We’re bad … so bad we should be in detention. Oh wait, that’s an Anthrax song. Like Anthrax, “we don’t care for writing hits”. Or perhaps it’s more like we don’t care for writing at all. Yes, it seems that we have not updated our blog in over a month. And our lame excuse is that we’ve been otherwise engaged.
In order to impress upon you just how occupied our time has been, we will now proceed to chronicle the highlights (and lowlights) of our past month. Enjoy.
We bid farewell to our good friend, Antonio, with a muy borracho (very drunken) night at a fun salsa bar, the Mambo Café. Antonio was headed to his home state of Veracruz, and hoped to then move on to Montreal to practice his French. He speaks Spanish, English and is learning French. We speak … English. Our Spanish is probably as good as his French. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for us, Montreal didn’t work out and Antonio will be returning to Playa del Carmen soon. Yippee! We’ve been missing him.
We’ve been watching World Cup football. That’s soccer to you Americans. Why Americans use the term football to denote a game which infrequently involves the foot, and soccer for a game that constantly involves the foot, we will never understand. Libby grew up in a football household, but this was pretty new to John, who grew up with baseball. Although we still don’t always recognize an offside when we see one (but then neither do the refs) and we were disappointed to see our teams (U.S., Czech Republic & Mexico) lose early on, we enjoyed rooting for Ghana (the upset team) and rooting against France in the final game with Italy. Way to go, Zidane! To be fair, Materazzi, the recipient of the assault, is no angel and obviously provoked Zidane. Italy won the World Cup in an overtime shootout. Had us biting our nails ‘til the very end. Our friend Paul took a video of the Italians in Playa celebrating the victory. Check it out - available in Windows Media or Quicktime formats.
We celebrated John’s 34th birthday with three of his favorite things — beach, beef and borracho-ness. The evening was spent partying at DJs, Kitxen and the Posada Freud bar with friends from the U.S., Mexico, Canada, England and Holland.
We attended a Summer Solstice Festival at Pueblo Sacbe, a cool eco-community in the jungle, with our friends, Barb, Paul and Sarah. Entertainment included a cute children’s production of ‘Jungle Book’, some sort of Eastern music (possibly involving a sitar) that we’re too ignorant to recognize, flamenco dancing, a salsa band, and a rock band consisting of two of our favorite Playa musicians, American Brad and French Ivan (at least we think that’s his name; we can’t spell in French!).
We made a quick hop over the border to Belize to buy some cheap booze and expensive gas, contemplate muy expensive electronics, eat decent Chinese, and check out the casinos in the ‘Free Zone’. Libby had an interesting encounter with Belizean border officials. People think Mexico border police are corrupt! Sheesh!
We helped our friend Steve from Seattle celebrate his 40th B-day. Shameless plug for Steve (and Sara’s) website: PlayaMayaNews.
We rang in U.S. Independence Day with a small group of American friends at our friend Michele’s (and Rob’s) awesome pad with swimming pool in Playacar (fancy-schmancy suburb of Playa). Shameless plug for Michele and Rob’s project: Marina Turquesa. To the Americans wondering how U.S. Independence Day is celebrated in Mexico (yes, the question has been asked), it’s celebrated just as Mexican Independence Day (September 16th) is celebrated in the U.S. Not at all.
We switched our blogging software (from Movable Type to WordPress) giving us a new format and allowing us to have multiple authors. This means that instead of reading blog entries written from the perspective of John and Libby together, in the future you’ll be able to read about what John is thinking and more importantly what Libby is thinking. Double the fun! We’ve found that now that we are no longer spending every living moment together, we are actually having independent thoughts again. In theory, this change could mean that you can look forward to more numerous posts. On the other hand, well, maybe not.
And now for the teasers:
We moved to a new apartment. Five moves in eight months. And one more on the way.
We met with many lawyers, each of which told us something completely different about the law. We’re thinking they should all get together for a long lunch and get their stories straight or something.
A new apartment and lawyers? What does this all mean? We told you they were teasers. Stayed tuned.
Happy 34th birthday-sounds to me your life is going great.
I was just thinking yesterday what lazy beach bums the two of you have become, not updating us on the Adventure in more than a month’s time! Sheesh, you think legal hassels, parties, the World Cup and siestas are a good excuse?! Miss you!
Well, well, well, Robb was right, and I was just in denial! You guys are staying! Good for you! You are doing what most people only talk about doing. More importantly, there is now a chance that we can come to visit since I am no longer prego! So excited for you and your computer business-to-be! And hoping to swing by your place when you are in Chicago at your fire sale! If you don’t mind my dad and sis joining us!