Having a lovely time, wish you were here
I've never actually been to Puerto Vallarta in the nice season, and it's pretty amazingly nice, only slightly more humid than it would be in Santa Cruz at this time of year, and no warmer. I'm actually a little chilly with all of the sea breezes, but that's normal for me even at home in the spring and I'm happy I brought my shawl. (I'd thought I'd only need it for the airport up north, and I was wrong!)
Right now I'm tapping away on Teresa's laptop while sitting in a balcony overlooking the blue blue sea. There are Magnificent Frigate Birds (what a great name!) wheeling around nearby. We go to sleep with the sound of the surf every night (sometimes punctuated by karoake and other music, but they cut off sharply at ten, very nice.) I've actually been waking up very early in the morning because even our west facing rooms get a lot of light, so the sun has nudged my body clock back to a more reasonable schedule.
I'm sleeping a LOT, most of every afternoon, but it's nice just to be here. It's changed a ton since I was a little girl, into a weird cross between the Mexico I remember and Waikiki, but it's very nice to be somewhere so much like paradise, so near to the warm ocean, and it's fun to watch all of the funny tourists just like watching the birds -- look, there's the white headed parasailer! I was trying to figure out if the crested tail from jet-skis was necessary to the balance of the vehicle or just for looks.
It's a good walking town and there's a big esplanade with nifty statues along the beach. There are lots of high pressure salesmen around, usually trying to sell timeshares (ugh) and they have all sorts of tricks, which is funny when you've heard "why do you have two wives?" the third time. (Since Brad is here with me and Teresa and we look pretty similar, he gets that a lot.) Salesman evolution.
The kitchen is great to have, too. We've been eating mostly food that we cooked, and the supermarket was a lot of fun. I wonder how different it is from a megamart in a non-resort town? Probably pretty different, but even catering to all the tourists the differences are pretty fun; they have a great big bread department and a huge butcher's department, with lots of different cuts. It's interesting to see what produce is good here, too -- apples are not terribly good here, and as a result popular and prized, like exotic tropical fruit are up north. We got some pre-packaged mole, adobo, and pumpkin seed sauces, which is lazy yet delicious. Reading the Spanish ingredients is challenging, but a lot of the packaged food is more simply made so it's not super duper hard, and Teresa knows quite a bit of Spanish.
Right now I'm tapping away on Teresa's laptop while sitting in a balcony overlooking the blue blue sea. There are Magnificent Frigate Birds (what a great name!) wheeling around nearby. We go to sleep with the sound of the surf every night (sometimes punctuated by karoake and other music, but they cut off sharply at ten, very nice.) I've actually been waking up very early in the morning because even our west facing rooms get a lot of light, so the sun has nudged my body clock back to a more reasonable schedule.
I'm sleeping a LOT, most of every afternoon, but it's nice just to be here. It's changed a ton since I was a little girl, into a weird cross between the Mexico I remember and Waikiki, but it's very nice to be somewhere so much like paradise, so near to the warm ocean, and it's fun to watch all of the funny tourists just like watching the birds -- look, there's the white headed parasailer! I was trying to figure out if the crested tail from jet-skis was necessary to the balance of the vehicle or just for looks.
It's a good walking town and there's a big esplanade with nifty statues along the beach. There are lots of high pressure salesmen around, usually trying to sell timeshares (ugh) and they have all sorts of tricks, which is funny when you've heard "why do you have two wives?" the third time. (Since Brad is here with me and Teresa and we look pretty similar, he gets that a lot.) Salesman evolution.
The kitchen is great to have, too. We've been eating mostly food that we cooked, and the supermarket was a lot of fun. I wonder how different it is from a megamart in a non-resort town? Probably pretty different, but even catering to all the tourists the differences are pretty fun; they have a great big bread department and a huge butcher's department, with lots of different cuts. It's interesting to see what produce is good here, too -- apples are not terribly good here, and as a result popular and prized, like exotic tropical fruit are up north. We got some pre-packaged mole, adobo, and pumpkin seed sauces, which is lazy yet delicious. Reading the Spanish ingredients is challenging, but a lot of the packaged food is more simply made so it's not super duper hard, and Teresa knows quite a bit of Spanish.