Calvin's Weblog

Chichen Itza!

This morning, we're up at seven. I had a big omlette for breakfast. Okay, maybe that;s not exactly something that I couldn't eat at home (remember my vow to only eat authentic Mexican food on this trip), but it WAS Mexican, and it WAS good, it was mad by a Mexican, and I had salsa on it... so there! At 9:15 we picked up our box lunches at the front desk (since it's all inclusive, if you're going to miss a meal, they'll pack you one - kewl!) and boarded our bus to Chichen Itza.

The bus first stopped at Plaza La Fiesta for 1/2 n hour and we were forces to walk around a huge overpriced warehouse of tacky souvenirs, but at 10:15 boarding began again, and we got outta there without spending anything.
Chichen Itza is in another state, so we had to go through a border checkpoint between Quintana Roo and Yukatan state - interesting... a border crossing just going from one state to the next? There was also a fairly expensive toll booth - $190 pesos for a bus. After two hours of driving, we stopped at a tribal gift shop, where everything was still too expensive. Well, everything except the tacos and beer... I got 3 tacos, a beer, and two bottles of water for 50p, so that was a pretty good deal! About half an hour after that, we were at Chichen Itza.

Oh - I didn't mention the storm on the way in! Rain like you wouldn't believe... almost all the way - but when we got to the ruins, it was HOT (38 degrees) and MUGGY. Humidity was 100%, and even the Mexicans were dripping. No, seriously - our tour guide said "It's only 36 to 38 today - that's typical for the spring - we'll see 45 to 50 degrees in a couple of months - but what we're feeling right now is not the heat, it's the humidity. This is absolutely unbearable humidity - even for us Mexicans. Because of the rain earlier, which is never supposed to happen in the hot season - if this were ancient times, this would be a sign that the gods were angry, and someone would be sacrificed for sure!"

The runis were amazing. We were very fortunate to be able to (mostly) stay in the shade all day, but it was still a very sweaty, drippy, sticky day... we had over 30 square miles of ancient city to check out... big city, long day!

We climbed the pyramid, both outside and inside, and in all, spent about four full hours on the grounds before going for dinner.

We had what they 'said' was cochinita pibil and pollo pibil, but they didn't even taste remotely like waht I made... either I'm a great cook, or I'm a terrible one... or we were just eating at a really bad restaurant, or maybe they just lied about it being pibil. Well, it was good - hell, all Mexican food is good! I just wish it was what I expected. During dinner, four kids (maybe aged 8 to 11?) came in, wearing traditional costumes, and did a bunch of traditional dances for us. The most impressive was probably when they repeated a previously furious dance with half full bottles of Corona on their heads - great balance!!! We gave them a couple 'o' bucks, then it was back on the bus and heading back to see the Chichen Itza night time light show, which was supposed to start at 8. We were there 15 minutes early. Carole bought two carvings of Mayan gods for two bucks, from one of the vendors outside who was just packing up for the night and trying to get out of there... helluva deal!

About 10 minutes to eight, the thunder and lightning started ... and then the RAIN - WHOOOOOWEEEE, the rain! We had to wait until 8:10 to see if the show was going to go on, and since the rain was tapering off, they went ahead - unfortunately though, the translator headphones that we were looking forward to getting don't work in the rain (the 1 hour show is in spanish, but you can get headphones that translate to english) so we couldn't get any. We ended up watching the 45 minute show in the pouring rain, in spanish - but at least all the thunder and lightning really added to the show!

At 9 PM we all loaded back on to the bus, and had a bit of a snooze before getting back to the hotel at 11:30. Our fullest day so far!

Day 3 in Quintana Roo

Ah... a nice sleep in ... must be getting into vacation mode! We're up at 9:30, and barely make it to breakfast in time (end at 10AM).
Then we take the bus all the way through Hotel Zone to Cancun City - 20km, 6 pesos. We went to a mall first (Plaza Americas) but didn't find anything so we walked down Tulum Ave to the flea market and picked up all our souvenirs. Ran out of money, and had to go to the currency exchange booth twice just to buy lunch! Two big pollo flautas and four coronas came to $22US. A good value for Canada, but we probable (read:definetely) got ripped off here. Carole bought a silver chain and turquios pendant - they said "regular 770p, for you 550!" - we said we only had 400 left and she said okay, but I still think that $40US was too much - certainly worth the entertainment value though!

