Mexico

So I ended up getting my passport in time to go to Mexico. There were many visits to the passport office involved and many problems that surfaced between submitting my application and actually receiving my passport in my hand. Rather than go into all of the details of my passport situation I'd rather just try to forget the whole experience and try my best to NEVER WASH MY PASSPORT AGAIN (did it 3 times in 4 years...hence all of the hassle). I'm not quite sure why or how I always seem to make the same mistake but I do know that I was extra careful to check every pocket of my clothes before turning on the laundry when I got back from Mexico a few days ago.

The trip was great and I am indeed very glad that my passport showed up before my flight was scheduled to leave. The main purpose for the trip was to attend the wedding of my girlfriend's best friend, who she has known since kindergarten and is still very close with. We stayed in an all-inclusive resort near Playa Del Carmen and it was pretty fantastic. The food from the buffets was pretty mediocre but the dinners at the restaurants were all very solid and even the buffet had a few gems (favorite was the hot omelet stations for breaky). Along with the food, the drinks were all free and most of the time I chose different drinks off of the cocktail menu since you can easily get away with ordering fruity drinks at a tropical destination (also the beer wasn't great). Mojito's and Miami Vices (half strawberry daiquiri/half pina colada) were two of my go-to choices during the trip. On our last night my gf and I splurged on a nice $22 bottle of wine with our fondue dinner (which was amazing) since the free wine was described to us as "gasolina" by our waiter as he poured it. I'm not sure if he realized that the Spanish word for gasoline is only 1 letter different than from English but either way I was able to crack his code after tasting the wine. Needless to say that it was $22 well spent on the upgraded wine.

So we arrived a few days before the wedding was supposed to take place, which turned out to be really nice because it gave everyone a bit of time to get to know each other (probably 30+ people came down) and adjust to the time difference/climate (only 2 hrs ahead). One of the guys that was with the group was actually one of my gf's ex-boyfriends that she broke up with like 5+ years ago so that had some potential to be pretty awkward but fortunately it wasn't. He was a nice guy and their past relationship was never even brought up for discussion, which was especially good because she ended things and he seemed completely moved on with a new gf who wasn't on the trip. On the last day of the vaca, I played in a massive 16 person double-knockout beer pong tournament and the ex-bf took me out in the semi-finals! It was quite devastating but I guess I'll give him that ;)

 

 

I only left the resort once during my stay in Mexico and that was to go into town one night to check out the CoCo Bongo nightclub. If you haven't heard of this club you should google it or check out some videos on YouTube. It's kind of hard to describe but the club is basically a gigantic 3-5 story venue that packs in several thousand people for music, dancing and entertainment. There's a mix of Hollywood acts and singer impersonators all accompanied by confetti, fog blasts and balloon guns. The place is crazy. We had a standing table for our group and a waiter would emerge from between the crowds every so often to bring us fresh drinks all night long. Also, throughout the night girls are being pulled up on the center bar to dance...my girlfriend was pulled up early in the night but managed to escape rather quickly. All in all I had a pretty great time and thought the place was a cool experience. If crowds aren't your thing though you won't like this place at all-I was even feeling a bit claustrophobic and annoyed at times. You will be spilled on.

The weather was very nice for the vast majority of the trip. Unfortunately, the one day that a big storm flew in was on the day of the wedding! The ceremony was supposed to be on the beach but had to be diverted to dryer land. The bride seemed 100% cool with plan B though so that was great to see. My girlfriend volunteered me to be in charge of video recording everything at the wedding since she was in the wedding party. I don't have much experience with filming anything but aside from zooming in/out wayyy too much I think I did a decent job, especially recording the speeches. It was fun to be involved and after recording the ceremony, toasts, cake cutting, speeches and other random scenes it was time to put the camera away and break out the dance moves. At first the camera actually didn't go away even though the battery had died. Instead, I brought it with me onto the dance floor and pretended to be filming people to see their reaction. Unfortunately, that didn't last too long because what I thought was "funny" turned out to be "creepy" to my gf and the vast majority of people that were throwing shapes on the dance floor. I was definitely getting quite drunk by the time the dancing had started and I also remember taking a fork full of wedding cake onto the floor and trying to feed it to a girl (unsuccessfully).

I was worried that I would wake up the next day and my ankle would be throbbing with pain. I had it taped up for most of the trip and to my pleasant surprise I awoke the next morning feeling no more pain than usual and little hangover. I actually didn't feel hungover much at all the whole trip. I wasn't drinking a massive amount (even on the wedding day, I've drank far more in my day) and all of the drinks are filled with a lot of ice to keep you hydrated. It was great. Getting back to my ankle though, it actually was bothering me a bit until after the wedding night and then it started to feel much better (not really sure how/why). I almost re-injured it on the last day though. A few of us were just sitting on the grass while waiting for our ride to the airport and a girl walked by and dropped her wallet and didn't notice. I announced to the group that I was going to "make her day" and then sprung up to get the wallet, took one step on the wet cement and my foot shot forward and I fell backwards on the ground. I got a couple of scrapes but nothing as bad as the embarrassment felt. To make matters worse, when I got up and hobbled to catch up with the girl she was like "thanks but there's nothing in there anyways." Awesome.

Anyways, I'm back now and ready to grind. I've been taking care of a big to-do list over the past couple of days but now that's taken care of. I have no vacations planned for the rest of the year aside from maybe a couple small getaways in the summer. I'm going to resume grinding 200nl zoom tomorrow and hope to work heavy hours for the rest of the month and gear up for a big May. My initial thoughts on 200nl is that it's going to be quite a bit harder than 100nl but the VPP rate is massively better (avg .22 at 100nl and .38 at 200nl over a 3k sample). Hopefully I can run well at 200nl so that I don't have to drop back to 100nl. Also, I'm probably a bit rusty but we shall see. Time to start chasing down SNE!

gl at the tables!