Of Measurements and Mexico

Ah....to be on solid ground...actually, it's very unnerving because I keep swaying like I think the Earth is moving or something!

We're finally home, and I just walked in the door. Well, I walked in about an hour ago, but there was mail and e-mail and it's all piled up. Good thing I'm not someone important, or I'd be overwhelmed :)

The cruise was a lot of fun! I'm going to try not to bore you all the long details, but I'm going to give you some play by play action. The drive down was a million miles (we didn't go all the way to Galveston--we stopped about 45 minutes away), so I did get to know at least the names and some brief information on the ladies in the van with me (there were 11 in the van and another 5 in another car--and I did talk with them on food breaks). What a fabulous group of ladies--and I'm being totally sincere, as none of them have my blog address yet ;) It was really nice to be able to surround myself with Christian women and to have a great sense of peace about the trip.

The boat was actually not as big as I thought. I mean, it was huge (crew of 900 and 2500 passengers), but I think it's one of the smaller that Carnival has. And Carnival is a party cruise line to be sure. It didn't take long at all to get on the ship, and I was able to room with my long lost friend "K" aka Kristin (check our her blog linked to this page). That was another great blessing because K and I have been friends since high school, and I feel totally comfortable with her and it's like although months go by, our friendship picks up where it left off.

I guess it's a good thing that I've outgrown the must be drunk to have a good time phase (actually, I never hit that phase but did manage to get slightly sloshed on a conference once before--that's the only claim to fame I have as a drunk...oh, and the time I set the oven on fire because I hid the alcohol in the oven when I wasn't quite so clear and had to call the fire department). However, it was refreshing to see that you never outgrow the need to have fun, and even more interesting to see that the most intoxicated on board were all over 60 years old. Totally have K's permission to share this story, and I'm sure she'll post it better on her site. We were at formal night and K was dressed dashingly, but needed to take off her slip after dinner as she discovered that it was longer than her slit in the dress would allow. We meet up with two ladies that must have been 297 years old, and they had been having a "good time" for hours. One of them decided that she needed to help K, and much to everyone's surprise (there were like 7-8 ladies in the area of the restroom), she launched herself on the floor and put her whole upper body under K's dress. This very....friendly...lady became so intent on assisting K, and with the ship rocking (apparently the roughest seas are between Galveston and Cozumel), let's just say that she wasn't very successful. I don't think any of us have laughed so hard--we were literally on the floor with laughter, and that had nothing to do with the fact that one couldn't walk straight because of the sea!

Everyone talks about the food on a ship, and as I am the pickiest eater (you can't tell from looking at me!), I loved having so many choices. My favorite was of course the dessert--and the fact that you can as many as you want. To work it off, I walked a ton on the ship (almost always took the stairs and walked the boat each night)...I'm sure I only gained 20 pounds instead of 21, but that's okay.

K and I rented a moped to see Cozumel. We ended up with a double seater, and I left the driving up to K. K was very sweet about my trusting her to drive, but I don't think I actually thought twice about it--which is odd, because after a rollover a couple of years ago, I barely trust Hubby to drive me around. If anyone can explain to me why the United States doesn't use the same systems for measurement as the rest of the world, that would be great. Obviously everything was in meters and the speed limit would be posted like 40 km or something...not that any of the Mexicans followed it. The moped topped out at 60 (or that was the recommended speed for it), and I think we stayed pretty close to it. We went all the way around Cozumel, and the beaches are gorgeous--just like the pictures. I proved that I should never ever get in an ocean, as the minute I got in the rocks were being washed ashore and onto me and I did get a cut--a teeny, tiny scratch really--on my foot. We didn't leave the shore to venture into the ocean though. We found a really neat restaurant on top of a cliff purely by accident, and had our first lesson in how many pesos make up a US dollar (it's not 100 pesos=1 dollar, by the way). Spent some money (I actually spent more money on the ship with the spa!), watched K talk several dealers down in price, and got back on the ship.

Second stop was the Yucatan/Progresso. Progresso is very dirty and very poor and very depressing....like Juarez by the ocean. There's a strip of a boardwalk that looks fairly nice, but as soon as you head a half a block into the town, you see the poverty. I didn't actually stop in Progresso because I took an excursion into Merridia (probably am spelling that wrong) where I rode a segway for the first time ever. You may recognize the segway from the commercials with all the little old people cruising a street aboard a two wheel scooter--the scooter is not vertical but horizontal--and you control it by leaning forward or backward. It's much harder than it sounds to get started, and the turning controls are under your left hand. You push forward for one way and backwards for the other--and I never got that right. It's all about balance, and after being on the choppy water, it was hoot to watch us. We were all dressed nicely in the helmets and the little elbow and knee protectors--I felt like a little kid, but I'm really glad we had them because had we not, I would have fallen off. The excursion included a tour of the museum of history in Merridia, and our tour guide was fantastic. He was very proud of his Mayan heritage and speaks Mayan, Spanish and English fluently. He also speaks Italian--but not as well as the others. He learned them all as a child. He also told us that in the Yucatan, teachers in the smaller villages have to speak Mayan and Spanish in order to teach school. How is it that other countries can teach children multiple languages but the United States doesn't consider it important enough to be mandatory?

It was interesting because our group was 44 women with ages varying from 19 to 83 years old (and two 12 year olds). I was doubly glad to have K with us because there's a bit of a gap where the ladies are 19-24 and then the others were mostly I'd say late 30s and up, so although most of my friends are over 30, I don't really see us as being the older crowd, but I'm definitely not the younger crowd. I think they were surprised by my age too (the younger crowd) because one of them finally ventured to ask me how old I am--and then was unable to ask anything else :) And watching three or four of them made me very reminiscent of the days when we used to take the youth group all over.

So after another day at sea, and another ridiculously long drive last night (I actually drove from outside of Ft. Worth to Amarillo hauling a trailer for the first time ever and I didn't cause any accidents!) where we stopped in Amarillo at 0200 and then left at 0900 to come home. The trip was definitely worth it, and I will feel so much better about recognizing faces in church. I was really ready to come home, too. And that feeling will only last until work figures out I'm in town and calls me to come in.