The Final Countdown

Well, this is it folks.  If you think this process has been dragging on for WAY TOO LONG now, just think how I feel!  

The plan thus far:  We arrive in Cancun at 3:30pm tomorrow.  We’ll take a bus from the airport into town, where our first couchsurfing host has offered to pick us up.  Thanks to google maps we were actually able to get a street view of their house, which looks like it has a jungle out front, which is kind of cool.  We will be staying with them for three nights, then have a free night that we aren’t sure what to do with yet, maybe stay another day in Cancun, or we could head down to this little town Puerto Morales, or maybe spend a night in Playa Del Carmen.  Then on Sunday we’ll take the ferry over to the island of Cozumel where we have another couchsurfing host lined up for another three days.  (She just wrote to tell us she is taking us to dinner at her parent's house the first night.  Love it!)

I’m glad to have the first week sort of planned out, as it gives us some breathing time to adjust and get on the right schedule.  These will also be some of the most expensive areas we’ll be, so having a free place to stay (and hosts who can tell us where to go and what to avoid) is extremely helpful.  

Yesterday we put everything we were taking out on the bed.  In general I think we are doing pretty well with the “stuff” quota, but I think we may be bringing too many clothes.  I mean, we are only bringing two pairs of shorts, two pants, two t-shirts and two button up shirts each (with an extra t-shirt and button up to share between us).  But I expect we will end up buying stuff along the way that is more appropriate and comfortable, so we’ll see how long this stuff lasts.  As usual all the guidebooks stress how only kids wear shorts and that you can’t really wear shorts away from the beach towns and expect any kind of respect from the locals, but we’ll see how that works out. They said the same thing in Asia and I never noticed any problems with my incessant short-wearing there.  But I’ve got pants if’n I need ‘em.  In the end, we each have plenty of spare room in each of our bags, so we should be fine.  

We’ve got one more stop to make today, plus a trip to the post office, but otherwise we are packed and ready to go.  Oh, I had another great talk last night with my family about getting finances worked out.  (After Melissa made the most delicious homemade lasagna.)  It is really exciting watching everybody setting goals and getting prepared for the future.  It is such a relief when you can set aside the social stigma we are all taught that talking about your money is somehow impolite or whatever.  When you all get together and brainstorm and are able to rely on each other for encouragement and support, amazing things can happen.  I’ve even gotten to do my favorite thing and play the big brother card.  We all made six month goals, and I told them in six months I will be back to check up on their progress!  lol