Made it to Mexico!! Merida and Mayan ruins #1

Are you surprised? I am, too! Not necessarily that I made it here (the prayers seemed to have worked!), but that I'm writing. Our hotel has free wireless and, since I came straight from CO, I have my laptop :)

My journey started out on Monday night with three flights-- Denver to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to Philadelphia, and then Philadelphia to Cancun. I was a bit nervous because I only had about 30 minutes of a layover in Las Vegas. And, sure enough, the flight left late. I literally ran from the arrival gate to the departure gate and was a late boarder, but made it on. I didn't think my bag would, but I packed everything I needed for 4 days in my carry-on. Then it was onto Philadelphia. I thought I would have a nice, long layover there but didn't realize that LV is in the Pacific Time Zone so the 4-or-so-hour flight put me in Philly around 3 a.m. Pacific Time, 6 a.m. EST. So, this time, I walked from gate to gate but arrived just as they were boarding. The flight to Cancun was uneventful. But here's a Christmas miracle for you: my suitcase actually made it to Mexico. Props to U.S. Airways!!!!

I took a cross-Yucatan peninsula bus from Cancun to Merida (there is an accent over the e but I can't figure it out in blogger so you'll just have to *imagine* the pronunciation in your head from now on. I will also be omitting lots of other future accents) and was reunited with my family! It was nice. I was so tired and definitely needed a shower, but they were happy to see me too.

Today we had a fun day learning some Mayan history. We started with a visit to the Museo Arcaelogico here in town. We walked down one of the nicest avenues in town, Paseo de Montejo, to get there and passed a huge Christmas tree and some interesting sculptures (here's V and me posing) along the way...

Con un angel

A tank... who knows why . I don't like this pic b/c my lil' sis looks bigger than I do!

Some interesting things I learned about Mayan culture:

• They thought that being cross-eyed was quite beautiful. So they used to dangle little balls of hair or something in front of babies' foreheads so that their eyes would eventually converge onto this proximal focal point and stay that way!!!
• They also thought that having a certain head shape made you more intelligent. So, starting in the first few days of babies' lives, they strapped boards to the front and back of their heads to induce plagiocephaly (flat front and back). The others, i.e. the servants, had to "board" their heads the other way (i.e. top and sides), creating a "pumpkin-head" look! No joke!!

This afternoon, we took a bus trip to Uxmal, an archaelogical site dedicated to Chaac, the God of Rain. The name means "thrice built" and was completed around 800 A.D.This is La Piramide del Adivino (Pyramid of the Magician), rumored to have been built after a dwarf beat a king at a variety of tests. Also around the grounds was the Quadrangulo de las Monjas (Nunnery Quadrangle), a plaza named because it sort of resembled a convent, with lots of reliefs lining each directional wall, as well as a Ball Court, albeit much smaller than the one at Chichen Itza (another, perhaps the most famous, archeological Mayan site that my parents and sis visited on Christmas). They were telling me that you had to bump a ball into this hoop without the use of your hands (sounds kind of like a mix of volleyball [minus setting and spiking], soccer, and basketball if you ask me).

We then climbed to the top of la Gran Piramide (Great Pyramid), which had some really nice views. This is our attempt to capture that put-your-hands-atop-the-monument-so-that-it-looks-like-you-are-squashing-it-look. Mom took the picture. There were two attempts and this was the best one (sadly).Bajando la Piramide We then had some dinner and stuck around for the sound and light show at the ruins (this seems to be a rather common thing to do at ruins/temples, as we went to a couple of different ones last year in Egypt). We even saw a shooting star, and the night sky (which we enjoyed wearing only 1-2 layers) was beautiful! Here's Van and Dad enjoying their Mexican beer over dinner. For some reason, V likes to open her mouth in pictures :)

It's been sooooo great being here with my family. It really does feel like I am "away" and can escape some of the worries of daily life. I LOVE speaking and hearing Spanish all around me. I LOVE being warm! Although "Your mom" jokes (which Cathleen and I find quite popular) aren't quite as funny when shared with a sister (they become "Our mom" or "My mom"), we are having a great time and our parents are putting up with us crazy girls. A few more days of relaxation here! We head back to VA on the 30th.