linducha

Playa Fun

I miss the warm, yellow light of the tropics. It's odd coming back to gray and white. Playa del Carmen was, as usual, a lot of fun. The days started with a run on the beach toward the point by the small, hurricane damaged palapa cabanas. We were rewarded at the end of the run by diving into the crashing waves. We had breakfast at our hotel, the Shangri La Caribe, a great hotel with double decker Mayan-German style palapas complete with balconies, colorful hammocks, and mosaic-tiled bathrooms. The rest of the day, while the sun was high, was devoted to relaxing and walking on the beach, taking a dip in the ocean, ceviche and beer.

Playa nights are all about walking up and down Avenida La Quinta, people watching, perusing all of the quaint shops and boutiques filled with Mexican artifacts, stopping off for a beer or two with quesadillas, and finally deciding where to go for dinner. We went to our old favorites like Babes Noodle Bar, Media Luna, Ristorante Da Bruno, and the excellent Glass Bar, which is part of the Mosquito Blue hotel. There's a lot more photos here.

London Calling

Ernesto and I just got back from London. It was another one of those activity-packed vacations, not necessarily a time to relax. We did a lot, including museums (Tate Modern, National Gallery, Courtauld Gallery), galleries, the "London Eye", the Millenium Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben, the London Towers, just to name a few. We spotted this bagpipe player while crossing the bridge to the London Eye. He's got to be at least 100 years old! As far as I could tell, he was rakin' in the pounds. Many more photos can be found here.

Seattle / Vancouver

Our mountain-climbing, city-seeking trip to Seattle and Vancouver began when, finally, Anne picked Mother and I up at the Seattle airport. We managed to convince Mother for about 50 miles that we were indeed headed for Seattle. This photo shows Mother still anticipating the Seattle skyline and all the cats circling her legs. Our true surprise destination was to Vancouver. Along the way, we stopped at a rest area and Anne had bought some great focaccia sandwiches. She even brought her own cloth napkins!

I think it was a trip full of surprises, drumming up old grievances as well as old and new memories. That's the way it is with siblings, family...sort of a love/hate relationship. It was good for the three of us to be together for such a long time.

I was anxious to see, well, Canada! I had never been to Canada and Vancouver was supposed to be an incredibly cosmopolitan city with high density all around...and that's exactly how it turned out to be. The only problem is, even though we were there in July and everything seemed well and good within our fantasy (actually only Anne's and mine) of moving there away from the whole Bush scene, when we realized how cold the winters must be in Vancouver or any city that far North. I'm looking to get away from horribly cold winters in Minnesota and I don't think that Anne would want to leave mild, but rainy Seattle.

The view from our hotel was really great. The Vancouver skyline looks like everything was built between 1962 and 1972, mostly glass buildings and the other buildings were pretty much kept the same on the outside and renovated on the inside. Too bad it was so late. I would've liked to check out the club scene. There were people milling about at every corner, waiting to be let in by burly bouncers. Whether it's Vancouver or Manhattan, I just love the density and, well, people! Often times in Minneapolis, one could walk the streets and think they were all the sudden in a ghost town.