Monthly Archives: February 2025

February 7, 2025

Pleased to report that my fever broke and my stomach seemed to be better, so I decided to go diving at Akumal with the rest of the group. We went to class in the morning and then walked the 20 minutes to the “Collectivos” station, to catch a 40 minute mini bus ride to Akumal.

Our dive was booked for 2 pm. We went to a site called Motorcycle reef. We swam along the reef, watching many types of fish including some large groupers and lots of small brightly coloured fish. The reef looks like the colours are starting to come back from partial bleaching due to climate change. It was nice to be back underwater. We managed our air really well and were underwater for a full hour. Unfortunately we did not see any sea turtles, so we decided to book another dive for 8:30am this morning.

Last night we went to a fabulous restaurant near the collective station on our way home from our dive trip. The food was phenomenal – the restaurant was called Mezcla. They served small plates of really interesting, delicious food – a Mexican style Tapas. The vibe of the place was also really cool.

I welcomed the longish walk home as I was so full! We finished off the day with a rousing game of Scattergories that Louis and Jessica brought from home. I played with Howard, Louis, and Jess. Melody and I sometimes swapped each other out, and played a couple of rounds with both of us too. It was a lot of fun.

This morning was got up quite early as we had to get to the dive shop by 8, and it was a bit of a journey to get there. The dive was very similar to yesterday afternoon, but we did get to see 3 sea turtles – they were beautiful. We then splurged for a taxi directly to our language school, so we wouldn’t be too late for class.

We arrived about halfway though our class, but my teacher was willing to stay until 1 so we didn’t miss out on the learning. We did give them some notice, but we were not expecting to be able to study for the full 2 hours. Michelle wasn’t so lucky as her classmate Lola did not come diving with us – she was leaving for Cancun right after class to visit friends and start her journey home. Her teacher also had other students coming at noon. I was excited to find out that my teacher offers lessons over Skype , so I am hoping our schedules can line up and I can study with her from home.

After class we went back the the house and chilled out. At first I was planning on finding something to do, but in the end decided to rest and chill at the house. We all went out for a great dinner at a restaurant called “Tropical Tacos” – really interesting, innovative taco combinations. I had one with hibiscus flowers, corn fungus and corn. I also had one of the most interesting fish tacos I have ever eaten.

The end to another great day. I can hardly believe I am leaving tomorrow – Saturday – the week flew right by…

I have definitely not been careful while eating here in Mexico, having a strong stomach, I was feeling pretty cocky, and then it hit – Montezuma’s revenge. It wasn’t too terrible, one and a half bad trips to the bathroom, I ate some pepto bismol, and switched to toast and other bland foods. I made it through class, but was still feeling quite off. I slept off and on through the afternoon and then discovered that I had developed a low grade fever. Not what I was hoping for. Howard, Louis and Jessica were also sick, in spite of eating different things. Louis also had a fever and was sicker than me. Howard and Jessica bounced back a little quicker. The worst part was that I missed a whole day of eating guacamole.

I figured I wouldn’t have anything to write about today, but then…it happened.

After class Michelle and I walked to a nearby laundromat. I packed very minimally for this trip, and had sweated through most of my clothes already. I was carrying my laundry around in my sarong like a baby sling.

It was a beautiful, newly renovated, clean laundromat. Was a pleasure to sit and chat with Michelle while we waited for our clothes.

We were sitting and chatting, frequently watching the clothes go round and round in the washing machine, and then I spotted it. “Oh my G!d!”.

”What?”

”My cell phone is in the washing machine”

”What???? No way!”

And then it all came back to me. After class I had tucked my cell phone into my laundry sling so it would be more accessible on my walk. I of course had forgotten all about it. As we stared in disbelief at the machine, we suddenly saw my home screen pressed up against the window through the suds. There was a picture of Aubrey’s smiling face peeking out at us. We started laughing hysterically. We tried to snap a picture of Aubrey in the machine, but by then the phone had flipped around again, and the flashlight was on in the back. We kept seeing this flash of brilliant light every minute or two as it was tumbling through the front loading machine.

We did try to see if we could pause the cycle before the spin cycle started, but it was impossible. I just accepted my fate and waited until the cycle was done.

I should do a series of commercials now: for the iPhone 14 pro, for the heavy duty otter box and the screen protector. It came out functioning perfectly. The screen protector was cracked but the screen was intact.

Here are a few random shots I took on the way home:

As soon as we got home, I collapsed on the couch, then crawled up to bed for the rest of the day and evening. Michelle and I had to attend an important synagogue board meeting for a couple of hours which was a bit painful, but very necessary, and then I finally went to sleep.

You never know what the day will bring. Hopefully I will be back to eating guacamole tomorrow.

