Fiesta!

You don´t know what partying means until you do it in Mexico.

In Canada, we see bars as places to hang out, have drinks and just chill. Here- you go to party and if you don´t do, people will make you.

We were out til 4 am last night partying at the Blue Parrot, an outdoor beach club. I used to love clubbing in Montreal; not so much anymore. Here there are no fights, over-smokers (well there are but you don´t feel trapped in it like in Canada) and it´s the guys who can´t get off the dance floor (glares at guys back home lol).

The staff at bars like Señor Frogs and Carlos and Charlie´s aren´t just waiters- they´re animator-waiters who make everyone get up on the chairs and dance, start conga lines pouring tequila in everyone´s mouths, on top of that they up on chairs and make the whole conga line pass under their legs...yup, serious partying!

The other day the staff somehow got me to go to a club called Mambo Cafe. We were all exausted from getting up early everyday and not sleeping much because it was hurricane week, so I was damn shocked to see how happenin everything was. It starts with a live band playing salsa, merengue, mambo and bachata hits, then turns into a disco-rave with flashing lights, confetti and balloons.

You still think you know how to party? I think not...

Calm before the Storm

Thanks for all your emails. yes we are ok after the hurricane.

what an adventure.
It all begin Saturday evening after work.

our boss wanted everything out of the office, kids club and towel center because hurricane Emily was to visit us the next night. we lifted everything up to the theatre, the only safe place in the hotel.

that night just before our show, we told to pack stuff for a few days becasue we were going to stay at the hotel in case a hurricane hit. Exausted, most of us stayed up late that night gathering our stuff and making sure everything was out of the way.

Sunday morning, people were using my ground-floor appartment as a motorcycle parking lot. I could barely lift the little luggage i packed, but got though it.

Since we had put everything away, all our activities took place in the theatre. The whole hotel was told that they needed to spend the night there. It was still nice and sunny out, so i went around the hotel taking pictures - yall know me and reasurring worried guest that everything would be ok.

Everything was in the theatre - the restaurant personnel used part of the backstage area to prepare food - the buffets still went on normally.

By 1 pm, all the guests had gathered into the theatre for an information session. We were told that a capacity 4 hurricane named emily was coming from Tulum and would hit us around 11 pm.

We still had to entertain the guests, so we went straight to practicing for the disney show, which we let people participate in.

I tried to spend as much time outside as possible- as it got windier a few guests started getting nervous. A woman from calgary asked me if i could stay with her and her two teenage daughters cuz they were getting scared - we took them into our disney show to get their minds off it.

By suppertime it started to rain a little bit- I killed time by going around and talking to the guests. A man from Dallas had just arrivied and couldn´t believe this was happening- apparently the airport told him it was nice and sunny. One man told me abut the time he had to go through a tornado, and others kept asking why we weren´t nervous - we animators thought it was so cool that a hurricane was coming. i´ve never seen one before and wanted to see that crappy kids club wash away (i know, not nice huh lol).

By supper, the theatre was packed. All 400 guests or so had come with their blankets and pillows and they started to work on nailing the doors shut.

We only performed part of the disney show that night - two numbers, The Little Mermaid and Hercules were taken out. During the last number, The Lion King we got a surprise- near the end of it, the lights went out. It was pretty funny because people thought it was the end of the show - a generator switched a few light back on and we started dancing with no music. At about 10 pm all the doors were nailed shut.

The canadian family felt better when i told them they could stay backstage with me. I played cards with them and then went around to see how people were taking it on the other side. Most were trying to sleep as the theatre was only lit by the dim sidelights.

It was a pretty long night. Most the animators cramed themselved into the costume room and tried to sleep there - i knew i wouldnt have been able to, so i didn´t bother. I kept going in there to peek out the window- i could see the winds blowing and how hard it was raining.

Later on i sat in a chair in a corner and tried to sleep, but each time I did, something always woke me up. People kept walking around, some needed help to get to the bathroom (outside the emergency exit, so yeah, we did step out in the hurricane for like a minute), kids crying, more nailing doors shut etc.

The hurricane stopped around 3 am, and by 7am we were let out. The roof on the sports bar was totally smashed. There were trees that had fallen everywhere. The palapa (roof) of our towel centre flew away and landed in the swimming pool. Amazing - i´ll be posting pictures of this sometime soon. the hotel next to us , Wyndham Azteca was completely damaged, and the people at coco beach were sent to a spent the night in a school during the hurricane.

Even though most of us didnt sleep, we still had to work - and we worked hard, cleaning everywhere (yeah, animation team was the cleaning team that day), and still had to come back that night to hold Casino Night (i was falling asleep).

Despite the damages, alls good now.

Road rage

If i drove in Mexico, I´d be an excellent driver. If you think Canadian drivers are bad, think again. Here, there is no such thing as lanes, signal and right of way. Apparently, to pass your driver´s exam, all guys need to know is how to honk their horns and how to stick their heads out the windows and whistle loudly at girls. I can just picture the driving manual here. ¨If there is no sign, you honk. If you see a girl in a miniskirt, whistling gets priority over honking. I´d be in a cab and even though there is not a single car or person in sight, the cab driver would honking anyway. I´d be walking down the street, and all I hear is whistling and cars honking at me- so annoying! Apparently, you´re supposed to feel good when that happens here. Yeah, sure.

Wild things

They love my body here.

By ´they´ I´m of course referring to none other than those extremely annoying mosquitos.

Seriously, wherever we go I am the only one who gets covered in a million bites while no one else gets any. I´ll award a grand prize to whoever can figure out why that is.

Not only are mosquitos everywhere, here we can also find Iguanas everywhere. You know those big dragon-like lizards that you see in the pet stores? I see at least 5 of them in one day. Two days ago I was in the kid´s club, and out of nowhere, something whizzed past me. Wondering what it was i turned and looked, and sure enough it was a huge iguana! It ran and hid behind the kid´s clbu birdcage, causing all the kids to crowd around it.

The iguana wouldnt budge, and i had to leave it there overnight. The next day Eric hilariously tried to get it out with a broom which did not work. When it finally came out i called the animators right away. One of them ran over, tried to grab its tail (it kept wagging it away) so finally he picked it up with his bare hands and ran back to the activity grounds with the iguana.

Yesterday was Canada day (miss Canadian party day!) so i grabbed the mic and said Hola hola hola...id like to wish all the canadians a happy canada day!! Happy canada day to all the canadians in the house!! (the mexicans looked at me like i was crazy) Then the other canadians and i made this mexican guys say ´Peace out´in the mic. It was funny cuz with his accent, it sounded like he said ´piss out´. yeah. we´re horrible.

peace out.