It looks like we are close to getting our cable Internet service installed. We’re not talking “manaña” close, we’re talking so-close-we-can-almost-feel-it-close. To get this far, we spent the past few weeks going back and forth between the cable company and our property management company to make sure that everyone had the approvals they needed. Mexicans like their documentation! This afternoon, the cable was installed into our unit, but the installers didn’t bring a modem and the office is closed during the weekend. ¡Ay, ay, ay! But never fear, they say they’ll be back on Monday with our cable modem in tow. Victory is near! Once connected, we hope to be able to post a little more frequently. Stay tuned.
While we’re discussing our woes with regards to cable installation, we’d like to take this time to point out some oddities we’ve identified about this brand new building in which our apartment is located. For starters, our cable installers had to drill a hole in the wall and run an exposed cable along our living room wall to the far corner of the room. This building has what appears to be conduits installed for cable — the problem is that there is no way for the cable guys to hook up to it from the outside. Can we say, “Design flaw?”
Ok, here’s another gem. The stairwell lighting is controlled by 2 switches, one on the top of the stairwell, one on the bottom. Unlike your typical 3-way switch, the switch that is used to turn off the lights must be used to turn them back on. This seems to defeat the purpose of having 2 switches. Actually, this is worse than just having one.
Yes, they get worse. Outside our unit, there is a switch that looks like it is used for controlling the stairwell lights. If you look closely (in the dark, see previous paragraph), you’ll see a small raised circle to indicate that this is a doorbell, not a light switch. Luckily, this oddity will only be annoying until the lock is put on the front gate, preventing visitors from even getting to our door to ring the bell in the first place.
On the bright side, both of us have taken some additional Spanish classes. Unlike our classes in the U.S., the teachers here speak Spanish almost 100% of the time. Since we live in a tourist area, we actually don’t get to hear or speak Spanish as much as we’d like, so we actually enjoy getting practice listening to and responding in Spanish. Libby learned a cool game in class, kind of like the game Taboo, where one student tries to get another student to guess a Spanish sentence, fully conjugated in the correct verb tense, while both students speak only Spanish. We plan on using this little game to practice our Spanish outside of the classroom.
In the 2 1/2 months that we’ve been in Playa del Carmen, we’ve yet to complete a single dive. Luckily, our friends Nikki and Mahesh are coming into town to get us off our lazy beach-bumming butts and do some SCUBA diving. They’ll be here towards the end of January. If we get our non-functioning camera fixed by then (that should be fun!), we’ll try to take some underwater pictures. We’re curious to find out how the reefs are doing since the onslaught of hurricanes last year.
That’s all for now. Just a reminder, if you haven’t already, sign up for new posting notifications at the right on our Main page.
¡Hasta luego!
Some heads were gonna role when Libby learned that tidbit of information! But alas, the misinformers were not in the office when we stopped by; nor have they called us back. 
