3 quiet days

Monday 

Wake up at 4:30, back to work.  I can’t believe I put a sweater on to work!

Chilly at 430AM this morning for work, needed a sweater!

We think that the owner of the house is arriving today, we are not sure how long he will be here for.  Today we also expect to see the gardener, cleaning lady, and pool guys.  Mondays are busy activity around the house.

I walked part way with Andre on the way to the market to pick up juice from the barber/fresh juice place, not a combination that I see working at home.  This way Andre won’t have to lug the juice around all day, and it was a nice 5 minute break from work.  Our street is crazy busy as you head towards the market, it seems to be the central bus pick up location, so loads of locals out this morning on their commute to work.

Andre spent most of the day working on blogs after he got home.  We have fallen terribly behind, spending lots of time just being lazy by the pool and reading, so now he is paying for it.  I think he got about 5 days done today, and tonight I am working on getting the weekends done.  It is a lot of work, but so fun for us to read back later.

This afternoon we were sitting in the open courtyard and heard a woman talking, I guess the owners have arrived.  Scared both of us, we thought we were hearing things.  The owner and his sister are in Merida now, he stays upstairs, and she is staying at a guest house that he also owns.  Neil the property manager was by today and told us he was arriving, also gave us a bit of history on the house, Chris bought it about 20 years ago for $40,000, it was being used as a car repair shop, cars were inside!  He tried to restore it as historical as possible, except of course with plumbing and electricity, it is beautiful.  Anyway Neil said Chris is very friendly, he will be by to introduce himself.

After supper tonight we walked to Santa Lucia square, not much happening tonight, then down to the main square for a popsicle.  It is only 8:15 and many people are already in chairs waiting for the dance that starts at 9:00.  Too late for me tonight, and we’ve seen this once already, so we head home, 4:30 comes very early.  We did do one more loop around Santa Lucia square hoping to get money out of the Scotia Bank machine, but no luck again, this will be on Andre's list for tomorrow chores.  It is a lovely night out again tonight, nice and cool, will be good for sleeping again.

Tuesday

Today starts off as usual with work at 4:30AM.

Around 9 Andre is off to go and get some tickets to a Piano concert for Friday night.  We tried to get them earlier in the week when the theatre was open, but they told us we could only buy them on Tuesday morning, not sure what’s up with that?

We have had problems getting money from the Scotia Bank ATM’s around town.  Every time we go we get a message that they can’t communicate with our bank at home.  We bank with CIBC, so not sure if that has been the problem.  Anyway I head out with him this morning as we found another ATM only about a 5 minutes walk from home that is Scotia Bank.  We just missed getting the empty ATM but a couple with a lot of papers got in front of us.  After waiting for them for what seemed to take forever, we try our card at this machine and it doesn’t work either.  Luckily this machine is at an actual scotia bank, we wait in line here and are told that this machine only works for credit cards?  What?  An ATM that only takes credit cards, can’t imagine what that will cost, so we’re off to find another solution.  We take a different street back home and come across a bank we have never heard of, lots of ATM machines here, and with a little help from the man beside us for how to put the card in we now have lots of pesos, so the fun continues.

Back to work for me, Andre heads out for tickets for Friday and other things on his list.

THeatre for the concert on Friday Night

It is hot out, umbrellas for sun, not rain

Andre found an information centre for the buses.  He is going to have fun!

Andre arrives home in time to make us lunch, I am a lucky woman.  The owner of the home also has his string quartet practicing here today.  We take a break and sit in the library so we can hear them better, I can’t believe this is live music, right in our house!  Off to help with lunch, today it is poblamo peppers and a salad.

After work time to work on blogs again with Andre, hopefully we will be caught up soon.  Read for a while and take a couple of dips in the pool.  It is another cooler day again today, the water is actually cold, and I started the day off with a sweater again!

After supper we head off to a new park for me to see another live band playing 40’s music.  Tonight it is locals dancing again, we recognize a few of the characters that are out for the Sunday dancing in the square in Santa Lucia right by us.  Lucky for me most of these events start at 8PM so I get a chance to watch for a bit before I need to head home for bed.

Back to the house and at the door we can hear that the quartet are practicing again.  Off to bed to the sound of live violins, in this beautiful house, I am living a dream….

Wednesday

Another cool morning, sweater weather!

Today Andre stayed home all morning and worked on the blog.  We had a visitor, the man that owns the house a couple of doors down needs to cut down a tree so he came by to see if he could take some pictures from the rooftop.  He knew the owner Chris.  We told him OK with us but he would have to talk to Chris as we don’t have keys for the upstairs to get to the roof.  We got his phone number and off he went.

Chris arrived back at the house and we finally met him.  Passed along the contact info for the neighbor,  and told him we would let him on the roof if he would unlock upstairs for us as Chris was about to start another rehearsal.  Back to work to the sound of a quartet practicing, amazing. 

A few minutes later the doorbell rings again and it is the neighbor back to say he spoke to Chris.  This is an amazing visit.  This mans great aunt used to own this house and he spent a lot of time here.  He showed us where the main door used to be to go outside.  He said the rooms are pretty much the same as they were, except our spare bedroom used to be a second kitchen, he said they were very rich.  He also told us about the ghost he has seen and asked us if we had seen it.  He was on the staircase.  Haven’t seen him yet, I hope he is nice. Got to go upstairs and see one of the rooms that has been locked.  Pretty messy, but a little TLC and it would be just as beautiful as downstairs.  On to the terrace where there is a crazy ladder to get up to the rooftop.  I would not let Andre go up, it was very scary looking, but the neighbor did go up and get the pictures he wanted.  Andre was able to get some pictures of the pool area from the terrace.

Ladder on rooftop that I would not let Andre climb, neighbor needed a ladder to reach the ladder!

View of our pool from second floor terrace

Looking down from second floor onto one of our courtyards

2nd floor

Enough excitement for the morning, lunch today is fajitas, yummy.  We eat a little early because we have a supper and movie night planned starting at 6.

Afternoon by the pool, mango margaritas and kahlua and milk, this is getting to be a bad routine.  It is quite warm again, so a couple of dips are in order.  This new lounge chair for the pool is amazing.

Pretty much how we are spending every afternoon

Off to supper and a movie.  I had seen on facebook that this happens on Wednesday nights.  There is an Italian restaurant really close to us that expats meet at for dinner and a movie.  They set up a projector and screen, order dinner and watch a movie.  It was fun to meet some people that have made Merida their winter home, and some their permanent home.  There were only about 10 of us there, they said in January there are about 30 that attend, but many have gone home now.  It was an excellent meal, the chef is from Italy, amazing pasta.  The movie was The Greatest Showman on Earth, a musical that we both really liked.  Will see if we go back again next week, probably will depend on the movie.

Surprise, wendy ordered Lasanga, if we go back next week she says she is ordering it again

Funny story before supper we stopped at a little store beside the restaurant as Andre saw they were selling tequila.  The vendor was so excited, think it was a slow day.  So she wants Andre to try some, she takes these shot glasses she has for sale, dips it in a bucket of water by the door, then puts some tequila in it for Andre to try.  I was trying so hard not to laugh, perfectly washed, I figure the tequila would have killed anything bad right?

Back home after the movie and off to bed.  Andre is working on blogs again when I go to bed, doorbell rights, it is practice time again.  Off to sleep to the sound of violins again, LOVE THIS!  We will never ever have an experience like this again in our lives I am sure.