On the bus back we saw all the hotels again - Avalon Grande looks nice ... so does the Blue Bay ... we have to go there Thursday, maybe we'll see Bert.

Dinner was good again tonight - had a little of everything again. Saw the "pirate" show at 9PM, wasn't much more than a macho contest like we saw last night, but with no band. Back in the room by 10PM - a lazy day, but long and hot. I only had about 16 drinks too ... dead sober - I'll have to do something about that tomorrow!!!

First full day in Cancun

We're up and out to breakfast by 8:30. It's not exactly the 'traditional fare' I was hoping for, but it was certainly Mexican. I was careful to avoid any and all food that I could get at home (imlette, french toast, pancakes, etc) and stuck to stuff I've never had before. Hey, when in Rome, right? Becides - it was all delicious!

We had an orientation meeting at 9:15 - they warned us not to book any excursions without going through our tour representitive first (loads of scams out there) but fortunately the two trips we booked last night turned out to be legit... phew! Plus, we actually got out two excursions for a few bucks cheaper that what we were told to expect, so that's kewl.... well, aside from that fact that it cost me over $300 for two day trips - but, hey, it's a vacation... spend money... that's what ya do.

After orientation we cross the street and check out the marina on the lagoon side of the strip... lagoon... or should I say swamp? Naw, most of it's pretty nice, but just where we happened to see first - well, that reminded me of the everglades. Didn't see any aligators, but LOTS of iguanas! They're everywhere!

We decided to head north, on foot, up the highway 1.5 KM to the Ruinas El Rey. It was 30 pesos each ($3 US) to walk unescorted through 1/2 a KM of 700 year old ruins. Totally cool! Carole took lots of pictures, Mostly of iguannas though...
Carole has blisters already (day one? ugh!) so we walk back along the beach. This way was MUCH more refreshing, plus we got to walk through a topless beach - quite a bonus!

At 1PM we clean up (we're sweaty... it's like 34 degrees...), lather up, go to lunch, then lounge on the beach. (very good Mexican lunch - mui caliente!)
We're off the beach by 4, and I discover one small spot that I must've forgot to put lotion on - right between my nechlace and upper back, on the back of my neck - so I've got a crimson crecent above my shoulders now. Kewl. It's burned, but very small. The rest is great. I'd call this a pretty successful day in the sun, considering my Irish genes...
Carole, on the other hand (oh, sweet irony) is pretty burned - ha! That'll teach her not to make fun O' the Irish! I went out to the ocean to try to catch some waves but didn't have much luxk - only got dragged down once, ate some sand and snorted some salt, but came up okay... exhausted, but okay. So we're going to chillax in the A/C for an hour, shower, go have some drinks, then it's out for dinner. I've had 8 glasses of Dos Equis (Can I just call it 'XX' from now on?) since noon - a very slow drinking day so far - gotta catch up!

Back in from having drinks by 6:50 PM. I dunno, maybe I had 8, 10, 12 cups of XX? Feels like a sixpack, so it's probably about twelve. We met Barbie and Ken from Calgary. That was interesting. Dinner is pretty quick - we chill in the room for 15, but some soothe-o-caine on da burnz then head back out to dinner.

There's a "nice" restaurant at the hotel, bu it requires reservations. We make reservations for 8PM on Thursday - hopefully we're back from Isla Mujeres on time!

Another phrase to remember when sitting at the bar drinking your face off is "Otra de lo mismo" which means 'same again, please!'.

After dinner we got to see the "Welcome Show" in the open air auditorium. I have another 13 XX (yes, I'm keeping track, and so's da wife) by the end of it - certainly enough - I'm glad I'm not driving anywhere, but I sure slept well! The live band was like a caricature of a Mexican band - they played Santana covers, Tequilla, La Bamba, and every other typical mariachi staple you could think of. I really wanted to go up on stage and grab the guitar, and just wail, but luckily I was just one or two beers short of making a fool out of myself. Anyway, that was our first full day in Mexico!

Viva La Mexico!

