A Tale of Two Brothers

It all started with a text message.

My brother Joe had done really well at his job, met his ever rising quota and exceeded beyond expectations and in response the company had booked a large portion of the Ritz Carlton in Cancún for him and about 1400 other employees to frolic in the sun for a few days.

Plus I was invited.

I’m not entirely sure he realized what he’d done but soon found out when I ordered our first round of thirty seven beers.

I had recently received my 23 & Me results and thought we should embrace our newly discovered Irish roots by joining the National Drinking Team.

The visit was just getting started.

Many hours/beers/tequilas later and countless waves, attempted body surfs, and bravely screaming like frightened women whenever a stray piece of seaweed wrapped itself around our feet we decided on a sand castle build off.

Joe built a Mexican Taj Mahal that rivaled anything Frank Lloyd Wrong ever built and mine resembled what I can only accurately describe as a “Mud Hut”.

Directly after what I assumed was paid judging I calmly walked over and turned Joe’s creation into a similar “Mud Hut” laughing hysterically the whole time. (Not true)

After closing down the pool bar and walking a mostly straight line to the elevators we headed for our room, falling asleep at the princely hour of 9:45 pm. (True)

***

Cooking Class

Day two brought the smell of breakfast wafting up the elevator shaft at 5:30 am and having foregone dinner in lieu of my liquid pork chop repast I was famished.

Willing the elevator to “F&@#%ing MOVE FASTER” I arrived at the restaurant to find that they didn’t actually open until 7 and the smell I had encountered was actually my neighbor drying their drastically overused socks with the rooms blow dryer.

I thought it was kale.

Regardless, our room had a tres moderne coffee maker that used Keurig-esque coffee pods and dispensed massive 3oz cups of coffee.

After downing the two generous cups they’d left for us, my brother woke up, gazed around the room and upon second glance found me sucking on the end of the coffee maker spout trying to get just one more drop of the eye opening elixir and said “You know room service will bring us some coffee, right?”

“Of course” I said, leaving my dignity slurping on the straw sized coffee spout and walking over to the phone. “I just didn’t want to be wasting any…”

After actual non kale/sock breakfast we boarded the hotel shuttle and hurtled through Cancún to La Distileria where we were to learn authentic Mexican recipes and how to speak like authentic Mexican peoples. We learned salsa, guacamole, Paloma’s, more Paloma’s, a few more Paloma’s, one or two more Paloma’s and finally some sort of meat.

New phrases in Spanish like “que mierda estas haciendo” (what the f$&# are you doing?) and “malditos turistas!” (godd$&ned tourists!) (I learned to say this correctly by turning bright red and gritting my teeth.) are now delightfully a part of my new Spanish vernacular!

(“DEJA DE TOCAR ESO!” (stop touching that) and “por favor, limpie eso de su vecino” (please wipe that off of your neighbor) are two that I’m still working on).