Wednesday, April 9, 2008

home.

It was a long day - we got up at 5:30 and pulled out of the hotel at 6am, with the cook and her husband in the back seat. We were dropping them off at the bus in Limones. So we got to Playa del Carmen around 10:30 I think, and we wanted to be at the airport at 1. That's a hell of a lot of time to waste in such a disgusting place. We figured we'd eat something, since American Airlines doesn't provide food on the plane.

Did I say disgusting? Yeah, but I can't possibly say it enough times to equal the disgustingness of the place -- and it's better than Cancun, which is saying something! It's just drunk people and bad restaurants, lots of bars, tacky tourist shops, and American stores like Starbucks and American Apparel. Plus it was blazing hot, and I don't do well in blazing hot, when there's no relief.

We picked the least horrible-looking restaurant and Marc ordered quesadillas, and I ordered fruit. First, it's hard to imagine how they could have such bland and boring fruit in a place like the Yucatan. Mealy tasteless cantaloupe, bland worthless watermelon, and meh papaya. But the quesadilla....small corn tortillas with grated plastic cheese inside. Not melted, not grilled, just grated inside the tortilla.

Finally we headed for the airport, fought with the car rental place over the lack of air conditioning, and got to the terminal, with 2.5 hours before our flight.

We didn't know American had been cancelling flights by the hundreds. The line snaked through the little snaky thing, then went out and down the airport, past two or three other airlines' ticket agents. It was a hell of a long line, and not moving very fast. The other people were reasonably calm and patient, as were we, and surprisingly, we got to the gate just as the flight was boarding.

The flight was ok, though we had to circle for awhile because there were no free gates at JFK. How that could be possible, I have no clue, since they'd cancelled nearly a thousand flights. And then there was a lot of construction on the Triborough Bridge, so we got home after 10pm. What a long, long day. But it didn't diminish the pleasure of the vacation, which says something about how great it was.

I'm sorry for it to be over, but it is good to be back home. No wind tunnels while I try to sleep, and excellent dinners with the best company in the world. Another successful and wonderful vacation.

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