It's 4AM, and we're up. The plane doesn't leave until 7:15, but we've gotta get ready, get to the airport, check in and get through customs... as it turns out, we only had 1/2 an hour to kill at the airport. In case you haven't guessed yet, we're on vacation! Destination: Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico!

On the plane we got to watch 'Something's Gotta Give' and 'Love Actually'. We're still debating whether that made the trip go slower, or more quickly...

Arival in Cancun was at 3PM Central Time, so that's really 1PM Pacific. Quick math... it was a 5 and 3/4 hour flight. It's currently 31 degrees and hyooooo-MID! Cloudy, but nice. :-)
It takes another hour to get through customs and imigration.

The bus driver that takes us to our hotel is selling bottles Corona for $3 US, and even though we're 20 minutes away from a week of 'all inclusive' food and drinks, I say what-the-hey and buy one.
The hotel's really nice - not 'high class', but nice, and comfortable.
By the way, Carole has already got all her piuctures online, so instead of pasting them in the blog, I'm just going to provide links to her gallery... like this...
Here's a picture of the front of the resort and Here's what it looked like out back

We went four a walk down the beach, southward toward Club Med, and turned around as the sun started to go down. I had about 7 glasses of the complimentary beer (they only give you 6 oz glasses, but at least it's Dos Equis!)
It's pretty windy here - and sticky, but warm, and I do likes it warm...

It's now about 5PM, and dinner is at 7, so we buy a bag of chips and a big bottle of water for 26 pesos ($3.50) to tide us over ... we hadn't figured out that there was a complimentary snack bar down by the pool yet...
For dinner I had a big make-you-own salad and tacos chorizo caliente, bifek y salsa, and ice cream for desert! Oh, and 5 more cups of Dos Equis. After dinner we return to our room and practise some very important spanish phrases that we'll be needing in the coming days. Like "Una cervesa para llebar, por favor!" and "Dos cerveca para llevar, por favor!", and "Tres cervesa para llevar, por favor!"
Another handy one was "come se dice..." (how do you say...)

After that we went down and booked a couple of day trips for the coming days. The first to Chichen Itza, an dthe 2nd to Isla Mujeres. By 10pm it had already been a very LONG day for us, and we ended up crashing. That's it for day one!

Geez Louise - this is CNN Headline news?

"He was a big boy and obviously aroused," Alsop told the Sun newspaper on Thursday.
"He sidled up against us. The next thing I know he's banging away at the car and it's rocking like hell."

Read the whole glorious news flash here (CNN:)
Rhino gets amorous with car

Cumin: My new favorite spice... but with a side effect

Over the last week I've been cooking a lot of 'worldly' meals, and there's one thing they all have had in common: Cumin.
Sure, lots of other cool spices too, like turmeric, coriander, cyan, allspice, chili, etc - but no matter what else you add, if there's cumin, it's dominant.

A week ago it started when I made Puerco Pibil - a slow roasted pork dish from the Yucatan... the adept may recal this as being the dish that was so good, it made Jonny Depp kill the cook in Once Upon a Time in Mexico - Trust me, it really IS that good.

Next, when all the pork was gone (like, a day later) I made Picadillo Chimichangas, and they were awesome! Think of a regular beef chimichanga, but throw in some roasted apple, cinnamon, and raisins. It's really gooooooood... I guess I was on a bit of a Mexican trip, or maybe I was just trying to toughen up my guts for our trip to Cancun in a couple days...

Anyway, my next triumph (Sunday) was Aloo Gobi, an Indian potato and cauliflower dish with lots of cumin.... yummmm!
I followed that up with a couple of loaves of traditional Italian Olive Bread - which had no cumin... so that was strange... but there was an entire roasted red onion and a jar of olives in two loaves, so again, awesome, awesome, awesome... but no cumin.

Realizing that I had gone a day without cumin, last night I made an absolutely killer Moroccan Chicken (which of course had cumin) on a bed of rice - with the extra sauce drizzled all over. Oh, yum. Let me tell ya - dat's some good shitte lad. There's enough leftovers for dinner tonight, but I still am planning on cooking anyway - Carole has been bugging my to make my famous Greek Dolmades again, so that's what I'm going to do. I wonder how they'd turn out if I replaced that pinch of cinnamon with a pinch of cumin - LOL.

