Honeymoon: Day 4 Xcaret!

Day 4 of our honeymoon journey, we did our last of the three Xcaret Tours, this time to Xcaret! 

Since Jordan had not been feeling well I was afraid we were going to have to skip our last tour, but I loaded him up with drugs (tylenol) and we shipped off on another bus!

Xcaret is a giant park that has cultural displays, nature exhibits, animal sanctuaries and beaches. There was a lot to take in!

We watched some of the cultural displays including the flying men (Jordan got a cool video of this but I do not know how to upload it.) The men basically come down from ropes by their feet and spin around while one man stays on top and sings and plays a drum. It is a way of honoring the gods.

We walked around and checked out the animal exhibits like the flamingos, jaguars, and manatees

 

Of course I could not miss an opportunity to make Jordan dress up as a turtle since I always call him a snapping turtle! (He snaps his jaw all the time.)

It was REALLY hot so we again did some water activities including some snorkling. We had to lock up the camera for this part so no photos. We also checked out the cemetery, stain glass windows, and butterfly pavilion. 

 

As you may know, I am kind of bird obsessed, so of course I dragged Jordan around the aviary. There were all sorts of parrots, flamingos, and water birds. 

 I was a bit disappointed since all of the pictures in the advertisements had parrots sitting on people, yet none of them seemed to want to be my friend. 

At the very end of the day we discovered my FAVORITE part of the park - the gift shop! Inside the gift shop were these bird eggs in an incubator that were hatching as you watched. It was amazing! All of a sudden you would be watching and ::CRACK:: a baby chick would go flying out and run around on top of the other eggs. I think I was literally crying I was so excited. Jordan joked that it was a good thing we did not see them earlier or I wouldn't have wanted to go see anything else.

We had the option to stay for a cultural show with dancing and music, but neither of us were feeling too good by this point so we decided to take the early bus home after having a traditional Mexican dinner.

Honeymoon: Day 3 Xplor!

Day 3 led us to another day of adventures. Throughout this time we had also spent some time at the pool, wandering around the resort and using our enormous jacuzzi in bedroom of course. 

Some statue in the resort lobby

We started the morning with a breakfast buffet at the Green Break room at the resort, which was a lovely buffet. We then hopped on another bus from the Xcaret company to check out Xplor! 

Since Xplor was largely water based, we did not bring our camera. But here are some pictures we snapped from from the bus. It was very interesting to see how variable Playa del Carmen was, it was tons of resorts and then little shacks like this: 

 

The tour guide described it as the industry in the Yucatan was currently tourism and rocks. We did also pass a few agave farms where they grow agave for tequila! The bus was going to fast at those points to take pictures though. 

 

There were A LOT of gorgeous parts of Mexico (and we obviously only saw a tiny piece of it) I just found the juxtaposition between the massive resorts and the tiny houses to be very interesting.  

Xplor was the "Adventure Theme Park" of the Yucatan.  Like I said, we did not take any pictures so these as from their website (linked) 

We started off by zip lining. I had never done it before, actually we were going to go ziplining for my bachelorette party but were unable to go because of a thunderstorm, so this was a good redemption.  There were two lines, one was higher and slower and one was faster and lower. They were both quite nice. We got to see the view of the park and some wild animals and fantastic caves. There were also a few splash landings!

Our next stop was to the underground cave swimming. There was the option to either swim or raft, we did the swimming. We also discovered that Jordan had extremely squeaky flip-flops after this adventure and I almost killed him <3 br="">

We then hung out for a bit on some hammocks to dry off (unfortunately the day we went here was the coldest day of our trip so after cave diving we needed to do some defrosting!) We also enjoyed some delicious fresh juice and smoothies! 

Next tried some amphibious vehicles.  We went zooming around the park and through caves and rivers! I am not going to lie, this was not too exciting and we were so cold at this point we were trying to focus on not getting any more wet.

Finally, we engaged in our favorite activity: the lunch buffet. We saved this for the end after all of the crazy excursions. They had a nice mix of foods but it was somewhat funny how every buffet also offered hotdogs and hamburgers (trying to appease the American kids!). 

