El Grande

This is going to be a very large blog so I will break it down into days:

Monday(12/20)- We left at 4 in the morning to make our flight. It was incredibly early to get up, but after being awake for a bit it was alright. I really enjoyed our flight. It was incredible to watch the surface as we flew tens of thousands of feet above ground. From the altitudes it made it really hard to decipher how big anything was, for example, we went over some of the Rocky Mountain area and it looked like a bed blanket. It was very smooth with what appeared to be dirt, and then every so often it'd have 'wrinkles'. The dirt turned out to be tree's, and the wrinkles were the elevation changes, which means it was on a much bigger scale that it looked like on the plane. Crops were also an interesting thing to look at. As we got over Texas you could see thousands of crop area's all of which were square acreage with circular crops. This part was weird. I didn't understand why they didn't use the entire square of land, and I couldn't figure out how big it was. I tried to compare it to other things I saw, but those too were really hard to tell. We got into our resort at about 6 p.m their time, meaning about four here. We ate a little food and walked around but because it was dark we didn't get a great grasp on things.

Tuesday(12/21)- We spent all of today, I will just speak as if it is the days I am talking about, lounging and checking out the resort. It was excellent; they had haciendas, which were where we stayed, and each one of these puppies had its own pool. Then the main part of the resort had two pools. One extremely large pool, and another smaller one by the beach. Its hard to describe everything about the resort, so if you get a chance, come over to my house and I can show you pictures. We lied at the beach most of the day and then went pool-side for the rest of it.

Wednesday(12/22)- Wednesday was one of our two planned excursions; we went to another resort about 20 Km away and went rode ATV's and Speed Jet Boats. We did each activity for about an hour. For the ATV's we rode through little paths they had made in the brush around the resort and that was pretty awesome. Mine broke down which turned out to be good because once the guy fixed it I was well behind the rest of the group so I went into the top gear and got to haul all the way to the other people. After that scenic ride we went to the ocean and got into little tiny jet boats. They were incredibly basic and so when we got going pretty fast and went off the large waves that came we'd get some good air and then land really hard back onto the surface and that part hurt. It felt almost as if the boat would break everytime we hit so you'd get your considerable amount of air, then cringe and tighten up as you were about to land. That was pretty fun and once we got back we went poolside.

Thursday(12/23)- Thursday was our first day into the little town of Playa Car where we could go shopping for gifts and souvenirs at neat little shops that lined the streets. My brother Josh and I were the ones who went and as soon as we got their I began my search for a pineapple for Anneliese. She asked me to get her one but the thing is, you can't bring back fruit, so I had to find another form of a pineapple, like a necklace, or shirt, or anything. Well the whole time we were shopping and being hassled by the mexican shop owners who called my brother and I names like "rambo" and "fresh meat", yes a lady did say that, I was looking for something with a pineapple. And after searching basically every shop around the little town I found absolutely nothing. Then on the way back, after we had decided we were tired of walking around, a shop owner asked me what I was looking for and I said "a pineapple". "Oh we've got those!" he says, "follow me". So I walk into the little corridor shop area and once inside he asks me, "whats a pineapple?" Well it turned out he didn't have anything, so I found something else. A ceramic infact. This town had tons and tons of these awesome ceramic plates, bowls, figures, etc that had been hand painted with these awesome designs. They were incredibly cool and if you are ever to go there I suggest you buy some. My brother and I then got back to the resort and went to the beach to lounge, among other things.

Friday(12/24) - Friday was a really cool day for I went to Cozumel, another town on the other side of the water from Playa Car, and went scuba diving. I had never been before so I took a beginner class in which we went only 25 meters below the water and practiced the techniques and skills necessary for doing dives. After we learned the skills, and the instructor felt we were adequate, we went a bit deeper and looked at some of the coral. That was tank number 1. After we used up the first tank, we went back up to the surface and got into a boat that took us out farther towards the good spot that is apparently the number three spot to go diving around the world, and we dove over 50 meters. That was excellent because then we got to really good coral and the really neat looking fish. It was easy to see where the animators of the fish movies like "sharktail" and "finding nemo" got the idea of apartments and houses in the coral because as I looked I definitely thought of the same things. It was truly amazing. When we got back we had Christmas Eve dinner and jake and I got into a dispute, so I threw his flip-flop into the center of the huge pool. He was wearing normal clothes so he couldn't get it, and then I left. I thought it was pretty funny and i felt like I had gotten revenge until he came back to the room and beat the crap out of me. I think if I ever got into a real fight I could do pretty well because I got tired of him beating up on me so I used all my energy and knocked him off and such. So I am sure i could get up enough energy to punch a guy numerous times really really hard and hopefully knock him out.

Saturday(12/25)- Also known as Christmas day. It didn't seem anything like Christmas though. I was in a warm climate, away from home, it definitely was not the same. Sure they had trees everywhere, and people were singing carols and such, but there is nothing like Christmas day at home, when you are all snuggled up in your pajamas downstairs opening gifts as a family. That was also something that was different; no presents, minus the fact that we were in freaking MEXICO! That was gift enough. Then later that day Josh left and jake and I went and did water aerobics. The rest of the day we spent on the beach and in the ocean. That is until I got my little rash which was very similar to the one i got on the cruise two years ago which makes me believe i am allergic to the ocean, and that sucks! I spent the night in my bed and missed out on the evening show and the afterparty.

Sunday(12/26)- Sunday was a very very uneventful day. We lounged on the beach and played tennis and pool and ate. Very relaxing though, like a vacation is supposed to be.

Monday(12/27)- Monday we went to the beach in the morning and then we went to town once again, but only this time it was Jake, me, and Jake's Vacation fling. Her name is Claire, she is from Canada and she is 21. We went and shopped out the more ritzy tourist spot of Playa Car that had stores like diesel and Sicko. Then we went back and ate dinner and the works and saw this amazing Cirque du Soleil type show. It definitely made me want to get stronger so I could do the self balance things and such. So now I am going to start working out and maybe take yoga to learn some of the moves. Hopefully soon enough I will be balancing myself on a table with one hand.

Tuesday(12/28)- This is the other coordinated excursion we did; it was to Tulum, a little Myan ruin. The larger Myan ruin was about 3 hours farther so we decided to settle for this one. It was awesome. Its incredible to think that these people over a thousand years ago made all this stuff without any of the modern tools we have. They just chipped it away with other stones; they didn't even have metal tools. The detail on the buildings were amazing. I would definitely suggest that you go to a ruin of the ancient civilizations if you get a chance because it is phenomenal. I took video and pictures so once again, ask me and I can show you them.

Wednesday(12/29)- Wednesday was our last official day there so I did as much as possible. I played tennis, pool, table tennis, went to the beach, swam in the pool, went to town, and stayed out late. Our trio that went to town earlier in the week went again, but this time at night and we went to some clubs. It was interesting, jake was very much at home, he has gone to clubs elsewhere, but for me it was pretty uncomfortable. The closest thing to it is a school dance for me, and that doesn't compare because I know people at those, and not everyone is freak dances. It definitely would have been more enjoyable if I had a lady friend, but whatever. I had a good night for the most part.

Thursday(12/30)- We did the exact same thing as monday the 20th except in reverse order.

Its nice to be home, but now I have to go back to thinking and working. I enjoyed not having to do anything other than enjoy myself. Its going to be different coming back to school where I can't just wing it and say, "well I'll never see them again, so who cares" nor can I go to the beach and lounge in shorts and no t-shirt. Oh well, I can adjust.