Beautiful places

I had a cute conversation recently.

A friend and I got on the topic of the most beautiful things we've ever seen in person.

As far as physical places, I came up with a few off the top of my head. I would not consider myself a well traveled person, but I've seen some pretty amazing things.

One, Cancun.

Two, some of the flights I've taken.

Third, Kansas sunsets.

Fourth, Colorado.

"You fix the plague?"

Broken English in Mexico is really funny to hear and read.

After we were done with the tour of the caves, we had to fill out a form and rate the experience from 1 to 5.

One of the things we were supposed to rate was the "friendliness of the photograph."

I'm assuming they meant photographer instead of photograph, but I thought it was funny.

That's one friendly photograph!

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During another conversation, the concierge in my building, my roommate and I were all talking about what my company does.

We explained farming to him, and he understood that. He tried to ask us if we can identify plants and crops that have diseases, only he didn't know the English word for disease.

Instead, he used the word plague.

"You fix the plague?"

I sometimes have the maturity of a 15-year-old. I giggled a lot about that one.

For the record, fixing the plague is not a skill that's listed on my resume.

Giggle.

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Another broken English moment was when we were watching a movie before we went on the tour of the caves.

In the video, a woman said we would get a light lunch after our tour. She hoped we would have a "pleasurable gastronomical experience."

I looked at my Canadian friends. Giggling ensued.

On Para sailing

I chickened out of zip lining in Cancun because I thought I'd be too scared.

I learned recently I have a little problem with heights. It involved having a panic attack while walking up a grain bin out of state.

Heights? No thank you. I prefer land, please.

In Cancun I was sitting on the beach, reading a book, relaxing. A co-worker asked me if I was feeling brave.

Say what?

He offered me his spot para sailing.

Sign me up!

I do better with situations if they're not planned in advance sometimes. I had maybe 20 or 30 minutes of warning before it happened.

I figured if it's your time to go, you might as well go out doing something with an awesome view in a beautiful setting.

Is it the safest thing I've ever done? No, probably not.

Would I do it again?

Absolutely!

I loved para sailing. I'm not sure how or why I loved it so much, since I'm deathly afraid of water and mildly afraid of heights.

But hey, it worked.

Towards the end of the ride, they bring you down close to the water and then dip your legs in it. I could hear my co-worker's wife on the boat, telling them that I don't like water and hey, don't do that!

It made me laugh.

Getting dipped in the water was my favorite part. The water was nice and warm. Peaceful, even.

My list of firsts that happened on this vacation: Para sailing, being on a boat, being on a jet-ski (that guy was crazy, by the way), swimming in a dark hole in the ground, seeing a sunrise over the ocean, and probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting.

Can't beat that view.

I'm flying!

Food

I've been a bad blogger lately. I have tons of things to say about my recent trip, but not enough time to actually get them all written down.

This post is going to be about the food in Cancun.

Now, let me just tell you something. I don't like fish. I hate the smell of it, and 99 percent of the time when I eat it in Kansas, it tastes like snot.

It's kind of stupid to go on a beach vacation and order chicken and beef, so I stepped outside my comfort zone and ate things I wouldn't normally eat.

It was delicious!

Mahi Mahi was my favorite. So much flavor! Grouper was acceptable, but not my favorite. I had lamb a few times, which might be the best thing I've ever tasted.

Lamb. It was delicious.

We also had lobster, shark, and probably some other things that I can't think of right now. I tried plantains for breakfast one morning. Yummy!

One of my friends also introduced me to breakfast crepes. Minus the lamb, I'm pretty sure it was the best thing I've ever tasted.

You can't go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate in the morning. I put learning how to make crepes on my list of things to do in life.

:)

A co-worker's adorable dessert one night.

And I didn't even mention the fruit. Let's just say that I'll never eat canned pineapple again. When I ordered room service, I always ordered a fruit plate to go with it.

Delicious!

Room service food. Pretty much the best thing ever.

Margarita pizza, also room service. 

For desserts at night, I just said "no milk" and let them surprise me with something. (Meh, lactose intolerant.) All of the restaurants brought out incredibly beautiful desserts for me. I usually don't even bother looking at the dessert menu, because I know I can't eat most of what's on it.

But they actually made me a milk-less plate. And it was beautiful.

Non-dairy dessert. Yum.

Learning about Canada in Mexico

(This was written earlier this week. I'm just now getting around to posting it.)

At this time last week, I got into a van at the resort I was staying at in Mexico, preparing to go on a tour of underground caves.

There were three perfectly friendly people waiting for me in the van. They said hello, asked me what my name was, and then asked me if I spoke French.

I thought that was weird. I'm from Kansas, and have spent all but two months of my life in this state.

No, I do not speak French, I told them.

They said they knew about tornadoes, the yellow brick road and Dorothy. I told them that's pretty much all you need to know about Kansas, well, that and cows.

They told me the next group of people we were picking up were Canadians who spoke French. The wife told the husband to say hello to them when they got into the van. The husband agreed to do so.

They also warned me, the lone American in the van, that French-speaking Canadians are not pleasant people.

My friendly Canadians told me the French-speaking Canadians would not talk in English around us, would not acknowledge us and would generally be miserable human beings to be around.

This was news to me. I thought all Canadians were friendly? Apparently I don't know as much about Canada as I thought. (You mean I don't know everything there is to know about life? Gah.)

The French speaking Canadians got into the van. The friendly Canadian guy told them hi. They looked at him and didn't even acknowledge his presence.

Haha!

At the caves, we had to separate into groups and sign some paperwork. The French speaking Canadians did not speak a word of English. They requested their tour be in French and paid no attention to the English speaking people.

I was sitting there, in the middle of the jungle in another country, listening to these jerks probably talking about us in French, when one of the French-speaking women turned around right in front of me.

She had a tattoo on her shoulder. Guess what language the tattoo was in?

It was in English.

As a lover of words and language, I love the irony in this.

I want to say the quote tattooed on her shoulder was a Bible verse, which makes this situation even more ironic and hilarious.

I'm going to get words from God tattooed on my body, but I'm not going to talk to you.

People are fun to observe sometimes.

Sidenote: Most of the paperwork we had to fill out involved one person in the household completing the forms, meaning that husbands generally filled out the forms and the wives didn't have to.

My Canadian friends offered to put me on their paperwork so I didn't have to fill it out (essentially inviting me to become a member of their family for a day). Aww. I declined, but thought that was kind of cool of them to offer. I love English speaking Canadians!

They also said I could be in their family photos in the caves, but I also politely declined that offer. Also, that was a really nice gesture on their part.

I love some parts of Canada. Other parts, not so much.

Me in the caves. It really was a beautiful thing to see, minus the water part.