Unfortunately our day of events left Jordan not feeling very good and I promptly took him back to the hotel and tucked him in! He blamed it on swallowing the zipline water but I think it was just the flying, and traveling since there were no GI symptoms.

Honeymoon: Day 2 Chichén Itzá!

 (Day 2 of our very delayed recap of our Honeymoon, in honor of Jessica.) 

Jordan’s mother had scared the bejesus out of us telling us about how his aunt was kidnapped in Mexico, so prior to going I had planned out a bunch of touristy trips before hand. I also made a very detailed agenda of our trip which everyone made fun of me for.

Our first trip was to Xichen Mayan Ruins, to Chichén Itzá (pronounced like chicken pizza). We did all of our tours through http://www.xcaret.com/ and did the 3 tour bundle, it was definitely worth it if you are considering doing to Mexico in the Playa del Carmen/ Cancun region.

Our first stop (which by the way, was a LONG ride ~2 hours, so if you go you might consider bringing a book which I neglected to do!)  was the Mayan Ruins! I admittedly did not know too much about them before hand so it was very interesting to get the guided tour.

They used to let people climb the ruins and go inside, but apparently people were doing graffiti inside. Inside sounded very cool and complex, apparently the more famous the person, the higher levels they got to go to. For example the priests were numero uno and got to go to the tippity top!

Along the side are these cool snake heads, that when the shadow hits them just right was a sign that it was time to plant the crops and harvest the crops. It was also a time for human sacrifice.

Along the walls were lines and lines of skulls, representing all of the human sacrifices made for the gods.

 They have a huge arena with these hoops on either side. The players hit a ball with a bat type of object in order to get the ball through the hole. At the end of the game one of the teams was sacrificed, it was unclear if it was the winning or losing team! It may have been considered a big honor to be sacrificed so it is hypothesized that the winners were sacrificed.  Those hoops were high up so I have no idea how anyone could get a ball up there.

Arena Hoops 

 While the ancient Mayans were not sacrificing people or playing games, they had some very well organized market places where most business would occur. There were pillars like this organized around in the market place where people used to gather to do their shopping.

 

In modern times, everyone now tries to sell the tourists stuff! Specifically masks and obsidian rock noted to have healing properties (think those rocks they put on people during a massage!) 

Beer was complimentary on the tour as well, also a great selling point.

We then went to Zací Mayan cenote, a natural swimming hole in a cave. It was gorgeous. There were some people swimming in the hole, but we were only given 30 minutes to explore so we did not have the chance. We almost got left behind by the tour bus as it was!

 

 

I was pretending to dive off the edge, but since you cannot see the edge it was less dramatic. Let us also note how red my arm was and this is only day 2!! They joked that in Yucatan, you can tan! I apparently could burn :x

An alter where some people worship

Entrance to the cave

 Our final stop of the day was Valladolid, Yucatan. We had lunch there and then got to wander around the city a little bit (Since Jordan and I had just almost gotten left behind at the sink hole we were very tentative to wander too far!) The town was very interesting. It used to also contain Mayan Ruins, but they were torn down and the town was built, but interestingly they used some of the same rocks that had been in the pyramids to make the new buildings.

 We mostly just checked out the local cathedral. There were a lot of people begging here and really showed the poverty of this particular area.

 

The end of the evening was us returning on our 2+ hour bus ride, after complimentary beers all day, so we once again hit the hay pretty early!  

Honeymoon: Day 1

This is (as usual) an extremely delayed post. It is dedicated to Jessica as I promised her back in February that I would give her the low down on my honeymoon, and I seem to have kept putting it off. I have verbally told a lot of people about it so I started to lose my zeal about talking about it! So finally not that it is April, I am getting to putting it down in words.

As a precursor, I got married in September but we decided to postpone our honeymoon.

1. We had no money after the wedding.
2. It was too hard to take off time from work for the wedding and the honeymoon at the same time/ too stressful to plan both events at once.
3. Jordan’s cousin Michael was getting married in February in Mexico and we could no afford to take two trips so we lumped them together!
4. Apparently September is hurricane season in a lot of the areas we wanted to go so it may not have been the best time.

