Day 11 - April 18, 2007

Bernardo
I received an e-mail from someone who´s e-mail address I didn´t recognize. Remember Bernardo from IH Riviera Maya?...He e-mailed me because he was leaving and wanted to say ¨goodbye,¨but he hadn´t seen me around. He was going to travel some more through Mexico before heading to the U.S. for 3 months. He will probably call me when he gets to Chicago. I wish I had a picture of him. He´s an interesting character too.

Class
Class was productive, but I´m trying to observe more and take notes than to participate since everyone knows more than me.

When they describe me in class (because we are working on descriptions) they say that I´m ¨moreno,¨ which cracks me up. I´m not even tan!

Our teacher used pictures of Nicole Kidman and other famous people for us to describe.

Gran Bahia Principe Coba
After class I took the collectivo to the Coba to have lunch with Luis. We ate at the Kukulkan buffet and he had fresh mango cut up for us (I didn´t have an allergic reaction either...for some reason, I don´t have reactions when I´m on vacation!). We talked for a while and he einlightened me as to why my bananas always taste like they are still not ripe. He told me that some companies use gun powder to make them ripen faster (and they look ripe on the outside, but they are not really ripe on the inside). I also discovered that Luis and my mom share the same birthday.

After lunch, I went to the quiet pool and ordered a Coco Banana with Rum. It got a bit chilly in the water, so I decided to get out and realized that I left my flip flops by the bar, so I had to get another Coco Banana. LOL Then, I just lounged around for a while and tried to get some sun. I wore the ugliest tank-ini, but my food baby is so big, I needed to hide it.

I used the courtesy room again to shower and change and then met Luis in the lobby and he brought photo albums of his boys. Rita takes great pictures. She really does a great job of getting everyone to pose...like a professional. I´m going to try to use her ideas when I take pictures. I´m better at taking pictures of objects then of people. We had some more great conversation and Luis gave me some excellent ideas for our upcoming trip. Then he had to do some work! I kept him forever. Today was Annemarie´s day off.

I grabbed a quick bite at the Kukulcan buffet again before heading back and the food baby is continuing to grow.

Taxi Turrets
Whenever I travel somewhere and ride in a taxi or bus, I get what I call ¨Taxi Turrets.¨ When the drivers drive poorly, bad words just fly out of my mouth.

On the way back to Playa in the collectivo filled with locals, the driver almost rear-ended an oil tanker. I yelled ¨Holy Crap¨ (John Westover or Aunt Char, please pray for me) and the local sitting behind me yelled ¨Wow!¨ That was very scary.

Condo
I had another cockroach. I think the owner is a cockroach.

My bedroom light has been broken for 3 days and he hasn´t fixed it. Too bad I had to pay him in cash!