Special guest edition!

No, I have definitely not run out of disaster tales, however, we will today be taking a break from my own travel wreckage to discuss… My brother’s. Those of you who’ve met the J-balls already know the following fact: my brother is a disaster. Yes, I realize it’s like, super ironic that I’m saying that, given the content of my blog, but like, seriously. A. Fucking. Disaster. Here are some examples of how disastrous my brother is, just generally speaking. Really, I hardly even know what I’m about to say, I’m just culling at random from surficial memories:

• My brother once involved me in a sprint to escape cops in a club in Miami.
• He then managed to lock us both inside his house, with no keys, and my cab waiting outside, about 20 minutes before my flight home.
• He totally got me stuck in Brazil with no visa, after involving us both in a football riot in Buenos Aires that resulted in what I believe to be multiple deaths.

  

• He somehow talked me into something unmentionable in an opium den in Amsterdam, in which a girl had to get axed out of a bathroom, that has still left me unable to bear the sight of a Nintendo DS.
• He convinced me to go to fucking Ibiza of all places last summer, despite my being old, and its being over, as fuck, where he proceeded to debauch me on a balcony with, as I recall, grape Fanta and $3 Spanish vodka.
• He once killed my unopened liter of decent vodka alone (which I could not, at the time, afford) while sobbing to Audrey Hepburn movies, then snuck out the window of my house (the door was locked??) to go for a jog at 4am.
• He arrived for a visit while in the midst of a Paul Newman Day (yeah, look it up), then lost me and himself in my fairly dangerous city, afterwards swearing that the following 12 hours were spent “sleeping behind a bush”.
• Having invited me to his out-of-town 21st birthday, he vomited all sorts of goo on me, then on his computer, then on himself, then left me to sleep on a towel on the floor of his closet after I had dunked the right half of his body into the toilet (he’s small, I know, but quite heavy when passed out, I found. No way in hell I could throw him into the tub, so into the toilet to half-ass-wash off that puke he went…).  I vetoed that and went to drink more with his friends.
• Ooo, this one I love. He returned to our hostel one morning drunk as shit at about 5:42am, having been out partying with our local Argentine bartender and an Israeli dude, in the full knowledge that we were getting up at about 5:45am to catch a ferry. After punching, screaming at and kicking him repeatedly, I believe my words were, “Fuck you, I’m catching the boat. And you don’t have a cell phone, so I fucking hope you can manage to find me in Uruguay.” Actually, the awesomesauce bit was when I bought our ferry tickets and had to call him to come up to the counter approximately 34 times before he responded (counter lady needed his passport). He then flopped on the floor, and I told the nicely accommodating ticket lady, “Lo siento. Mi hermano es muy borracho,” to which she giggled. Correct me please, but I’m pretty sure that means, “I’m sorry. My brother is drunk” not “I’m sorry. My brother is _a_ drunk.” Not that both don’t usually apply.
• Once, at a bar we were frequenting because it had advertised “free beer for women until midnight” (and yes, it was entirely true!!!), he chugged a shot he really shouldn’t have, then vomited the entire contents of the world out of his stomach and straight into the empty pint-glass he’d been holding.  It filled.  Then it over-filled.  And then it deposited brother-puke onto my shoe 😦
• My brother now knows how to obtain a chlamydia test and antibiotics in both Kosovo and Serbia. Now there’s a sentence you don’t get to whip out every day!

And finally… My all-time favorite “why you should never travel with my brother” story:

Once we made it to Uruguay, my much-adored brother (I love you, J-balls!) and I found ourselves at possibly, no… DEFINITELY the awesomest hostel in the entire world. El Diablo Tranquilo, in Punta del Diablo (www.eldiablotranquilo.com). Like, they take credit. They have delectable food. They don’t complain when you drink four bottles of wine for lunch for no reason and then slobber all over their pet puppies. Also they rent boogie boards! And facilitate horse riders! Oh, and they give back to the community ‘n shit too, or something like that. Situated in one of the more picturesque spots I’ve ever visited, a large beach house at the southern end of a stunning nature preserve, in a town of what couldn’t be more than 500 people, 64,238 dogs, no more than 500 donkeys, and zero paved roads, El Diablo is a fabulous getaway in the crazy-pants-party-town Uruguayan summer and the I’m-the-only-tourist-in-this-country Uruguayan winter alike. There’s only one caveat I would mention: don’t go with my bro.

Days have passed on this beach. We’d meant to leave, but we couldn’t. It’s finally our last night (and I mean we’re gonna have to hope all transport is on time tomorrow, haha, or we’re missing some very expensive tix back to the States), so clearly we’re going out in style. It turns out there’s actually some other people staying at the hostel tonight as well (seriously, we’d spent the night before playing beer pong with the Uruguayan Bartender. Which was awesome, btw): two
Uruguayan girls who don’t speak English getting out of Montevideo for one of their birthdays.  We’ll not get into the high nor low of what followed, such as MY DEAREST BROTHER losing my Chacos, claro, let’s just say, DEAREST BROTHER, that if you EVER again make me scrub some drunk birthday girl’s puke out of a Uruguayan SINK so that you can make out with her vomiting-ass while the UB and I debate how drunk you must be not to taste that, I swear I’ll… I did like our convo though, which went something like this:

UB: ‘Uhh, soooo, your brother’s totally making out with that chick over there. So gross.’ I had taken pity on the UB, since he was the only staff on duty that night, and cleaned the 8″-deep pile of red-wine-vomit out of the sink while he took care of the floor, walls, and partial ceiling that she had also fouled. No, he did NOT clean the toilet, as that was somehow the only surface in the entire bathroom that she had missed…

Me: ‘Uhh, yup. Which is funny, you know, cause mi hermano es mariposa.’ I can never tell if people know the J-balls is gay (or in Spanish, a butterfly), you see, and usually just leave it alone, but found it quite necessary to make this pertinent fact plainly clear, what with his tongue being most of the way down this chick’s trachea.

UB: ‘Uhh, claro. But she’s been puking!’

And what was my borracho mariposa hermano’s dear reply to these adorable events?

Jballs: “What the fuck, why didn’t you tell me she’d been puking??” Sound of drunk Uruguayan birthday girl having clearly returned to re-foul the bathroom UB and I have just cleaned…

Me: “What the fuck yourself, I didn’t have a chance before you’d stuck your tongue down her puke-throat!” Sounds of retching increasing in volume…

And I swear to God, five minutes later they walked off to the beach together.

So let’s vote. I’m getting married shortly, and the bro is the Man of Honor. Because, despite all of the above and sooooooo much more, he’s the only person in the world besides the fiance that I can travel with and not end up beating to death with a small child. Also, fuck knows why, but he’s my best friend. But the real point here is, he’s super psyched about throwing the bachelorette debacle, which is clearly a disaster just waiting to be blogged. Now, given the idiocy that usually
results from combining the two of us in one place, at one time, with one ridonculous purpose, do we really think that anyone will survive to attend this wedding??

To be continued…

P.S. Though I’d love to leave you all in suspense, common decency dictates that I point out that, yes, the chlamydia test was negative (yay!); yes, both the Kosovar and Serbian word for chlamydia is ‘chlamydie’ (useful); yes, apparently it does hurt when a Serbian nurse sticks a Q-tip up your urethra to test for STD’s (well duh, kid); and yes yes yes, it is indeed really tactless to text a photo of your positive STD test results to your boyfriend while he’s on vacation in Kosovo, not so as to warn him to get tested himself, but instead to accuse him of cheating on you, when actually… It was you. And you know damn well who you are, chlamydia-dick!