I am very happy with our delayed honeymoon. It was especially nice to get away from the New England winter in February whereas we would not have appreciated the weather as much had we gone in September (though it was gorgeous regardless!)

Jordan and I departed Sunday morning, February 17th and flew out of Logan airport at 6:40 am, with a lay over in Houston Texas.  This was my first time in Texas! Though it was not terribly eventful as it was only an hour or so long lay over.

It was very confusing regarding to time changed because we went back to hours from Boston to Texas, and then went forward one when flying into Mexico for a total of only 1 hour behind, but by the end of the plane rides I had no idea what was going on. My ears popped a lot but overall the flight went well.

We arrived in Cancun Mexico around 2 pm local time. A fellow American at the baggage claim gave the advice to walk fast and don’t stop for anything in the entrance of the airport because everyone would try to sell you something and you would never get out! So we kept on walking, and boy was that good advice because everyone was on us like a fly on honey!

I had arranged for a shuttle from the airport to our hotel so we scrambled through tons of tourists, cabs, and shuttles in order to find the right one. There were a lot of people in blue shirts and khaki pants that we were told to look out for from the shuttle company! Our hotel was ~30 minutes away from the airport.  My father has a time share so for our wedding gift he gave us a week of his time share and he organized our hotel stay which was great. We stayed at the “Grand MayanRivieria Maya” in Playa del Carmen. The resort was great. It was huge and had a lot of character. It also boasted the second largest pool in the world. It also had a beach right on the ocean, but despite nice sand it was also all reefy and dangerous so we did not spend much time there. 

view from the beach

 

Pool Bar 

Part of the second largest pool in the world

The hotel also had some cool wild life include flamingos, crocidiles, stray cats, tons of lizards and iguanas and even a lemur! 

 

Baby Crocodile

Our room was excessively large, it was a “suite” and probably more square feet than our house. We had a kitchenette, living room, bathroom and bedroom with a Jacuzzi bathtub in the bedroom. We also had a little patio and a “spa” aka a wading pool. 

Our enormous bed

 

Our living room

Once we got set up we took a walk around the resort, took some pictures, had dinner by the pool and went to bed early after a long day of traveling.

Jordan strolling along the resort

I insisted on having a Pina Colada the first day even though I was freezing, but it was delicious.

Quarter Life Crisis

I’ve been going through what I call my quarter life crisis for a while now.

I am 25 years old. A ‘real’ adult. Its weird how many times I have had to tell myself that. Its funny when you are young and you think of 18 as an adult, and then when you are teenager you think of maybe 20 as being an adult then by 20, I though once I finished college. Now, low and behold, there is nothing preventing me from being an adult.

I just do not feel remotely as accomplished as I feel I should be.

Regarding work: I like my job, but I do not LOVE my job. I was really enjoying combining my two jobs, working at MGH in research and NWH doing clinical work. I actually just resigned from NWH because MGH offered me full time hours and from a financial stand point, it makes more sense. I am getting to cover an outpatient clinic once a week at MGH so at least I get that variety.  I do not really feel like I am helping people as much as I want to. I do not feel as necessary. I am still a big advocate of health, nutrition and preventative care, but unfortunately the majority of our society is not.

When storm Nemo just hit and I had to work at the hospital so many people said, “But why? You are not an essential employee. You are not a doctor or a nurse.” Ok, obviously the doctors and the nurses are important, but dietitians play their role too, and in the case of an emergency I am sure I could help out wherever needed.

This was the ocean near my house during winter storm Nemo. 

And my house... 

and the road! 

            Personally, I am married to a pretty awesome guy, so that’s good. I do not know if we will ever have kids, but right now I still feel “too young” and from the financial side we definitely couldn’t hack it right now. We are happy with are furry and feathered babies. We almost got a new puppy recently, but at the last minute Jordan’s mother requested that we did not, and since she is technically our landlord, we had to listen.

           

Speaking of which, on the home front we had previously talked about moving to California, but now since I have a steady job and Jordan is doing pretty well with his work we haven’t discussed it recently. We have been living in the cottage next to his parent’s house to safe money. It is in Gloucester, which is gorgeous, but it is far from a lot of things. It is also a bit hard to be semi- living with his parents (though it does work out well for pet care.)

