T A B L E_T A L K

Travelers remember the strangest museums they've encountered in Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y

Insider's guide to Amsterdam
By David Downie
The best places to eat, stay and play
(03/23/98)

Festival time in Kathmandu
By Jeff Greenwald
A prayer, a pickpocket and a Penis sadhu
(03/20/98)

The last of the great white hunters
By Don Meredith
Bunny Allen's Africa tales, from pouncing leopards to Ava Gardner
(03/19/98)

Mr. Lincoln's Neighborhood
By Jan Morris
Discovering a ghostly genius in Springfield
(03/18/98)

The new Dublin
By David Moore
Cappuccinos, computers and quaffing with stars
(03/17/98)

Boogie or bust
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___________SPRING BREAK CAN BRING CASH-STRAPPED
___________BEACH TOWNS $60 MILLION A YEAR -- ALONG
___________WITH HELICOPTER PUKES, DANCE-FLOOR BLOW
___________JOBS AND TURDS IN THE POOL.

BY DAWN MacKEEN | In the course of one recent week in Key West, Fla., 22-year-old Kate (not her real name) saw a woman giving a guy a blow job in the middle of a dance floor, and another giving one on a street corner. She saw a woman in a nightclub pull a wet T-shirt above her milk-filled breasts and squirt everyone around her. She observed countless people climbing from hotel balcony to balcony, balancing themselves and their drinks floors above the ground. And she watched beer after beer being poured down long tubes into the mouths of revelers squeezed into pools so packed that the only exercise possible was the non-aquatic breast stroke.

"Not a lot shocks you because you expect it, it's spring break -- that's what's going to happen," says Kate, a history major at Boston College. "I think the mentality is 'I can do anything I want because I am on spring break.'" And anything is what goes in various sun-baked places that are literally taken over by college students every year. From the end of February to the beginning of April, the thrill-seeking hordes descend upon Cancun, Mexico; Negril, Jamaica; Panama City Beach, Fla.; and South Padre Island, Texas, bringing with them their movable bacchanal: endless tequila shots, bikini contests, bump-and-grind fests and a galaxy of inappropriate public deeds.

For decades, this migration to crazed-out beach scenes has been a rite of American adolescence, like breaking curfew for the first time and going to the prom. From the 12-hour road trips -- blasting music, dope-smoke-clouded windows and crushed beer cans stuffed under seats -- to the suitcases packed with thong bikinis, tanning lotion, condoms, fake I.D.s and wads of cash, the crusade south toward that glorious moment when you wake up naked beside someone from a totally different part of the country is as American as McDonald's apple pie. The 27 miles of beaches in a place like Panama City Beach and the year-round water temperature of 72 degrees are an attraction, but most college students don't really think too hard about where they should go -- they just want to get out and party. As one Stanford senior put it: "We want the three gets: To get plastered, to get drugged and to get laid."

The equation is simple: The students want sunny, cheap places that will tolerate their behavior, and the cities want their money. For this year's hot spots, spring break is a vast cash cow, a giant funnel that sucks in student loans, savings and allowances like the world's biggest beer bong. Kate spent $1,000 during her week, and she says that was on the low end -- the guys spent more, since they were the ones buying most of the drinks.

This year's fashionable place to get baked is Panama City Beach, Fla. Last year, when around 600,000 horny, thirsty students descended, the city pulled in an estimated $60 million. (That number is based on every person spending $100, a conservative estimate since many students spend much more.) "It has a trickling affect, from the banks to the grocery stores to the gas stations to the gift shops. I think every single business is affected by spring break in some way or another," says Debbie Parish, executive director of the Panama City Beach Chamber of Commerce. Not surprisingly, the city goes to great lengths to attract spring breakers.

"It's a beach community designed for only one thing: having fun, lots of fun, more than a person should be allowed to have," gushes Panama City Beach's Convention and Visitor Bureau Web site. "Your friends have already made their reservations, so should you. After all, more than five million college students have been here since 1992 -- and it's a lot closer than south Texas."

Over on south Texas' South Padre Island, Charlie's Paradise Country Club does 98 percent of its business during spring break. In fact, Charlie's is open (except for catered events) only 45 days a year. Swimming pools, a skydiving-simulator ride and dance floors stretch across two and a half acres. Playboy's bikini-busting Miss April stopped here for an autograph session; Hawaiian Tropics holds about 15 different pageants here, star-searching for the right bikini-clad, cat-walking girl to send to the suntan lotion company's U.S. finals competition. Retro acts like Rob Base, Run DMC and Vanilla Ice rap hits like "Walk This Way" to fresh-faced crowds too young to remember the songs when they first came out. "When you look out over the top of the dance floor, it looks like what we call 'lava,'" says Dan Stanton, the joint's general manager. "All you see is heads and they're all going in different directions. It's like a current, when you see water rushing down a valley. It's amazing to see 8,000 people dancing at the same time."

Twenty-one-year-old Rick Blackwood, a finance major at the University of Texas at Austin, is heading down to Padre with a bunch of his friends from U.T. and Texas A&M, and he's planning on sleeping wherever his head hits, whether that's the room he reserved with his eight friends or not. Blackwood and his pals are not slaves to conventional behavior: He cites a story about a fraternity brother's friend who defecated in a hotel pool last year, and another couple who had sex behind a police outpost. Another popular pastime among his fraternity brothers is the "helicopter puke," in which a person drinks until he's about to puke, and then starts spinning around until he throws up in circles (hence the name). Blackwood says that although he's not into helicopter hurling, if he did barf in the middle of the street, he wouldn't feel guilty. "Padre and Panama City are setting themselves up to be spring break towns and they know it. They thrive on us this time of year."

N E X T+P A G E+| Big bucks -- and big headaches

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BART NAGEL