Sheryl Update

Jeff and I bought this beautiful hand truck a few days ago. It was only $30 and so far is one of best purchases. In other apartments we have had doormen that will bring our groceries or giant water bottles up to our door for a small tip. But in our current apartment there are no doorman and there isn’t cart to ferry things from garage to apartments. And me having a hernia doesn’t help.

It works great for bringing groceries from Uber to apartment.

But the real magic happens when we refill our 20 liter water bottle. We have two so there is always an extra waiting to be filled. We secure it to the hand truck and take a little walk. Jeff even color coordinated with this tree.

Two blocks away is a place called “The Water House.” It is a refill station. For the equivelent of seventy-five cents we can refill our bottle with purified water. Not only is it a good deal, it’s good for the environment. Once it’s filled Jeff puts it back on the hand truck.

And then we head home. We’ve been doing this every few days in the evenings when it’s cooler out.

Here’s a fake photo of me pretending to pull the hand truck. With the full water bottle I could probably do it, but would rather not.

Now that I realized I can upload videos Jeff felt that a video of the process would be riviting. I told him that I would lose readers. He has assured me that this is an exiciting video for all.

On Sunday it was still sweltering hot. But it cooled down enough in the evening to watch sunset from the rooftop.

On Saturday we went to a fancy restaurant. Nectar was is supposed to be one of the best in Merida. If this is true I really don’t need to eat out anymore. It started out good with drinks. Then we got an appetizer of pork belly.

Since pork belly is basically bacon, it seems hard to screw up. But it was just ok.

The best part of the night was when Jeff used the tortilla holder as,a puppet.

Jeff was going to order the pork chops but then remembered that chapulines were grasshoppers. He asked the waiter if they could omit the grasshoppers. The answer was no. It was expensive but not $700 dollars an entre like the menu shows. That’s in pesos. But it was $35 in US dollars so it’s good actually that Jeff didnt get it. He got a burger instead.

I got vennison that came with a plantain. I was worried it would be too gamey. It wasn’t but it was so tough I couldn’t cut it with the provided steak knife. When they saw me struggling they brought me a sharper knife. The black thing was bread which seemed interesting being black. It wasn’t.

We still had fun but won’t be coming back. I think going out for tacos will be more our speed for awhile.

On Friday we went to the beach. Since they don’t celebrate the 4th of July in Mexico it was a normal weekday. We started with breakfast and then rented lounge chairs.

The beach was pretty empty because kids, are still in school for another week and its so hot out there aren’t a lot of cruise ships.

We were happy that the seaweed was more like grass and not the dreaded sargassum.

Even the board walk was empty.

The water was warm and calm which was great. But even in the calmest water, getting out is never easy for me. I asked Jeff to video me trying to get out because it’s always comical. But to then come and help me get out. You can see in this video I give up pretty easily and just wait for him to get me

On Thursday night we went to a comedy show. It was all in English which was good. My Spanish is improving but not enough for jokes. It was a fundraiser for an organization that helps orphanages and schools in the area.

Three of the five comics were Mexican. One was American and one British. They were all really funny. They have an open mic comedy night and for one second I thought, “I want to be a comic” and then I almost had a panic attack just imagining it. I’d much rather stay in the audience.

We’ve gotten the hang of the bus. Most days we can time the bus so we walk to the stop, get on, and get off at the gym. Although Thursday things did not go as planned. We got to the gym ok but then decided to bus to a coffee shop after our workout.

When the didn’t come and it was 102 without shade we got creative. Jeff fashioned his gym towel into a bandana.

I went with the ascot look. After ten minutes we have up and took an Uber to the coffee shop.

On Tuesday we walked around and tiny bit outside and then caught the bus. I love the sign above. Is Jesus saying no to litter?

The two sign on the left is in Spanish but the middle one on the right is in the Mayan language.

It’s hard to tell because the sign is sagging, but this is a, sign for a hamburger and hot dog shop.

KFC has Col Sanders, this place has Jesus.

On Monday night we went to a language exchange.

It was held at the Merida English Library. This library is brillant. It was started and is run by expats and has all English books.

I get all my books online from the Seattle Public library. But, the idea of an actual book on English sounds very nice.

They also have puzzles. If only our Airbnb had an extra table.

The language exchange was really nice. Everyone we were sitting with were learning English. We spent half the time talking English and half the time in Spanish. I was all set to make this a weekly thing when I found out they close until September.

I had a theory that if there is a fruit not common in the US it’s probably because it doesn’t fit our American tastebuds it’s either too sour or too many seeds. But Dragon fruit has proven me wrong. It’s in season now so the stores are full of them.

They look really crazy on the outside, but inside taste like kiwis. And they are supposed to be a super food for anti inflammation.

Here are some other things from the grocery store.

The Mexican wine section. We have had some good Mexican wines.

Frozen poblano strips. This sounds gross not who knows, if you are going to cook them anyway.

No idea what this is. Some kind of fruit pastel maybe?

This is some kind of diet food. There were a lot of d of different flavors. This one is mango and chili.

And of course the baggers, all older gentlemen. They all work for tips only and take turns. They always seems happy when we tip. I don’t think all gringos know you are supposed to tip. So they are never expecting much from us.

Here’s a,weird thing, growing up neither of us were into the Blues. When we moved to Chicago after college we lived in walking distance to Blues clubs, but never went. Now we love the Blues but there aren’t many places to hear it live in Latin América.

There is a place in Merida with live music. On Saturday night they had a Blues band.

The band went on at 7:30. By 8:00 when we got there the place was full and we had to go to overflow seating at the rooftop bar where we ordered fancy drinks. At 9:00pm a table opened up. The top photo is us all excited to be sitting in the area to see the band

The band was great. It was weird hearing a Muddy Waters song and voice come out of this lead singer.

It was also weird hearing the song “Sweet Home Chicago” then the band talking in Spanish.

By 10:00 we were tired and the bar closed. We didn’t even feel like party poopers, since the band was done playing and the bar was closing.