Month: February 2010

Stuck

And I was just making fun of the snow in my last post…

Reality just hit us right away; or rather it did the day before we left Tulum.  I made sure I checked our flights on Monday, and low and behold, our flight from Newark, NJ to Baltimore was canceled due to snow.  In fact, there are no flights leaving from Newark or to Baltimore until Thursday.  Yes, we are now stuck in Newark, New Jersey: eight miles from New York City.  I find all of this mildly funny.  Even though I supposed to be working now, that is somewhat impossible.  Ironically, I think work is closed today as well.  So, I guess we sort of extended our vacation for a couple of days.  My airline had us not flying out until Friday, whereas we were supposed to be home Tuesday night.  I finagled with them some, however, and got us flying into Washington National Airport tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon instead.  My car is in Baltimore, so my airline is shuttling Andrea and I the 50 miles to the Baltimore Airport.  Even with all of this, though, I am rejoicing!

We could be stuck in the airport hanging out.  I praise the Lord that He directed me to check my flight status on Monday so I could reserve a hotel room on Tuesday.  Also, thanks to priceline.com, I got a 3 star hotel for about the cost to fill up my car’s gas tank.  So, that’s where we are now: Newark, NJ at a hotel.  Yes, I have to stay tonight too, so I used my trusty Priceline Negotiator to get us another hotel across the highway (that has continental breakfast this time…!!!).

Trust me though; I am not staying in a hotel room all day today!  We plan to head over to the new hotel, drop off our luggage, and head into the Big Apple via the subway.  Andrea has never been there before, so I thought, why not!?  Shhhhh…I am going to make this kind of a Valentine’s Day present for her too.  Thankfully I have some room left in the vacation and gift budget.  I believe in making the best out of a crazy situation.  Here we go…

And to my family: there is no need to worry about us…not that you would…Haha! We are actually kind of enjoying all of this!

In Response to Your Inquiries…

…I found a few moments to spare you all from my biking, swimming, cenote snorkelling, AND TACO EATING!  (And yes, Marcia, the food is DELICIOUS!)

We are having a great time!  So far we have seen the beaches of Soliman Point and Soliman Bay; browsed through the pueblo of Tulum; seen the incredible Mayan ruins at Coba (which was a great day, and quite a change as Coba was a quiet little ranch town, and very traditionally Mayan); and then today we swimmed and snorkelled in the Gran Cenote (Freshwater sinkholes…like caves below the ground that are also waterways).

Some highlights would be Coba where we saw Mayan pyramids, and many current area houses constructed of stick walls and palm leave roofs…called palapas.  This seems to be the style of construction here in southern Mexico…very interesting.  Also many ladies are seen in the white cotton and bright flowery dresses…just going about their daily duties –again seems to be part of the culture down here.  (It is quite different here in the Yucatan than in other areas of Mexico.)  We ate lunch at a loncheria (“lunch”-eria!!) and had Mayan chicken tacos.  They were shredded chicken seasoned with red tomato and spices then covered in cheese.  The salsa served was fresh chopped red tomatoes and onion, lime juice, and diced habanero peppers.  Dustin and I both liked the salsa very much!

Then today, we swam for the first time ever in a Cenote.  It was beautiful.  I was a bit leery of snorkeling far back into the cave openings, but once I got my goggles on and saw in the crystal clear water, there were no worries!  God’s Creation is breath-taking above and below ground; in the outside air, and below the water’s surface!  After biking back into town, we ate some lunch at Subway –yes, there is Subway in the Yucatan Peninsula, though no other American fast food here in Tulum pueblo!  And this evening we plan to head out for some great tacos…might venture out for some seafood tacos!

All in all, we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves, and look forward to sharing more as the next few days pass by!  Oh, and I am soooo sorry not to be there for the huge snow blizzard…I guess you cannot have your (canned) cake and eat it too!  Please do a lot of sledding for me, Marcia!

Dustin and I at the Blue Sky Restaurant...even in Mexico, Dustin found a place that serves Brick Oven Pizza!