Some Catching Up

I'm slacking on my posting. I had high intentions of posting something every day but it isn't working out so well...lol. I'm going to try to do better since the purpose of this blog was to keep everyone up to date on what we're doing while we're here.

On Thursday we hung out at the pool for the morning then went for a late lunch at Le Saint Bonnet's. I've never been particularly impressed with their food but it was really good this time. Both the girls had chicken parmesan and both loved it. YD is a very picky eater so this says a lot about the quality of her meal. I had chicken cord en bleu. It was served with a tomato-y type sauce. It was delicious but the sauce kind of threw me for a loop. Señor B had a fish dish (the name escapes me) with a garlic sauce. He also enjoyed his meal. For drinks we had 2 daquiris, 2 waters (all water is bottled so I'm not sure if they charge for water at restaurants) 2 kahluas and one beer. The total of our bill was 550 pesos. The exchange rate is around 12 to 1 but we calculate it as 10 to 1 for ease of conversion. So supper was a bit less than $55 for all of what we had. Plus they serve snacks, called botanas, before your meal. They're very generous with those. They're practically a meal on their own.

While we were out, the cleaning lady came and cleaned all our windows. Our big ones face the gulf and get very dirty very quickly what with the salt and sand blowing in. She also did the smaller windows in the girls' room. Total cost for that was 100 pesos, or about $10. They were so clean that YD almost walked through the big ones...lol. The cleaning lady also tidied up, washing up the few dishes that were still in the sink, folded the towels and did a general straightening. It was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

On Friday, we didn't really do too much during the day. Mostly hung out at the pool. Such a rough life we have...lol. In the evening Señor B and I went to the meet and greet for the bloggers' conference. We had to go to Centro, in Mérida. Centro is the downtown area and we'd never been there before. What an adventure. Not only was it a new area but we had to find it in the dark. We took a wrong turn and somehow ended up on the street we were looking for. Took another wrong turn and, again, ended up on the right street. Señor B has the most amazing sense of direction even when he doesn't know where he's going. He always manages to get us to where we need to be. Going back to Progreso went much smoother.

Today I went to the conference. Getting there was another adventure but it went much better than last night. I had such a great time meeting many of the authors of whose blogs I read. We had speakers on various topics. I'm in awe of all these folks. They take their writing much more seriously than I do but many of them are, or have been, professional writers. Me, I'm writing this blog in place of sending a bazillion emails to everyone, so my writing is far more informal.

Poor Señor B was so frustrated this morning. I kept telling him I could take the bus home. He kept saying no. But by the time he dropped me off he was mucho agreeable to the idea. So that's what I did. One of the ladies gave me a ride to the depot for which I was grateful. It was a bit of walk and the road split. I know, without a doubt, that I would have taken the wrong road.

The bus comes straight to Progreso with a few stops within Mérida along the way. Cost me all of 14 pesos for a one way ride and I only had to wait about 10 minutes. One of the ladies at the conference thought the bus left about every 20 minutes during the summer and 40 minutes in the winter. I was glad I didn't have to wait 40 minutes.

Once I got to Progreso, I took a cab back to the condo. That was 35 pesos. The cabbie spoke about as much English as I speak Spanish, which is precious little, but we understood each other enough to get me home.

So there's another long-winded post. I'll try to be more diligent with my posting to spare you any more novels.