Showing posts with label ticket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ticket. Show all posts

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Tickets Have Been Bought

After several tense weeks of not knowing when Señor B's shift change would start, due to his new position at work, we've finally been able to book our tickets. But because we didn't know when his new shift would happen, we missed out on a great deal with Continental. Oh well. Ni modo.

Usually we take a red eye from our home airport to Toronto and then to Cancun. Then the bus from Cancun to Mérida and then a cab to Progreso. It takes us a full 24 hours to get from our house here to our condo and makes for a very long and arduous trip.

This time, we're doing things a bit differently. We're going to fly with Continental instead of WestJet. We'll leave from our home airport, connect in Houston and then fly to Mérida. The flight is a bit more but we also factored in the bus ride to and from Cancun as well as a night's stay in Cancun, which we always do the night before we leave México, to ensure we don't miss an early morning bus from Mérida. We've heard stories of bus schedules being changed without any notice, leaving passengers in a bind. We prefer not to have our adrenaline pumping too hard first thing in the morning.

Going with Continental will make our travel time quite a lot shorter, about 15-18 hours each way. That might sound like a lot to most, but when you practically live in the friggin' tundra like we do, it's just the way it is.

The only concern I have is going through US security. Señor B always sets off the alarm because of his hip replacements. The TSA has a reputation for being rather intolerant. Señor B doesn't think he needs a letter from his doc about his hips but I think it would be wise to have it. We've never encountered any problems but we haven't gone through US security since his operations. I guess we shall see what happens.

So!...all of that to say...we'll arrive to Progreso late evening of Oct 30 and leave early morning Nov 30.  I can't wait!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Our Day Without Power

Well, the power outage wasn't as long as originally planned. It went out at 8am instead of 7 and came back on around 3:30pm instead of 4. I didn't see the guys working but one of the condo residents was telling us how the guys climb up the pole with a rope or strap around them. He was also telling us that they have the holes for the poles dug. Big, deep holes with no covers over them. Big enough for a small child to fall in. Lord, I hope that doesn't happen.

I slept in this morning so the power was already off by the time I got up. I had cereal for breakfast but there was only about half a cup of milk left. I thought it would be ok, but it wasn't. Cereal with only enough milk to make it wet doesn't taste too great. Milk is typically sold in tetra packs and I didn't want to open another one and risk it going bad. The fridge stayed cold enough that I could have opened one. Oh well.

Señor B and I enjoyed the sun on the front balcony for a while and then decided to head uptown. Remember my post about the San Francisco store involving the ticket guy who had to chase us down and how we figured it was run similar to Costco? We decided to go to that store.

We remembered to get our ticket before entering the lot. Señor B waited in the car while I walked a block over to get some cash from the bank. The guard checks your receipt and ticket when you leave the parking lot. We were supposed to get the ticket stamped by the cashier. But she never asked for the ticket.  After the guard was satisfied that we knew what to do next time, he let us go. Truly, those poor guards must get tired of us foreigners messing with the system.

Señor B suggested going to the malecon for lunch but, because of the power outage, I wanted to finish up the taco salad from last night. So we had lunch at home instead.

Our neighbour, Bindi, replaced her sliding shower doors with a thick piece of glass and we loved it so much we decided to do the same. The tracks are so hard to keep clean. While she was uptown earlier, she went to the store and told the guy to come see us. He said 3:00, so we waited. The gate is usually closed so we watched for him but we never saw him. When we saw Bindi later, we told her and she was surprised. She said the dad knew to call from outside the fence but if it was the son, he may not have known to do that. Hopefully he comes tomorrow.

While we waited, we sat on the front balcony again. That sun sure feels nice. Everything in moderation, however, so we had to come in before we burned to a crisp. Señor B had a siesta and I worked on the lesson book for the correspondence Spanish class I enrolled in. We waited until 6:00 for Glass Guy and then went to the malecón for supper.

What an ordeal that is. They're redoing the malecón and it's very difficult to get around there, at the moment. Most of the streets here are one-ways so it can get very confusing. We finally made it to Flamingos where we both enjoyed the Yucatecan chicken. It's my favourite dish and I like Flamingos' the best. A beer and a Kahlua along with the delicious meal cost us 195 pesos, so probably around $15 - $16. For the both of us. Not $15 each. Back home, that would cost about $45. It's unbelievable how inexpensive it is to eat out. While we were out, we also stopped at a liquor store to replenish the rum.

There were a lot of carpenter ants in the condo tonight. Usually we only see 2 or 3 but I killed a dozen tonight. Wow. Talk about hard bodies. Those suckers are tough. You have to step on them really hard to kill them. They're coming in through the door so I sprayed a line of Raid on the floor along the doorway. Does that stuff ever stink. Ick! I'm heading to bed right away so I don't have to breathe too much in.

I guess tomorrow's project will be to do a thorough check for any nests.