Aruba, Part One

When you are a person who is going on vacation, and you need to be at the airport for an international flight at 4am, and it only ever takes 10 minutes to get to the airport, and given the time of day there will be no traffic, it seems safe to leave home at 3:40am. That is, until you get to the exit for the airport, and you find that there is a detour, and there are no subsequent signs telling you how to actually get to the airport. Bastards!

But, as you can see, I did make it to the airport, and my plane, on time. And just in time to see the Boston sunrise.

Ta ta for now, Boston.

Let me get the one ugly thing I saw in Aruba out of the way first. It's this:
When I landed, I went straight to the lovely hotel and met up with my brother. We did what anyone does in the case of just getting to a tropical paradise, we went in search of a drink. We passed many many shops on our way to find that drink, and in one of the shops, we found this overly made-up, whore-ish, nipple-showing, child mannequin. It was so disturbing. Right?

Luckily, just after that we found a bar that was happy to serve us drinks. I asked for one of whatever their specialty drink is. It's an Aruba Ariba. Here's what's in it:

1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz 151 proof rum
1/8 oz Coecoei
1/8 oz creme de bananes
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup cranberry juice
1/2 cup pineapple juice

Splash of Grenadine Top with Grand Marnier.
(The ones I had definitely also had gin in them, but I couldn't find that recipe online. Just trust me on this. Add a splash of gin.)

It was dangerous. I had two and I could barely walk back to the hotel. Here I am trying to make it look like my brother J is drinking mine. In fact, he was enjoying some Balashi, the locally brewed beer.
The first full day I was on the island, J and I went to the hotel's private beach called Flamingo Beach. Can you guess why it was called that? Flamingos are awesome and very weird. And these had no fear of man. They sound like geese and they usually stay flocked together.
By the way, did I mention that the weather was amazing every day? It was 87 degrees and breezy (ok, windy, but still) and sunny and everywhere I looked this is what I saw (minus my knees):
When you go to the beach they come around at 11:30 and ask if you want anything to drink. The answer, of course, is that you'd like a bucket of beer. "Chill" beer, by Balashi, to be exact. Because you want to chill:
And, you also want to nap, like this guy, Lenny. After doing the robot and walking around the beach grooming himself, he became fatigued and took a nap. It must be hard to keep your head up with that long skinny neck...
You will never guess what we did during the afternoons. Well, other than hiding from the sun during the hottest hours and taking naps while watching Law & Order SVU re-runs. Actual conversation we had in the hotel:

Bro, referring to Ice-T, who is on L&O SVU: Are Ice-T and Ice Cube related?
Les: No, Ice is their first name, duh.
Bro: Oh yeah, so Ice-T and Mr. T could be related.
Les: That does make more sense...

Well, other than the napping and debating Hollywood family trees, we drank these:
J had a frozen banana drink and I had another Aruba Ariba. Because I walk too straight and I wanted to work on that.

Speaking of walking around I swear I did not just see the beach and the inside (or outside, since we sat outside almost everywhere) of bars. Look! Architecture! Colors!

Ooooooh! Aaaaah!

Hmm. Now I will hit "pause" on this story while I address the mountain of work emails that await me. Until tomorrow! When we climb a mountain and I empty the sea of lobster!!

EDITED TO ADD: In that picture of me with the bikini on the beach I did not ask my brother to hide my fat bits on purpose, it just worked out that way. Huzzah!