the day, buying it with the profits from a blog he unloaded. Balance restored, it’s easy to imagine the company’s perma-stoned new owner proposing the half-baked idea of blowing his remaining cash on a celebratory trip before the gang—rounded out by Jared (Zach Woods), Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani), Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) and Big Head (Josh Brener)—gets back to the grind in Season 4. Considering their epic journey so far, we can totally see their new leader getting Viking delusions and booking it for Reykjavík, Iceland, home to all manner of natural wonder. “The most beautiful landscape in the world,” Erlich would proclaim. “Topped only by its women!” After excursions to the city’s prime sights—Lake Tjörnin, the Sun Voyager sculpture and the striking Hallgrímskirkja cathedral—dinner at the famed Perlan restaurant, recognized for its glass-domed roof, would be an appropriate venue for toasting Pied Piper’s future. Between bites of Icelandic rye bread, we can imagine Erlich, realizing his pockets are no longer as deep as they were, mumbling, “By the way, this is coming out of your paychecks.”
Grace and Frankie Take to The High Seas
Grace (Jane Fonda) and Frankie (Lily Tomlin) from Grace and Frankie head to sea on a Seabourn Cruises luxury liner.
Photo by Melissa Moseley/Netflix
The titular characters of the Netflix comedy Grace and Frankie have been rivals for decades, but after being left by their husbands—law partners turned life partners—they’re forced to reconsider their relationship. In the show’s second-season finale, Grace (Jane Fonda) finds a box of gifts labeled anniversary, i’m sorry and just because—a stash kept by her husband (Martin Sheen) that she equates with treats for a dog. On her end, free spirit Frankie (Lily Tomlin) learns the buyer of her masterpiece painting is not Kenny Loggins, as she’d been led to believe, but her ex, Sol (Sam Waterston). After such sitcom travails, we wouldn’t blame the ladies for planning a sabbatical—say, a 24-day excursion to Antarctica, Patagonia and South Georgia Island on one of Seabourn Cruises’ luxury liners. As Frankie might say, “If we’re going to get away, let’s get away.” They’d fly from Los Angeles to Chile, board their Seabourn Quest ship and spend Christmas traversing the Strait of Magellan. Then, during Seabourn’s Antarctic Experience, a professional expedition team would handpick daily stops, from snowcapped volcanoes to massive glaciers and crystalline lakes—all welcome diversions from the ladies’ cheating exes. We can hear Grace—a touch too accustomed to her privileged SoCal bubble—now: “Wow! I didn’t know anything even lived here.” The cruise would continue, docking in South Georgia Island and Uruguay, and conclude its journey in Buenos Aires—allowing plenty of time for the women’s anger at their families to build up again before the show’s third season airs this spring.
Master of None Visits The Boot
Master of None’s Dev (Aziz Ansari) visits Franciacorta in the Brescia province of Italy.
Photo by K.C. Bailey/Netflix. Background/Dea-G. Sosio-Contributor/Getty Images.
In the Season 1 finale of Netflix’s comedy Master of None, co-created by and starring Aziz Ansari, protagonist Dev (Ansari)—a 30-year-old actor best known for a Go-Gurt commercial—subjects his life to the al dente test: throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. While his girlfriend, Rachel (Noël Wells), and acting career lack adequate adhesion, his passion for pastamaking clings, and he relocates to Italy. After what we expect to have been a successful first semester at culinary school in, we imagine, Bologna, we can see Dev heading north, to celebrate with his New York City crew in Franciacorta—a region in the Brescia province known for producing Italy’s finest sparkling wines—before their series returns for a second season in April. Like Champagne, the area shares its name with the bubbly it produces. The similarities between Franciacorta and its French cousin don’t stop there: Made with grape varieties like those found in the best Champagne vintages, Franciacorta also undergoes a second fermentation process to acquire its carbonation. At Ricci Curbastro, one of the sparkling wine’s oldest and most respected producers, Dev’s guests would toast his culinary success with glasses of Franciacorta brut. We can almost hear the tasting notes: “This stuff would pair so well with a nice carbonara. It’s got all the best properties of a good Champagne, but it doesn’t hurt my tum tum!”