Feb 3, 2025

This morning we started Spanish lessons. Michelle and “Lola” are in a semi-private intermediate level lesson and Howard and I are in the more beginner level. We reviewed the present simple tense, some of the verbs, and vocabulary. Our teacher is lovely, and we both really enjoyed learning with her today.

We scooted out of class quite quickly as one of Lola’s friends, who is a tour guide, was picking us up right at 12:30. His name is Eder and he is fantastic. First we drove in our little mini bus to an amazing local taco restaurant – there were around 20 different options of fillings you could choose from and then another 10-15 toppings to add.

Our next stop was the Cenotes…

What is a Cenote? (from Wikipedia)

A cenote (English:  /sɪˈnoʊti/ or /sɛˈnoʊteɪ/; Latin American Spanish: [seˈnote]) is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting when a collapse of limestonebedrock exposes groundwater. The term originated on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where the ancient Maya commonly used cenotes for water supplies, and occasionally for sacrificial offerings. The name derives from a word used by the lowland Yucatec Maya—tsʼonoʼot—to refer to any location with accessible groundwater.^[2][3]

In Mexico the Yucatán Peninsula alone has an estimated 10,000 cenotes,^[4] water-filled sinkholes naturally formed by the collapse of limestone, and located across the peninsula.

Eder took us to a private property that had 5 cenotes we could visit. What a gorgeous place. The first one we visited we were not allowed to swim in, just appreciate the beauty of the cave. Eder also brought snorkels and masks so we could explore. In the four we could swim in.

Here are a few photos of the Cenotes – the highlight of me what’s when there was a small passageway to swim through, right into another cave. I had a few precious minutes alone in the cave to float and meditate – it was so beautiful.

This particular cenote is sometimes used for wedding ceremonies:

After drying off and changing we drove to Akumal – a word that means “place of the turtles” in Mayan. We booked a dive for either Wednesday or Thursday to dive with the sea turtles. It was a very touristy area, but very beautiful.

After Akumal we headed back to the house for a bit of down time. Howard, Melody and I went to a very well recommended restaurant called El Fogon.

Melody’s friend recommended it as well as our Spanish teacher – Howard and I took this to be our homework assignment. Once again I went to bed full and happy.

February 2, 2025

On Saturday Feb 1st, I arrived in Mexico after my flight from Newark was delayed. I met Howard, Louis and Jess at the brand new airport in Tulum. Michelle had booked us a ride with a driver. They had just finished eating a Domino’s pizza – I of course had to tease Howard – who comes to Mexico and eats Domino’s pizza???

We met up with Michelle, Melody and Lola (Leslie-Anne’s name while travelling in Spanish speaking countries) at our Airbnb house in Playa del Carmen. It is beautiful. There are four bedrooms, a nice kitchen, and a couple of outdoor areas. We chilled in our mini pool and went out for dinner. We had some fantastic Mexican food and I got to have my first plate of guacamole. I am planning on consuming record amounts of guacamole every day.

Sunday (Feb 2) we ate breakfast at home, and Howard and Melody and I went for a long walk to check out the area.

Also walked by more than one makeshift food stand selling tacos and other yummy looking things from the back of a pickup truck.

After we came home, we relaxed for a bit, and then walked to the main tourist area for lunch, as well as bringing our stuff to hang out at the beach for a short while.

It is very hot here and I assumed I wouldn’t last too long in the sun. It took us awhile to trek up the crowded beach to find a decent place to hang out. I was flabbergasted to learn that it costed $1200 pesos (approx $85 CDN) to rent a lounge chair and umbrella for the day, (we were arriving mid afternoon) but they offered you $600 (approx $42.50) pesos back in credit for drinks from their place. Small consolation in my opinion. We opted not to rent the lounge chair and umbrella. We finally found a spot and put down our sarongs and towels with no umbrella.

The water was lovely, the sand was soft, the beach was fairly crowded, but it was nice. I managed to have gelato both before and after the beach, so I was pretty content. The second gelato place sold the medium size in the shape of a flower which was pretty cool.

After a lot of walking in the heat, we returned home and all cooled off in our mini pool and had some down time and cold showers (the hot water didn’t seem to be working).

We ended our day with some of us going out for dinner, and some of us crashing early at home. I had some ceviche with Mahi Mahi and even ordered a cocktail – a pineapple mango and coconut mojito. It was the end of a great day.

Edward R. Murrow High School

Brooklyn, New York

January 31, 2025

I had the pleasure of attending my cousin Owen’s performance at his high school in Brooklyn. It is called Edward R. Murrow and there are approx 3600 students. Half of those students are in the regular stream, but the other half are in music, theatre, and visual arts focussed programs.

