MEGA!

My first week in Playa del Carmen, living as a local, is in the books.

Three big accomplishments this week.

1. I have successfully memorized my address. In espanol. Which has enabled me to take two taxi rides on my own and almost hold a conversation with the taxi drive. I'm so incredibly focused on remembering the address and properly delivering it that once that happens, my brain is basically fried. After that it's just a lot of me saying "que?" and pointing to the proper turns. Remember in the movie Zoolander when they're trying to get the files out of the computer and they bang on it and make a lot of monkey sounds? That's what I look like when trying to have a conversation with someone who speaks minimal English. Like a big dumb animal. I'll get there though. Hopefully.

2. I bought a sweet bike.


3. I have only gotten lost on said bike once. And I really wasn't lost, I just got turned around and went around the block by Mega about 4 times.


Mega is the grocery store in Playa. It's actually right next door to Wal-Mart, it's cheaper and the place that my family goes when we buy groceries on vacation. It's also the place where most of the locals go.  Since I don't have a job (yet - I promise I'm working on it Mom and Dad) I have spent the first week going back and forth to Mega to get things for the house. Being a grocery store in a third world country, there are some rules that we have in the US that don't apply to Mega.

For example - they have all of their seafood, meat, etc, just kind of hanging out, it does not appear (based on the smell in that area) to be properly refridgerated. So the entire place smells kind of fishy. We got some shrimp last night and the guy grabbed it for us barehanded. I washed it when I got home, of course. With water that you can't drink so I don't know if that really made it any better.  Also, they don't believe in the "wet floor" signs (piso mojado).  Lyndsy and Brad can attest to this as well, last February I slipped and fell. Thankfully I used the cart to catch myself, which led to me wondering the next day why my ribs hurt. The margaritas/beers at La Pesca had nothing to do with the fall, believe me.

ANYWAY . . .  The best part about Mega? The pastries. You get a little tray and a pair of tongs and you can just go nuts with all the fresh bread, muffins, cookies, etc. When you're done, you take your tray up, they weigh it and usually you pay like 75 cents or something ridiculous for a huge bag of goodies. We made the mistake of hitting up the pastry aisle last night when we were hungry.

As week two begins, I'm cleaning the house, working on my Spanish and looking online for jobs. I'm hoping to start my advanced open water diving certification this week at Dive Balam, there's a chance I can help them out in the dive shop in exchange for getting certified.