So... the side effect... My house, my car, my clothes, my office, my body itself... everything around me smells like a bus load of Abbotsford berry pickers. That stuff just leaches out of your pours! I smell like a curry house, and I haven't even used curry in any of my dishes! Revelation: that smell? It's cumin, not curry... and it does NOT go away without a fight. Don't get me wrong - at first, I loved it - it's an amazing spice - I kept going to the cupboard and opening the bag of cumin just to get another whiff... it's THAT enticing. But when you come home from work, open the front door and realize that that same smell is oozing out of your walls, it's a different story all together.

The moral? Like anything else so decadent, use sparingly. Indulge once every month or so, and let the air clear before indulging again.

PS - if anybody wants my recipes, let me know - I'm actually thinking of putting together a small cookbook of all my favorite stuff some day, but for now I'm still in the 'trying something new' phase. Two old staples that everyone know and love, are my (in)famous Potato Salad, and my Sunday Morning Crepes - but one new favorite, that I plan on making A LOT, is the Puerco Pibil (called Cochinita Pibil to the locals).

Hockey Hangover

Anyone else got it? You know the feeling... the one where your home team is the conference champion, and for the first round of the Stanley Cup, they get to play the lowest scoring team to make it in to the playoffs... and then your team loses in overtime of game seven, to be booted from the run in round one? Well, the morning after watching that game (a morning like this one for instance) you wake up feeling used up... all the energy you poured in to your team, all the times you lost your voice yelling at the TV, all those tense moments on the edge of your seat, all for nothing. That, my friends, is a little feeling I like to call the Hockey Hangover... and Vancouver has a biggie today.

What else is there to say...

KABOOM!!!

The sound was deafening - the entire building shook, the windows rattled and as the drop ceiling shook and crackled, dust fell down apon us. "What the hell was that???" An earthquake? No, too loud, and too violent. Did a truck run into our building? Even though we've had the earthquake drill pounded into us, everyone instinctively did what they're not supposed to do... run to the windows, pull up the blinds, and look out.
It was easy to find the source - just look at all the people at the bus stop, or all the drivers that had pulled over and got out of their cars, staring awestruck up across the street. Did an airplane crash? Was it a bomb? Directly across the street from where I work, a plume of smoke was wafting up from behind the BCIT North1 building. I had to know what was going on, so I grabbed my jacket and went out front to get a better look. I wasn't alone... there's a bunch of office buildings in the area, and people were pouring out of all of them to see what this intense explosion was all about...
As soon as I could see around North1 and North2, there was no doubt about what had happened - and entire building was gone... well, not gone, just not where it used to be. Half of it, it fact, was on top of the 4 storey trades building directly behind it's former position. Windows were blown in on the adjacent campus. Something done blowed-up good! An endless line of fire trucks, police and ambulances started to arrive - and that's when I realized that this massive blast in the middle of a packed campus MUST have claimed a LOT of casualties. It was a sickening feeling to be so close to such destruction - of couse, the miracle, as we later learned, was that nobody was seriously hurt... a miracle indeed! I'm sure everyone across Canada saw the pictures on the news last night, but pictures of a missing building don't give you a clue of how intense that blast was, even a full block away, with buildings in between.

 

Here's some of the news:
The Globe and Mail
KGW News (Oregon)
National Post
CTV News
CBC News
Xinhua, China

A long, glorious Easter weekend

This weekend was the best. Four days off in a row is great, but temperatures between 20 and 26 every day was absolutely glorious! Thursday night I went out kareoke partyin' with some friends, and then Friday evening we met them at Wood Lake (20km past Weaver Lake, up the west side of Harrison Lake) for dinner at their campsite... they had gone camping that day, and we were out for a drive, so we figured we'd drive by and say Hi... I didn't know at the time that the drive would entail taking my beamer up 20km of logging road, but there was this 'point of no return' thing...
Anyway, it worked out, and it was fun :-)
And yes, I made it back in time for the hockey game!

Saturday we went to White Rock, and after spending 45 minutes to find parking, we got some gellatto, went for an awesome walk in the sun, then kicked back on the deck of a Jamaican restaurant. Sipping Red Stripe beer and eating jerk pork was a pretty damn decent way to spend an afternoon in the sun. After that, we cruised over to historic Steveston to check out the village, and stroll through their beaches. Neither of us had ever been to Steveston before, so that was cool. We'll have to get back there when the Canery museum is open - it looked pretty interesting, and it's supposed to be haunted!

