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Day 5: Friday, February 4, 2005
Our daily journal is after the pictures.
Roger in the fabulous Italian restaurant. It was the largest, and I guess the most popular.
Theresa in front of just a bit of the Italian restaurant. Under the stained glass ceiling was another indoor pool.
An example of the ceiling in the open atrium. The red area was a herringbone pattern "brick".
Beautiful, isn't it? Just another gorgeous scene. We ran out of descriptive words.
Roger inside the spa pool jacuzzi. This area and many others appear very old (well-kept, tho.) but are only 4 years old.
Daily Journal
HOLA! Como Esta. Mui bien! (Kathy, did we spell it right?)
OK so far we have heard from Sandy, and Pop & Marlys.
Yes, with Email being in another building, we will not be exactly answering many
communications. But we would be interested in knowing that you got ours. And
kids, any decisions yet as to whether our car will be parked at the airport? If
so ,where?
Roger went jogging this morning at 6 again. Foggy and cool morning: maybe only
60 degrees. Fog drifted by like horizontal rain. When sun rose, it soon burned
off. Later, as below, it really did rain. But it finished off when we needed to
walk to dinner (would not have been much of an issue anyway, since we could have
walked undercover.)
But no continental breakfast was delivered at 7:30 like we had done every other
morning. So we showered and walked to one of the several dining rooms. Had a
nice buffet breakfast in the Oriental Cuisine restaurant, although the breakfast
was very American. Generally the food in all restaurants here is good, but not
outstanding, not as good as cruises. And oh, we both have recovered from our
stomach ailments. I think it came from buffet scrambled eggs. As stated, we seem
to have found the best breakfast restaurant: an Asian decor, served by Mexicans,
featuring mostly American cuisine for breakfast. (Made me think of the culture
shock when we moved back from California and had Mexican restaurants staffed
with Norwegians...)
Visited while at breakfast with young folks from 4 hours north of Thunder Bay.
It was their second winter vacation here; wife is coming back next month with
her mom & sister. They actually had a direct flight from Thunder Bay! Seem to be
lots of people come here from Minnesota; also Germany, and apparently the
Orient; and France and England; have met other Canadians, a couple from Dallas;
two sets from Indiana, & Oregon, so far. Not many retirees; but there are many
newlyweds, golfers, and people attending business meetings, some attendees seem
to be Mexican, some from other places. There is a large convention center,
which, incidentally, is where our Email center is.
Did we say that all public areas in this huge complex are "open air" ...sort
of... it all looks very much like all beautiful Spanish architecture anywhere,
(and you might imagine that it is enclosed) but look closely and you see there
are no doors to totally close off/or lock up anywhere in the lobbies; and there
are open air/covered hallways to guest rooms. (No need, I guess, to close it
off. Everything is tiled and drained. and it helps to cool shaded/roofed areas
with ocean breezes.) Every where you turn is yet another example of splendid
architecture, even tall bell towers, waterfalls, hanging plants, or swaying
palms, wrought iron lamps or chandeliers, atriums, fresco paintings, etc. Today
it rained, and we did get to test how it works to walk the corridor network,
which is "outside/inside" all at once.
I keep wondering if these folks down here think that we live like this all the
time???! At the very least, they have found out that there is money to be had in
the tourist industry; things are much more "touristy" than 10 years ago. Good
for them! (We wonder how many came off the little "back-country areas" we saw a
few years ago where families lived in adobe huts with no windows, etc.) We tried
to estimate how many more jobs have been created in 10 years: maybe 10,000? Yes,
10,000 could easily be, and I don't think we even counted construction. TONS of
service jobs. And all have been trained to be very friendly. And I think they
all speak quite a little more English than a decade ago. Still, things at times
get lost in the translation... we asked a waiter what we were seeing in the
distance across/over the ocean... he tried to tell us, but we kept guessing
wrong.. and never did find out... (Cozumel? no... island? no... ship? no... )
==
Today we picked up a professional photograph from yesterday with two colorful
parrots. They say "hola" sometimes, but for us they just squawked a bit. I guess
we will later scan the picture for our Web site.
Lunch bar was burger with avocado, & pineapple pizza in a swimming hut. Just did
not want to go into a sit-down place. (Incidentally, we have yet to see our
first banana, not that we missed it... but strange. Also the coffee is
excellent, kind of a surprise. But avocados and artichokes are on every menu...
as is a lot of fruit.
Then we walked the length of the white sand beach until we found two secluded
chaise lounges - read for an hour, watched the speed boats, sailboats, kayaks;
and listed to the ocean waves. Really overcast, and cool enough that we decided
to come indoors to our room for a time. Took another nap. Story of our lives....
After that, THEN the big decision was whether to dress for dinner ... which here,
means long pants and collar on the shirt ! - with anything appropriate except
shorts, for ladies. OR we can stay in beach wear at some joints. We decided to
"dress": blue outfits tonight and forgot to get a photo of us but did get the
restaurant in a few shots.
Dinner this evening was at the Italian Cuisine restaurant served buffet style
with every imaginable Italian dish available. And some unexpected things like
boiled cabbage... All very good.
Once again we were too tired for the 9 PM show. In bed from 9:00-6:30; even with
two naps.
Love,
Mom & Dad