            I think part of the problem is I am so used to being so busy with school and work to only have work now seems weird. For the past year I had planning a wedding as a “hobby” but now that that is over I need something new. I have just been depressed and uninterested in doing anything. I have been watching a lot of television.

            I made a “bucket list” a long time ago but it needs revising. I have been pinteresting away about things I want to accomplish. A lot of what people have on their lists are to go certain places, but I do not know if I really want to make my life about traveling to places that other people say are special. I am sure the Taj Mahal is amazing, but I do not know if visiting it will make my life have more purpose. I would rather spend my time and money on things that will make my life more valuable to myself and others. (I do really want to go to India though.)

            Anyway, I am going to attempt to get out of this funk. We are taking our belated honeymoon to Mexico next week! So at least that will be something different. I haven’t been on a real vacation in a while. Maybe it will change my perception on travel too.

Here are some of my bucket list-a lot of them are rather vague but I guess that is part of the beauty of figuring out life :)  what is on yours?

New Years “resolutions”

I admit – I started writing this post before new years and somehow never finished.

I realize the last time I blogged about “New Years” was the start of 2010! Reading it, I am really happy I wrote that post. It was a great summary of a year as well as my goals for the coming year. Looking back at my post nearest to New Years this year, I realize I was really depressed and remember not wanting to blog because everything I started to write came out negative and whiny. But I think either way it is important to regroup, recap and reinvest myself in life and thinking about what I want.

A look back at 2012

Work Stuff:

• Started working at Newton Wellesley as a Clinical Inpatient Dietitian
• Did Maternity leave at Massachusetts General Hospital as a Research Dietitian.
• Got offered and accepted a permanent job at MGH as a Research dietitian.
• Got my very own NIH research protocols! (Up to 9 now!)

Personal Stuff:

• I was a Bridesmaid in my good friend Melissa’s wedding (the first wedding I have been in since I was a flower girl around age 5!) 

• Melissa got pregnant- making her my first friend close friend MY age to becoming a mom! (I have lots of friends with kids, but they all seem older and it still seemed out of the realm of possibility even though I guess I am getting to be a real live adult now.)

• Got married myself to one of my best friends.

• Got a new name!
• Maintained my optimism for the most part.
• Made it through most major holidays without my typical self destructive melt downs.
• Despite being a lot further away from most of my friends – I think I managed to maintain a lot of good friendships- though there is always room for improvement and love seeing everyone!

Physical:

• Tried hot yoga (and hated it!)
• Tried crossfit (and loved it!)
• Ran my first 5K (Zombie Run for Our Lives) 
• Did the 10,000 push up challenge (100 push ups every day for 100 days before the wedding.)
• Did lots of other yoga
• Started working out with my hubby :) 

Looking back on my 2010 “resolutions”

· Learn how to accept a compliment – I have definitely gotten better at this.

· Work on being healthy, mentally and physically. – Still working on it. While I may have more adipose tissue, and I am not sure about my cholesterol etc, I would say I definitely feel better, and I am treating myself a lot better than I used to.

· Live in the moment, but make decisions that I will be comfortable with and proud of looking back.  – So far so good. If anything I may have found I do better when I plan a bit more!

· Continue to work on financial stability, while paying off undergrad loans.  -  I still feel like I have no money- but I did successfully graduate grad school with no debt, and I only have <$1000 left on my undergrad loans. I do now have a car payment, however, but little by little, chipping away!

· Prioritize. And make sure I am living accordingly. – An ongoing battle!

Goals for 2013:

·         Be happy

·         Be healthy (physically and mentally)

·         Be financially responsible

o       Finish paying off my school loans  

o       Pay off at least 1/3 of my car loan

o       Continue saving for the future/ an emergency

·         Keep learning

o       Listen to NPR or the news at least every work day.

·         Try new things (maybe do 1 new thing a month?? Hmm I will have to think more about this!)

I have taken so many counseling classes that I know my goals should be specific and manageable, but for now, I am going to leave it at that!

What are your thoughts on resolutions and the New Year?