Hosting Family and Making New Friends – A Fun Filled Week!
Bienvenido loyal reader! Please join Bruce and Mary for this unusually action packed week. For those of you email subscribers who prefer to view these posts from the blog-site, please click here.
We were thrilled when our nephew Eli asked us a few months ago if he and su novia Anja could come to visit. “Of course!” we said instantly and finally the day has come.
 Eli and Anja had flown into Cancun and caught the 6:00pm ADO bus into Merida. We were camping out on our stoop, sipping beers awaiting their arrival and of course a little worried if things had worked out ok, but no problema as suddenly their taxi pulls up.
 Eli and Anja had not really had a decent meal all day, but Mary is prepared with chicken achiote and pastor fajitas with the usual sides. It’s not easy filling up an all-conference offensive lineman from a national champion team.
 Tuesday, as it turns out, is Eli and Anja’s five month anniversary. Here at La Pigua, regarded by many as the finest seafood restaurant in Merida, Anja is treated to Crab Legs.
 Eli checks out the Langosta, Lobster.
 Coincidentally, Tuesday is also Mary Fran’s (Anja’s mother and current world champion hugger) BD so of course, good daughter that she is, she rings her up on Skype. That’s Anja’s dad Ike, too. We have been close friends with these guys for 30 years now. Whoa, we are old!
 When Eli visited three years ago with his buddy Eric, we took them to Progreso and Eli discovered that he loves the beach. So this time, at his request, we booked a nice budget hotel, Real Palma, just a block from the beach, so they could spend Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, doing what lovebirds do on the beach.
 Here’s a fun pic.
 The morning dawn in Progreso. If you’re FB friends with Anja, be sure to check her page for lots of cool beach and food pix.
 One of the rewarding things about doing this blog is meeting really fun people like Phil and Di from Seattle. They have been following our blog for awhile now and contacted us about getting together. I told Phil to give us a holler when they got to town. I didn’t think he’d take me literally but as we were walking by the Fiesta Americana one day I heard someone shouting, “Bruce, Bruce!” We turn around to see this friendly looking man approaching us saying, “You don’t know me but I recognize you.” We quickly arranged this Wednesday evening get-together at…. you guessed it, El Lucero del Alba, where everybody knows our name.
 It’s Thursday evening so naturally we’re at Las Vigas and this is Dianne and Wayne from NC. Dianne has the Carolina Shrimp, of course, and Wayne has the Filete de Pescado a la Plancha, Fish Fillet. It’s always fun to turn seafood lovers onto the incredibly good and inexpensive meals here. Wayne is absolutely astounded when his check comes for these meals plus three drinks because it is only 130P. Dianne is an RN and comes down here every winter to do volunteer work in the small, very poor pueblos in this area. Be sure to check out her and Wayne’s good work on her blog. BTW, this is how we met, through our blogs.
 It’s Friday and we’re waiting in line at INM, Instituto Nacional Migracion. We had taken a day off work two weeks ago to initiate the FM3 visa renewal process and today we’re off again to hopefully finalize the process. Mary had called on Tuesday and sat on hold for about an hour before she successfully made citas, appointments for us for this day. But when the security guy walks the line with his list of citas we are not on it. We give him our names and he says, oh, your citas were yesterday. As we fly to MN in a week, panic has set in.
 But we do prevail! After waiting for about an hour and a half (our number was 34) before we could even explain our case, we do so to the gate keeper who simply tells us that there was no mistake and that we would have to come back next Thursday. We improvise and say, “Pero tenemos una emergencia!, But we have an emergency!” We proceed to tell her that we are flying out tomorrow! Well, she wasn’t happy about it but she does send the security guy inside to talk to the processors and when he emerges we have an appointment. After hanging around for about another hour the very friendly Angie ushers us in and in about 20 minutes we emerge with our new FM3s. Que Bueno!
 Saturday Eli and Anja return from the beach and after some quality pool time we head over to, well you know… El Luceros for some drinks and botanas as we have to show the kids our local bar. And now we are relaxing with our Cohibas (courtesy Eli) on the promenade and hearing all about their future plans before they hit the street for La Noche Mexicana and then dancing at Cubanchero.
Right now it is Sunday morning and the kids are sleeping in. After Mary feeds them a big breakfast they will be busing back to Cancun to spend the night before flying out early tomorrow. After seeing them off we will be meeting Phil and Di again for the buffet at… El Luceros. Cheers!!
Thanks for visiting gentle reader. As you know Bruce and Mary love comentarios so please feel free. Hasta proximo Domingo!Â
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national champion team
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March 18, 2012
· 
Bruce · 
10 Comments
Posted in: Life in Merida
10 Responses
Bruce,
As always I love reading your blog! It was fun to see Eli and Anja. I met Anja last summer at Mary’s. She is a beautiful young lady, just like her parents. Who are Eli’s parents? Think of it 30 years of knowing Ike and Mary! Wow! It is so amazing how you have met people that have been following your blog. It is crazy to think of how our world has changed. Give Mary a big hug and thank you for the time you give us with your blogs.
Love
Rhonda
Hola Rhonda!
Yes, we go way back, us and Mary and Ike. I’ll never forget a party at the Howards (parents were out of town) when Ike saw me and brother Paul sitting on a couch together. He said, “There’s two of you!” He had partied with each of us many times, but never at the same time. LOL, He thought that we were the same person!
Eli is the son of my departed brother Neil and Syd Beals.
Thanks for your kind words and thanks for reading!
Cheers!
Awesome social life y’all have! Those crab legs look an awful lot like stone crabs!!? Yummo! I pray for the patience to negotiate the red tape down there. I learn a lot from you. Thanks!
Hola Donna!
Glad you enjoyed the post.
And thanks for reading!
Cheers!
Thank you so much for our time together the other day. We loved our meals and the company!! We love reading the blog…and sharing my blog with you too!!
Hola Dianne, good to hear from you. We have enjoyed our time with you very much, and we’re so impressed by all the good work you and Wayne do. Enjoy the rest of your Meridano time!
Cheers!!
This is the first time I’ve visited your blog and feel a bit like I’ve been missing out on something good all these years. Thank you for taking such good care of Anja and Eli. I’m still a little bit jealous, however I’ll recover and make it to Mexico for a visit yet! I’m anxious to see you both this upcoming week. I’ll save a famous hug for you both.
By the way, I think we’ve been friends for 34 years. Yikes!
Love Mary
Hola Mary!
The kids were a lot of fun and pretty independent, traveling all over the city and beach, so the hosting was pretty easy. Hopefully we’ll see you in Mexico soon!
Holy Mackerel, 34 years, we are old!
Hasta pronto, see ya soon!
Cheers!
This is so sweet to get to see so much of your life! But specifically this entry is so endearing to get to see Eli and Anja on their vacation. They look like they were having a great time and I love to see their pictures;beautiful adventurer’s with great mentors. As always, Barb and Rand
Hola Barb and Rand,
Yes, it was a lot of fun having the kids visit and they did a terrific job of navigating their way all over Merida and the beach, w/o the language!
Thanks for commenting and reading!
Cheers!
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