Old Friends in New Places

So when I sent my email out to everyone letting them know what we were doing, I got a reply from my college friend Katie saying to let her know if we'd be in Cancun for Memorial Day weekend because she would be there with her family.  Amazingly enough, we were and we were able to meet up with them for a few hours at the beach.

Now, all I've really wanted in Cancun was a proper lazy beach day.  When we were walking around on Monday or Tuesday afternoon, we stopped by a lot of hotels asking about day passes.  The Westin offered one for doing a timeshare presentation, so we went back there Saturday to see if we could do it that day.  As luck would have it, we were able to do the presentation on Saturday AND put off the day we used the day passes for until Sunday so that we'd have more time.  So Saturday was: breakfast at this adorable French patisserie that was delicious, bus to the Hotel Zone, Timeshare presentation at the Westin for 45 minutes or so, then walked down to Katie and Jason's resort and spent a few hours with them, their almost 5 year old twins Molly and Noah, and Jason's parents, Gene and Diane.  As soon as we got to the beach, Molly came right up and started chatting away with me.  What a love!  It was so nice to have an afternoon with an old friend who I haven't seen in probably 8 or 9 years (!!!) and meet her family.

When we left the resort, we headed back into town and went to Parque de las Palapas, had some amazingly good tacos, and wandered around.

Hippie Park

Best tacos we've had in Mexico - can't wait to get to Oaxaca and Mexico City for more plentiful street food!

We went to a Mezcal bar which had surprisingly good cocktails in my opinion (I do not like mezcal) and hung out for a bit.  The bar was completely empty - we were the only ones there - but the bartender said it picks up around 11pm.  I actually loved the music there.  It wasn't too loud, and it was pretty much Mexican electronic house music, which is not my typical taste, but it was great!  DJ Nicola Cruz mix Nomade Mixtape is what the bartender wrote on a piece of paper for us.  Will I be able to find it?  Probably not.

Mezcaleria

Round 1 - Mezcal cocktail for Adam (left), Margarita for me (right)

Adam's second drink that he loved.
It had two liquors in it that he'd never had.
See Instagram for what they were, because I have no idea.

My win for Saturday was having a small conversation in Spanish with the Venezuelan housekeeper when we got back to the Airbnb.  It probably wasn't the best conversation, but it was something.

Sunday I got my peaceful, relaxing beach day.  We got breakfast (chilaquiles!), Starbucks, and then hopped the quickest bus ever to the Hotel Zone and relaxed at the beach and pool all day.  I'll say this: the timeshare presentation was pretty interesting. While it's not for us right now, I can see why people do it, though I'm not sure at what point it becomes a good deal.  The Westin has a ton of properties that you can use, so while the Cancun one is VERY nice, you don't have to go to the same one every year - you can go to Hawaii, Cancun, Mauritius, Thailand, etc.  We had three different salesmen trying to sell us - one started, then brought it the next guy, and then finally the last gasp attempt.  I definitely found the first and second guys nicer and more effective than the last, but none were going to work on us anyway as we're not currently employed so we're not planning on spending such a large chunk of money in one shot right now.  We probably asked more questions than we needed to, but it was interesting!

View from the lounge chairs

Adam writing a blog post

This bird found a bag with food in it and was opening it and taking the chips and fries out of it.  

Very capable and smart.  And LOUD.

The Westin is beautiful, the pools are gorgeous, the beach is gorgeous, and I'm a pretty happy camper right now.  We head out tomorrow (Monday, right?  I'm not doing great with what day of the week and date it is.  Apologies for missing any birthdays in the coming months) for the rest of the Yucatan.  We've rented a car and are going to spend the next week in Tulum, Bacalar, Valladolid, Chichen Itza, and playing in cenotes.  Wish me luck driving and Adam navigating!