November 27th: Off to Mexico!

It wouldn't be the week of my birthday without a trip somewhere! I had such a good time at the Valentin Imperial Maya last year that I wanted to go back again. Mark and I both worked the mid, then drove right to Dulles to hop on a flight to Cancun.

I had upgraded us to Business for the flight down, and it turns out that will get you into the fancy United lounge. We hung out in there for a while, eating free snacks, reading free magazines, and charging our phones with the plentiful electrical outlets, before eventually wandering down to the gate to board our flight.

Ahh...one of my favorite ways to start a long weekend.   :)

We eventually pushed back, taxied out, and took off.

I got a pretty sweet view of Udvar-Hazy as we climbed out. It looks like they're adding on to the museum...we'll have to go check it out again sometime!

I also got a really nice view of northern Virginia as we continued to climb out. That's Manassas (HEF) on the left side of the picture. And then I got an even better view of northern Virginia when we leveled off at 10,000ft and made a hard left turn...all the way around. I found out after we got back from the trip that our plane had pressurization problems, but they eventually got it sorted out and we continued on course.

I didn't really mind the bonus time in the air, though. It gave me more time to watch movies and eat cheese blintzes for breakfast!   :)

We continued south and eventually wound up over the Gulf of Mexico. There were some pretty decent looking storms out over the water.

 I especially liked the rainbow.   :)

After a while, we made it to Mexico. This was on final for Cancun. Customs was super easy, our bags were some of the first ones that popped out on the carousel, and our resort somehow wound up being the first stop for our shuttle bus. Not a bad start to the trip!

Even better, our room was ready to go when we got there, even though it was before the official check in time. This was the view from our back patio. I'll take it!   :)

We eventually peeled ourselves out of the beach chairs and hammock and wandered back up to the lobby. We booked a tour we'd been eyeing up, grabbed lunch at the buffet, and wandered around a bit more before eventually making our way back to the room to get changed into our bathing suits.

 This was my view for most of the rest of the afternoon. Turns out there were a few beach chairs with umbrella things just a short walk from our room, away from the bigger section of beach.

We eventually did take a walk down to the busier part of the beach...

...then made our way back to the room shortly before sunset. We had a hot tub in the room, too, so we hung out for a little while, drinking drinks out of our little mini fridge and watching the Great British Baking Show on Mark's tablet, before eventually getting cleaned up and heading out for dinner.

One thing I wished we had done the year before was try more of the restaurants, so we tried out L'Alsace, the French restaurant. Everything was AMAZING. This was a foie gras terrine with pear foam (or something like that) and I inhaled every bit of it. We split a bottle of wine, stuffed ourselves with tasty food, and had fun giggling over a very serious looking guy playing the cello along with recordings of pop songs. It was pretty fun and delicious.

The resort was having their Mexican party and show, so we stopped by for a few minutes to check it out. Way in the back right part of the picture you can just see the mariachi band, and they still had part of the buffet set up. (Not that I had any room for any more food!)

We wandered through the Plaza Espana on our way back to the room. There were tables with crafts vendors set up along the edges. I would have loved to stay and listen to the band for a bit, but I could barely keep my eyes open after being awake for so long. Time for some sleep!