Un Vacación en la Playa del Carmen

Let me preface this post by saying that even though I am the third of four kids, I am the good one. This is my brother, Daniel. He's number four.

Although he's the youngest, Daniel is easily the one of us most likely to end up in a third-world country at any given moment.

As we speak he's in Mexico for the next couple of weeks. He told our parents he was going a few days before he left which was probably a good idea. They would have noticed that he wasn't around the house by how clean it was staying.

Of course, Daniel usually does give notice when he's leaving the United States. When he was 16, he booked a trip to Guatemala for the summer, found himself a place to stay, and enrolled himself in a Spanish school down there. He told our parents he was going once he figured out that he was too young to get a passport on his own. I think my mother spent the next two months in church, all the while I was getting emails about crashing motorcycles, how he was living in the shadow of a volcano, drinking beer and professing his love to the señoritas when he wasn't "learning to speak Spanish" - which seems like it was most of the time. Once Daniel got back, our father confiscated his passport until he turned 18. Killjoy.

This go around, he's in Mexico where he's staying in a hotel where one of the little girls he flirts with through AOL instant messenger works. (Ain't technology great?) He's getting a great discount because - get this - they have convinced the management that he is her long-lost cousin. How on earth he is managing to convince anyone that he is enthically hispanic is beyond me (just look at the picture!), but never let it be said that he doesn't have nerve. They've probably told the hotel that she has a crazy gringo aunt. Anything happens to him down there and I'm betting that my mother will not disabuse them of that notion.

I've only gotten one email so far, and it was a dull one. Of course, he needed to know how to get cash out of his credit card so he asked me to forward the message on to Mom and Dad so that probably has something to do with the lack of fun details. I can't wait until after they let him know how to get money - then maybe he'll send me the scoop. Whatever he may put in the messages he intends for the parents to see, I know he's not behaving as well as he lets on.

So happy Spring Break, everyone. And lots of fun wishes to mi hermanito, the Mexican!