Week 2 of Mexico!

So, another week is over and we are into our second full week of Mexico! Honestly, it’s been different than either of us expected it to be. We are happy we’re here, and I think it took a lot of the sadness of not being on the boat away. We’re moving to a new airbnb next Monday, which we are all (Buoy included) looking forward to. There isn’t much of a green area or any grass near us, so being closer to that (we’re going to have some in our little yard) is definitely something to look forward to. Don’t get me wrong, our current spot is good. It was a very good price and it has some AMAZING food around it. We just felt that we wanted to experience a different area for the last week we’re here.

This week has been fun. We tried “birreria” for the first time, and LOVED it. Typically, when we go somewhere to eat or order, we ask if they speak English. We like using our Spanish, but if they know we aren’t fluent it helps them understand that our communication skills are not that great. So, when we went to the Birreria spot last week we told the girl we didn’t speak very much Spanish. She immediately grabbed her phone (I’m assuming she was going to translate on her phone), but by then we knew we just wanted 4 of what they were making in front of us because it looked amazing. So we ordered, they brought the food out, we got a fresca soda, which is strawberry, and then when we went to pay she brought out her phone with her calculator up with the number of pesos we owed. I loved this. I have a deep appreciation for people who are fluent in more than one language, but I also love how we can find ways to communicate with others without knowing each other’s language. It’s so cool, and it really brings a tie to the community of human beings and our ability to find empathy and understanding, regardless of our inability to verbally communicate. We ordered from another stand last night and got 4 quesatacos. They were, you guessed it, delicious! We, once again, did our best to communicate with our broken Spanish. All was good, we understood most of it, and when he asked us if we wanted it for here or to go, we said ‘to go’ by using hand gestures. He copied them, we said yes, and boom! Once again, we were able to communicate without knowing exactly what each other were saying.

It feels like we take language for granted sometimes. I’ve definitely felt that on this trip. I was extremely nervous at first because I didn’t want to say something wrong or whatever, but as we kept trying I got more and more confident in my ability to use what knowledge I did have of their language and do my best to say it well. But think about it… Everyday we use our words to communicate with our peers at work, with our friends, with our loved ones. It is a beautiful thing to speak and be heard, as well as to understand someone else. I guess I just want to be more observant and appreciative of the small things that we use daily to function and survive. It’s important to appreciate the small things, because they truly make up the biggest things in life.

We were planning on going for a hike on Saturday, but we decided on a long beach walk with Buoy instead. It was lovely. The tide was out and so the beach was so, so long. The water was stuck in the rivets the waves made, so with the clouds above us it looked like a mirror below. You could practically see double in the reflection.

We walked along, but the first 15 minutes consisted of me running around the tide washed beach saying “look at this one!” over and over to Steve as I found so many sand dollars. Now we have something to take home as a keep-sake! We also found this amazing hermit crab shell – it’s HUGE. We’re planning on putting a succulent in it for our next home (wherever that is).

On that note, I guess it’s important to talk about what our next plans are. To be honest, we don’t know. What we do know is that we have two virtual viewings tomorrow of two apartments in Norfolk. As of right now, they are where we are planning to be for the next year (if we decide to lease one of them). It’s mainly a decision we’ve made because we need to be close to the boat when we get back in March so that we can work on it and be available whenever decisions need to be made. After this trip, we don’t have any set plans until we go to a wedding in CO in June, so things are all up in the air – surprise, surprise. We have also been planning to go to Scotland this summer and visit one of our friends who is crossing the Atlantic this Spring. That “plan” has been in the works since early last year, so maybe it’ll actually happen. We’ve thought about extending the stay and just visiting lots of places in the UK and EU while we’re overseas, but we don’t know for sure yet. That is why we are going to look VERY closely at the “broken lease” section of this apartment’s lease agreement.

Clearly, I could babble about what our possible plans are for hours, but what I really know to be true is that I miss the hell out of our boat. I’ve been teary-eyed more times in the last couple of days over not sailing and not being on our boat more times than I have in the last couple of months. I think the longer we go without it, the more I miss being on the water everyday and watching the sunrise over the bow, coffee in hand. I know that we’ll get back to it one day, and I know that we will have many adventures whether we are sailing or not. Who knows, maybe we will buy a bigger boat if this one isn’t able to be seaworthy again. Regardless, I know it will all work out, and we will make the best of it wherever we are.