Some of the traveling I have experienced is what I consider to be a luxury level of traveling. When I was younger we used to go on cruises all the time. It got to the point where we are gold members on one specific cruise line. Royal Caribbean. I remember all the cruises we went on and when I was younger it was more of a way to just get away from home and to shop in new places. There wasn’t a lot of exploring on these islands and I couldn’t drink since I was around the ages of 10 - 13 at the time. It’s still some of the best memories I have from my childhood, I mean I met all kinds of people from all over the world, I got unlimited ice cream, unlimited food at the buffet, and there was always, always, always an arcade. Which of course with an arcade comes some rivalry. My father and I used to play air hockey all the time and we both are so aggressive during the game that we send the puck literally flying  off the table. Talk about a good and dangerous game to watch. It actually made me champion in the "air hockey leagues" when I used to be on the ships all the time. I beat all these boys at air hockey and its actually one of the things that I hold to heart weirdly enough. To be honest for a twelve year old girl to beat five or six guys back to back was awesome. It felt like something that was so amazing that I held onto it for years. 

I will say that because of my "training" with my father it gave me the advantage but hey, you don’t tell your opponents how you’re so good at something like air hockey. 

But after all of the cruising we did it suddenly, stopped. I think the both of us had just gotten caught up in the world of politics, traveling parts of the U.S, going to Disney World (yes Disney was one of the most visited places for us to), and focusing on school more and more for me. It was a full six years since we had last cruised and in December of 2016 we decided to go on another cruise. It was due to mostly me wanting to go honestly. I mean six years without going is a good excuse in my book to give it another go. Not only that but we had decided to pick at least one place where I was legal to drink. What was that place you ask? Cozumel. The place of gigantic slushy drinks with amazing amounts of tequila in them. Yes oh yes, I may be small but tequila is something I can drink without feeling the effects for hours. Now as much as I would love to give you the day by day synopsis of this wonderful cruise to the point of when we actually arrived on Cozumel, I am just gonna start us on the part where we are in port in Cozumel and were sitting up on the twelve deck drinking some coffee. See we had a plan that day. We were gonna get off the boat an hour before the tour we signed up for started and get a DRINK. yes, right off the bat at nine in the morning on an island in the ocean I was going to consume alcohol at nine A.M. I felt like the world had just delivered a golden prize at my door step. Once I was off the boat I was legal. 

Now of course were gonna cut to the point where we are through the "customs" on the boat, and we are all the way down the port and searching for a bar. Quickly it was located and we sat our happy asses down to look at the monstrous menu of drinks that to me seemed like mostly gibberish. Oh but wait, I had my father who seemed to be beaming at the idea of buying my first legal drink at the age of nineteen. With his guidance we ordered a strawberry margarita. The ultimate slushy of goodness and a portal to the other world of drunk land. Pictures were taken, and the drink was drunk. To be honest the memory is a little fuzzy on if we had a second one or if it was the one before the tour started. I just know that once we had our drinks it was like the portal to happiness had arrived. It also made the tour more interesting. We had signed up for a tour of the Mayan ruins that resided on the island. The description seemed very intriguing and I honestly do love hearing about different cultures while seeing parts of it with my own eyes. 

We had boarded the bus and got to listening to our tour guide talk about how the island came to be, where the Mayans came from, What the island meant to them, and of course the history about what happened. Turns out that Cozumel was an island for royalty. They came across the ocean to the island for marriages, funerals, a new ruler, Births, etc. People of only royal blood had a chance to come to the island. Once they got there they hiked along a path that lead to the center of the island. Before they could step foot on the holy grounds (after the hike of course) they had to leave an offering at the entrance which just so happened to be worshiping the cycle of the moon and once they entered the holy ground they mainly worshiped the Moon Goddess. They did all kinds of ceremonies and the area showed places where the royals lived, where they did steam baths for the women so that they were "more likely to get pregnant". yea...You just read that. They had women sit in a steam bath for about twelve hours before the "union" of the pair so that it was more likely for her to get pregnant and bestow them with another leader. Some things that they did were mind boggling but they were also very smart. They had walkways and not just any walkways, ones made from rock, put together so precisely that it once was flat. They made all their structures by hand and used the resources around them. To some it seems that the practice they used was over the top but I could understand where they were coming from as a religion. I mean they went from what they knew by word of mouth and from their people passing down generations and generations of culture. When we left I felt a little like the connection was lingering and I just had a strange feeling that if I had been a part of that culture in another life that I wouldn’t be surprised. I love the moon and I love the idea that there were people who centered their culture on the Moon Goddess. To me it was quite a wondrous site and even though most of the structure is gone from people bombing the place to find gold, some structures still stand and that is enough to represent what was once there. 