Admission to the arts programs are based on portfolio and/or auditions. Owen auditioned with his Euphonium and has switched to Tuba this year. He also plays trombone in jazz band.

Harris had told me this was a variety night called “Sing!”, but I did realize exactly what I was about to witness. This is the 47th annual Sing! Competition at this school. Every year the school splits the arts program into two teams: Seniorfresh (grades 12 and 9) and Juniorsoph (grades 10&11) The planning starts in the fall where all of the student producers and creative team leaders are chosen. Then in January, they have one month to mount a musical production. It is all done as an extracurricular exercise except for a one week break after exams where they are rehearsing basically It is completely student-led. It is also optional, they are not graded on this.

It is a friendly competition of sorts as well – kind of like colour war at camp, complete with cheering and step percussion dances and team colours. For the musical numbers they would take popular songs and write their own words to fit into the script. It was incredible. Each production had handmade costumes and sets, a full student-conducted orchestra/band, elaborate musical and dance numbers, the works! It was really something, I loved every minute of it! It brought back so many memories for me from my 14 years at summer camp, of colour war, and of my years working towards my theatre degree. What a phenomenal experience for those kids. I was especially inspired by the mentorship aspect. The grade nines are mentored by the grade twelves in their first year, by the grade elevens in their second year, and then they are the mentors for the next two years.

After the show, Harris found a pizza joint that was still open (not one of his top 10 favourites though), and we picked up a pie to take home. It was delicious. I also got a small square for myself that had carmelized onions, chunky zucchini and ricotta on it which tasted better than anything I have ever gotten at home. He was just going to pick it up, but I insisted on going with him, because in my past experience, seeing the restaurant is half the experience. I was right. This place was called Krispy Pizza, and it was an authentic New York pizza experience.

Harris double parked and we walked around the enormous pile of garbage and empty pizza boxes piled up front.

Inside, there were a variety of squares to choose from, old school pizza ovens, interesting murals on the walls, and stereotypical New York characters behind the counter. It was great.

I went to sleep too late but it was such an amazing day. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

My dear friend and soul sister Michelle has been inviting me on Spanish learning adventures for at least 10 years. I have never been able to go. She has however, accompanied our family on two big travel adventures – Kenya and India. I love travelling with her.

This time was no different- she was travelling to Peru and Mexico for three weeks and graciously invited me to tag along. When she asked me, I was in the throes of the planning of our Japanese adventure and couldn’t fathom taking such a big trip so close to our return home.

Just over two weeks ago, she waited till I was settled back home and then reminded me that there was still a bed for me in their Airbnb and sent me some info on some very inexpensive deals on flights to Mexico. I found a flight with a 22 hour stopover in Newark, prefect for a short visit with my wonderful cousins in Brooklyn. How could I turn down this opportunity: two small side trips visiting my cousins in Brooklyn, and a week spending time with one my absolute favourite families – The Burkes – all for $394 CDN – taxes in! In the mornings I will be studying Spanish in a semi-private lesson with Howard, and playing the rest of the time 🙂 Maybe we will even get some scuba diving in.

Aubrey got up super early and drove me to the airport before his long crazy day at work. He is amazing – the only thing that could make this trip even better was if he could have dropped everything to come with me.

Luckily for me, the trip went smoothly- we even arrived a bit early to Newark. I took an Uber to Harris’s, dropped off my bag and then we headed into midtown Manhattan to meet our cousin Vince. He happened to be in town because he was interviewed on The Daily Show the night before, promoting his new book “Power Metal – The Race for the Resources that Will Shape the Future”.

Here is the video of his interview – he was so great!

Here is his book if you are interested in reading it

We went to an amazing restaurant called Berimbau Brazilian Kitchen. We shared a variety of interesting dishes that I had never tried before. They had some great veggie options.

We had a great lunch and got to hear all about his experience on The Daily Show. I am blessed with some amazing cousins, and I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with both of them. Great food and even better company.

After lunch we headed to the Morgan Library Museum, a fascinating place. It was originally the site of the private library of the famous financier J.P. Morgan. They have built a beautiful addition onto his residence, housing several other collections. He funded many archaeological projects and amassed a vast collection of artifacts: Renaissance paintings, illuminated manuscripts, original printings of thousands of books, relics from Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, devotional art, the list is endless. They have over 350,000 items in their collection. So many things to look at, so much information to digest. There were many small rooms to explore and they were all packed with incredible things. In addition to the main library building, we saw an exhibit about Franz Kafka, and a collection of several original Medieval “Book of Marvels” including one written by Marco Polo! After an hour and a half my brain was quite overloaded. It left me wanting more and I would love to return someday.

After the museum, Harris and I said goodbye to Vince and hopped on the B train back to Brooklyn. I will leave the rest of the day for the next blogpost 🙂