From Thursday November 10

It’s been eight days since I last wrote anything. Where does the time go when you have no TV or internet? I have been keeping to a pretty rough schedule, waking at 6am since the time change, having coffee at Laura’s for a couple of hours, then either hanging out with Janet or sitting around here reading, playing solitaire and watching borrowed dvds on my laptop. It is such a drag. Still no sign of Cablemas but there is some hope still, except I have a view of the pole that holds the cable and the cable is still neatly wrapped up and hanging there just like it has been since a couple of days after the storm. I want to be surprised but it’s hard to be when you can see the disconnected cable every day.

I have been spending some time at VCI. They never closed, and one morning I phoned to see if they would let me sneak in and use the pool. Luckily I got Tairo who happened to be at the front desk that day, and he told me to come on down, La Palapa restaurant was open to the public for now. There were forty guests last week, and this last Saturday 250 guests checked in – to all five resorts. I have been three times. All the boys are working but with no guests the tips are nonexistent. One day, Janet, Laura and I had lunch there and tipped well. We had three waiters. They all seem pretty happy to see me. Kimberley and I went again last Saturday, but since I didn’t want to be noticed coming in through the front door on check-in day, we came over from the beach at Playa Langosta and just stayed on the beach. We bought beers and again tipped liberally. Then Tuesday Laura and I went to the pool again, and today I will go for a few hours with Janet. It’s nice to have a place to go again to work on my tan, and it’s coming back some. I am no where near my peak but it’s coming. Joan and Roy and their gang are coming in a week from Saturday so I will have no issues then getting back into it, I will be on the list and I am looking forward to no more sneaking.

Janet has had internet since she has had power so I have blogged a little bit, some of this info might be redundant but I don’t really care. I was looking for an experience when I came here and boy have I got what I asked for. The changes around centro are absolutely amazing. There are still plenty of buildings in disrepair but you can shop at the grocery stores and with no issues there are some areas where you would never know a hurricane ever hit. The zona hotelera is another story. Lots of work still to be done. We just really need tourists, and our December 15 date is approaching quickly. It’s sort of our get-ready date, according to Presidente Fox. I think it will be done.

Janet and Joe are going back to the states for a month next week. Janet will go to Boston and Virginia Beach and Joe to New York and Atlantic City. I will be here. They’ll be back before Christmas, though, and maybe things will be better by then, and they will have a place to do their karaoke. As for me, I need to really start working on getting my job back in place in Oregon. I can’t believe I will have been here a year in only 14 days. It is amazing because sometimes I feel like I have been here for years and other times it feels like I just got here. In a better apartment I could live here forever. But again, we’ll just have to see what happens in my life.