Sunday was a scorcher - twenty-six degrees! I spent most of the time gardening or working in the back yard, but took breaks from the sun do do some inside work too... we took a walk around the neighbourhood in the afternoon, and sweat our shorts off - what ever happened to those April Showers, huh? I actually had to put the sprinkler out - we haven't had rain in weeks and all my grass is drying up!
At 6:30PM it was still 25 degrees, so I raced down to the get a pack 'o' beer in time for the hockey game - Go Canucks! Another win... :-)

Yesterday was overcast, but warm and dry. I spent it inside, cooking, cleaning, racking my beer, doing some computer stuff, and watching a couple of movies. A good way to wind down and get ready for the duldrums of 'employment' to come. So here I am, back at work, recapping and reliving a glorious weekend.
It wasn't too shabby at all.

That must hurt! Having those horseshoes so far up there...

Yes, I think my wife is going to need surgery to have those horseshoes removed from her ass. I think my luck has finally, completely, rubbed off on her. Still in a glaze from having won an international photo contest on Monday,
(by the way, here's the winning picture)

Carole received a phone call yesterday from A&B Sound saying "Congratulations! You're our grand prize winner in our 'Win the School of Rock guitar autographed by Jack Black contest!'- you've just won a classic Gibson SG valued at over $2000! - How do you feel?" Needless to say, she's pretty damned excited...
Picture Carole's head on here:

Congrats Honey! You deserve it! Rock on!
PS - can I please try out your new guitar?

Krispy Kreme Hell...

This weekend Carole and I finally made our obligatory pilgrimage to Krispy Kreme Delta, and picked up 2 dozen of the most fattening, artery hardening, head rush giving....and DELICIOUS doughnuts in the world. Damn - those things are good, but a word of warning: DON'T buy two dozen! You'll end up eating them all in a day, and you'll PAY for it!!!
Saturday was such a beautiful day (23 degrees) that we went for a drive (through Delta), and ended up at the Alaksen Federal Wildlife Preserve on Westham Island, just a few kilometers west of Ladner. It was a pretty neat spot, that we had no idea even existed - tens of thousands of birds - pretty cool sight.
Later that afternoon we invited our drummer Ron and his wife over for some drinks and a BBQ, then Saturday night, we all headed down to 'The Drink' to see a friends band OmegaCrom. They put on an AWESOME show, but the bar cleared out all the metalheads at 11pm to make way for the 'paying' customers... the dance crowd. That was kinda lame - but sinceI wasn't driving that night, I managed to get good 'n' loaded before 11 anyway, so it was perfect timing, I guess...

Last thursday, Carole and I went to The Roxy to see another friends band, 'Jacob'. This was the first time I've been to the Roxy, as it is also a dance club, but with free admission, and a free first drink, there was nothing to complain about - well, except that they cleared all the rockers out at 11 to make room for the dance crowd, but hey - baby steps man, baby steps. It's freekin' awesome that all these clubs are finally giving live music a chance - what with all the live venues that have closed in the last decade, it's great to see that the owners are starting to realize that there's a real need!

Lets see, what else... it was a pretty eventful weekend, though Sunday was spent laying out in the sun (23 degrees again) - I started a new batch of beer, I haven't made beer in a while, but with Carole not working, soon I may not have the 'available funds' to keep up my Molson habit, so this is my ten dollar, 23 litre hedge fund.
Speaking of Carole, my sweetie won an international photo contest yesterday!
Check this out: Carlson Wagotlit Travel Photo Contest - pretty nifty, eh?

So today, Avril Lavigne is playing a free show at Metrotown Mall. NORMALY, I wouldn't even give this the time of day, but hey, it's free, and it's only 3 blocks from where I work, plus I've never seen a mall parking lot concert before, so I'm going to swing by and check it out - could be fun, you never know... plus, it's supposed to be 20-something degrees today, so it'll be an excuse to work on my tan. See you there Sage, I know you onky work a block away... you'll be there, woncha Skater Boy!