Back from MEXICO!!!

David and I just spent 6 nights in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. It's a small fishing town south of Cancun, to which people often refer as the beginning of Riviera Maya. Excellence Riviera Cancun, which was our first experience with an all-inclusive resort. It is also a "grown-ups only" all-inclusive resort -- by which it means there are no children under the age of 16 or something along those lines. In fact, there were no teenagers at all, mostly honeymooners, anniversary-celebators and other married people, with a sprinkling of other kinds of couples and groups of couples. It was overall a very classy resort with fabulously attentive staff. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine and warm weather.

On our Mexican trip, we engaged in some adventure activities: ziplining through the jungle; mountain biking through the jungle to a cenote (a fresh water sink hole); diving into cenotes (by cliff jumps and zipline), snorkeling (not the best we've done elsewhere - probably the most disappointing activity we did this trip); driving an ATV onto the Mexican highway and the dirt roads to visit more cenotes; visiting Chichen Itza, a site of Mayan ruins and a new Wonders of teh World. We loved our various activities, and felt sufficiently sportivo on our holiday.

We also had time to relax, sit on the beach, sip cocktails and sample some serious tequilas. We met some lovely couples -- mostly Canadians, who seemed to dominate the resort (or who we seemed to attract). David mingled with the staff and other guests by playing beach volleyball.... and was affectionately nicknamed around the resort as "White Guy." In fact, on our final night, the social director-ish guy of the resort challenged David to a dance-off at the packed resort disco. This energetic social director (think John Leguizamo) knew that the White Guy (David) had some moves, but he did not know that the White Guy (David) was a professional dancer. White Guy (David) whopped his ass at dancing, and all the other White Guys (normal non-dancer ones who are all David's age) cheered and hollared and worshipped David for representin' the White Guy-ness on the dance floor so heroically. It was a beautiful evening, and David was beaming. It just like in the movies... a combination of "Bring It On," "Step Up" and "Rudy," with, of course, some "Dirty Dancing."

Here are a few snapshots of our Mexican getaway:

Delicious cocktails in coconuts on the resort beach... on our special beach bed huts...


Taking a nap with one hand firmly on the cocktail straw...



Mountain biking through the jungle...

Zip-line into the cenote (sink hole)

Free-fall into the cenote!

I follow in (a slightly more timid) pursuit!

Learning about tequilas...

Chichen Itza


David studies Chichen Itza...

David studies Mayan alcoholic spirits...

Diving feet first into another cenote...

Lunch poolside at the resort

Tequila + pineapple drinks at dinner...

At the resort discoteque with our new Canadian friends...

David at the airport, enjoying big scoops of ice cream before leaving our warm climate vacation... and enjoying every bite!

BOTH in NYC, trying to beat the German GORDO factor, and the Mexican "spring break" we've never had

David returned to New York Thursday night... after traveling almost 20 hours. That's right, 20. To cross the Atlantic. When he arrived in Heathrow around 5:30am, he discovered that his flight to Dusseldorf had been canceled. This meant he would not make the connection in Dusseldorf to return to New York. Luckily, Lufthansa re-booked him onto a flight back to New York via Munich. Unluckily, this flight left at 11am, so David had quite a few hours to kill at the airport, having slept only a few hours the night before. But no complaints -- he made it home safely, and a good thing, too, because Northeast and Midwestern states have been on a "winter storm watch" and, sure enough, it snowed quite a bit in New York Friday.

Now we're both back in New York, spending some much-needed chill time in our own apartment. It's wonderful. We've not bought a Christmas tree yet, and we go back and forth on this. It's hard when we are so in and out of town -- the last thing we feel like doing when we are FINALLY back in our own place is to go buy a big tree, put it in our place and decorate it, but, then again, it doesn't quite feel like Christmas without one. Also, where will we put the presents?! I think we will get a tree, maybe not as big a tree as last year. And we really need to get on that Christmas shopping band wagon... somehow, we shall manage it all.

We encountered a couple of health/physical problems in Germany, from which we are recovering now.

ONE: I broke out in serious hives. I've never broken out in hives before, maybe once when I was little, like 6 years old, but never like this. I woke up about a week ago at 3am, achingly itchy. I'd developed spots all over my legs. We had the sheets changed and everything, but the spots remained. Next day, they spread to other areas of my body, so we had to call a doctor to come to the hotel. He told me that I had an extreme allergic reaction, but it was hard to tell to what, since I was in a foreign environment. He gave me some anti-histamine tablets and cortizone cream, because I had also been dragging a horrible exczma behind my left knee. The exczma cleared up, but the spots and itchiness remained. Now back in New York, I went to the doctor on Tuesday and was told that they were "stumped" as to what was wrong with me; so onto a dermatologist I was sent. The dermatologist confirmed that I had a severe allergic reaction, and gave me antibiotics to take as well as a topical cream that would help reduce the inflammation. It's still unclear what caused it all -- probably a combination of exhaustion, stress, being under the weather, having bad exczma that left me exposed and more vulnerable to allergens, and maybe red wine I had the night before the hives broke out (a German pinot noir). Who knows. But I shall now be afraid to drink red wine.

TWO: We got fat. I mean, not really really fat, but David and I both got a bit chubby in Germany. It's impossible not to -- the Atkins diet never reached Germany, everything is in bread or on bread or made out of bread... and if it's not breaded (which most likely it would be), it's fried. Or loaded with sugar, laden in chocolate, and filled with marzipan. We love marzipan. And there's gluhwein -- mulled red wine, with amaretto. Hard to resist while walking along the wintry German streets. And bratwurst became our easiest snacks on the go. Casting all day our eating rhythms go totally off kilter; the catered lunches were unappealing, so often we would step out for bratwurst or end up eating really late, and we'd drink a lot of wine because at that point in the day, sometimes, that's all we want to do. (Clearly, we had some abysmal days in casting.) We hit the gym a couple of times in Berlin, but the gym was the size of a closet and thus uninspiring. David, who is always on a mission to gain more body mass and bulk, managed to make great strides in Germany by eating massive amounts of eggs and croissants every morning. He is bulkier than I have ever known him to be. And so, I have taken to calling him "Gordo" ("fat" in Spanish, but said in an endearing, nickname manner), although he doesn't look fat, just bigger, and seeing David suddenly much bigger is a bit funny and striking. Now that we're back in New York, we're getting ourselves back on track. Especially with my whole hives thing, I'm not drinking and cooking at home, eating totally organic. We eat out all the time, and, while we love going to restaurants, when we are "on the road" we mainly eat out because we have no other choice -- and this gets tiring. It loses its luster fast. So it's good to be home, cooking for ourselves, and going back to our own spacious gym. We hope to tame our "German bulge" expediently.

And expedient it must be, because we're off to MEXICO!!! David and I needed to get away somewhere easy and warm before returning to Berlin... so we decided to go to Mexico, and do an all-inclusive resort. We've never done an all-inclusive resort, and we've never been to Mexico together. I went to Mexico City when I was nine, but that was it. I've never done that collegiate thing of Cancun Spring Break (like one would see on MTV). David and I are headed to Cancun, but not exactly the Cancun area that is like Vegas/Gold Coast -- we will be in Puerto Morelos, which is between Cancun and Playa del Carmen, and which is the start of the Mayan Riviera. We hope to chill out, learn a bit about tequilas and Mayan ruins, do some snorkeling and jungle zip-lining and mountain biking. And get some sun! This will be different from our "intensive snorkeling" holidays (although we will snorkel a little bit), so we are looking forward to it. And the whole "all-inclusive" resort culture will be an interesting experience.

Can't wait!