Episode Mexico: 6/22/2011

The hotel we stayed at, Playa Palms, was narrowly hugged between buildings on either side. In the center courtyard that all of the room balcony's faced was a small swimming pool. With the beach a few feet further, we only got into the pool once. Playa Palms served complimentary coffee every morning until 10am which we enjoyed on Wednesday the 22nd. Simple pastries were also served. The coffee was simple but not horrible and ants wished desperately to invade the packets of sugar but thankfully failed entirely. You did have to flick a few off before opening them. Days always flow together on vacation and soon you have no grasp of what day of the week it is. And it's wonderful. The only reason I know June 22nd was a Wednesday is because I just looked at a calendar.
We decided with the discovery of how expensive the area was that going to a grocery store and getting some essentials so we could make a few meals in our room (after all, it did have everything you needed to make meals) would be wise. A Walmart was near by so with a backpack prepared to carry our items back, we walked. It wasn't horribly far but it was warm. As soon as we entered Walmart, I had a flood of memories I had completely forgotten: Chinese Walmarts. Also known as the first level of hell to some people. Third world country Walmarts tend to have one thing in common: ensuing chaos. Every electronic is cranked up to prove that it works while music plays over the loud speaker, neon lights glare hungrily down on your soul, and someone, somewhere in the store (most likely right next to you) is talking into a bullhorn about the latest sale. HELLO MIGRAINE. Thankfully, I didn't get one. But I did have a few moments of stressed "I just don't know what to do now" feelings. John, reacting to the chaos and noise in his own way, became Captain Distracted from the sensory overload. After asking him "Are you ready to go?" about 5 times and having him respond with "Uh...sure!" and then wandering in the opposite direction while glaze-eyedly oogling over an Everest sized pile of Mexican cereal boxes, I decided that leading him by the arm to the checkout line would probably be our only chance of survival. On the way home, the bags threatened to break but thankfully they waited until we were securely in our hotel room. We primarily got cereal and breakfasty things but got a few mealy items as well. We also got beer. Which meant our afternoon beach time was complete with Coronas. Ah heaven. There you are.
I continued reading Dracula. And I don't know if it was the combination of Mexico and Dracula or Dracula and the beach but something about the entire vacation broke through my writer's block: I'm writing again. In fact, it was hard to keep up with my head. It seemed like everything we'd do inspired me and a new chapter would begin long before I could wrestle out my little notebook and pen to jot down ideas and notes. But more about that later.
I ended up sleeping well the first night. I had been worried the clubs would keep me up (John sleeps through anything...which has always made me worry...true, he's a Marine but if he's going to sleep through someone breaking in and kidnapping me, that's not really going to help me, is it? And I'm not talking about being worried about being kidnapped in Mexico...I felt safer there than in the states...) but the club noise stayed to a minimum and I slept soundly.
In the afternoon we napped. Today was one of our filler days where no plans were made and no plans needed to be made. For dinner, we decided to explore and found an adorable little place called Del Mario that had amazing pizza. The waitress was from Portugal and instantly became a character in my book. Something about her reminded me of Penelope Cruz.
When we got back to our room, we watched some TV and searched for the English-speaking channels. We found the history channel and discovered the wonderful world of Paranormal Nazi theories. Seriously...the history channel has really sunken low. The ENTIRE trip, the history channel was stuck on stuff about aliens. Aliens, aliens, aliens. Nazis being aliens, Nazis befriending aliens, Nazis making "bell" shaped portals to go visit aliens. The whole thing was just ridiculous. I enjoyed watching a little of it because it was just SO ridiculous that you could really turn it into a comedy (my favorite was when they started talking about time travel "So basically...if I travel somewhere faster than someone else, I'm time traveling!"...or the whole "bell" structure..."OH what could this structure mean or be for??? It MUST be some SUPER SECRET Nazi ALIEN technology that Hitler knew nothing about!!"...or...it could be a water tower...which...is exactly what it looks like...) but it got too annoying for John to handle being a history major himself. All I can say is history channel = EPIC FAIL. We went to bed early and beforehand prepped for the next day. Our first big excursion/hike was the next day and we'd need to be prepared. Note: every day when our room was cleaned, we got a new towel animal! To be continued...

Photos: Meself