Once we had our lesson on Mayan culture we then went to a place on the beach where we could shop and reup on our drinking. We only had fifteen minutes though so my father and I split up. Him to go get an alcoholic beverage and me to do some shopping. Quickly he returned with a coconut that contained a high intensity of possible drunkenness if you had a few back to back. Unfortunately splitting it was not in our favor since it didn’t have much in it but it was enough to reup the buzz a tiny bit. Once our fifteen minutes was up we got a lesson on what recent hurricanes did to the island and made our way to the CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Oh yes. And guess what they had at the chocolate factory. Chocolate margaritas. Now most of the tour at the chocolate factory was tasting handmade chocolate and we got to know the process of how they are made into bars of chocolate. How each person has to take a coco bean and literally grind it themselves to make a chocolate powder. Our guide was hilarious and was always making jokes to keep up intrigued about the process. All the while we got to see a part of the Cozumel world. People there rely on tourism. They rely on us to come there and buy what they make. Every time I go there I am always buying something that stands out. They use old fish bones to carve out of and yea it sounds kind of gross but they make some of the best gifts and they are so cheap compared to what we would have charged in the U.S. 

In any case, we had a great time in that chocolate factory. I mean chocolate with a drunken buzz is an awesome combination AND they even gave you a chance to keep that buzz going with the chocolate margarita. Which was really strong to so we definitely were not complaining about the tour. Of course I left buying like seven candy bars and a happy smile. Once we were dropped back off near the port we then made a bee line to the shopping centers to buy everything we wanted to buy and make sure we were set for Christmas. A lot of sneaking around while Dad wasn’t looking was required and I somehow managed to do it successfully. Once the shopping was done we made a beeline for the drinking. We had a few more hours to indulge this free time of legal activity. We sat down and I let my dad take over. I ordered another strawberry margarita and then Dad stepped it up and ordered shots. Yes, shots....and some nachos for drunken balance. Can’t forget food. So we get our margaritas which is so good in the weather that we were experiencing and it was a nice kick to the drunken realm. Certainly something we both approved of. Really the only goal for the day was to make it back to the boat without forgetting anything and passing through the gate without looking drunk. One goal, seemed easy enough. Next we get the nachos and they look heavenly. I mean they were covered in cheese (can never have enough cheese, ever) and had so much meat on them that my mouth was drooling. Eating and watching some of the street performers quickly became a time to definitely remember. Next came the shots. Now I am not a person who usually drinks tequila shots but it was provided at a low cost for high quality booze and saying no to that would be a tragedy to anybody visiting the island. Who passes up good alcohol for like five or so bucks a shot. The stuff was top shelf and my dad was NOT about to let that pass by. So a shot in and down the throat and a sip of my margarita and I felt like the world belonged to me. I felt like I could rule all and do it without lifting a finger. 

Once we were done eating and we looked at the clock we had to go. Ship would leave with or without us. So we grabbed our bags and my rocky self had to gain control of my body in about fifteen minutes or the boat would be very unhappy about my drunken state. In the time it took to walk from that pleasant bar to the boat I had managed to straighten myself out and I got passed customs. Needless to say it was an adventure of a lifetime and Cozumel does such a good job of making sure you get what you pay for. You want to get drunk at a very cheap affordable price, then go there. You get margaritas the size of your face and they never let you sit with an empty glass unless if you tell them you’re done. What a wonderful place and it was so nice to be able to drink legally. If anything that experience taught me my tolerance to tequila and how much I love drinking good alcohol. 

Sometimes you just need to get drunk on an island that had no judgments.