The Walmart in Playa del Carmen opened today to much fanfare. PDC’ers were out in force, elbow to elbow (and often elbowing each other), to buy televisions, ribeye steaks, Christmas themed towels and Walmart tortillas — don’t knock ‘em ’til you’ve tried ‘em. It took Libby almost 30 minutes to buy a potato masher (machacador), butter, milk and jello. The “express” lane didn’t seem to help.
The Walmart comes just in time as we are hoping to finally move into an apartment on Friday.The landlord assured us that we’d be able to move in today, but this is Mexico, and there has been an unexpected delay. Unexpected by everyone except for us!
Mexican landlords will not make any needed repairs or cleaning until they have a deposit. Luckily, our place only needs a light cleaning and some painting. Another apartment we looked at had extensive hurricane damage. We’re talking ripped out kitchen and bathroom cabinets, living room ceiling fan on the floor and a pool of rust beside it. But no worries, as soon as we put down a deposit, the landlord will have it all as good as new in a week. Right!! We’ve learned that in Mexican Spanish, mañana means a few days, and una semana (one week) means 2-3 weeks.
We hope to post in a few days with more info on our new apartment. We’ll leave it up to you to guess whether that’s a Mexican few days or not. 
glad to hear you are having fun and now understand the mexician way. Good thing you both are easy going. Have a wonderful week its only 17 out today, enjoy the sun
Glad to hear that you found an apartment. I was beginning to wonder if you would find one. Got your message about Christmas. Looking forward to see you both.