The travel arrangements (other than the 6:00 a.m. departure time, lol) were great. I was in my room at the Hotel Mayab by 6:30 p.m. after two smooth flights and a 45-minute taxi ride to Playa del Carmen from the Cancún Airport. I was expecting the school to have its own shuttle, but instead they had a person at the aiport to meet me who called for the cab, which was fine.
I'll save the description of the hotel and my room for another day, after I've taken some pictures. I will say now, though, that it has the #1, most important requirement for any accommodation in Playa in June, as far as I'm concerned - a functioning air conditioner! It is a little bit of heaven in here :)
As soon as I unpacked, I decided to take a walk around town. The hotel is adjacent to the 5th Avenue shops, a tourist shopping mecca. I took a walk through that area, then headed towards school, curious to find out how much time I should allow in the morning for the walk. Because the streets were at right angles, there was little danger of getting lost, even though the street-numbering scheme seems a little confusing to me. I got distracted by Walmart before I got to the school, lol, but got a pretty good idea of the time required for the commute by foot (25 minutes). While in WM I tried to buy an alarm clock, but las colas fueron muy largas, and I was getting tired!
Calaveras at a shop on 5th
I managed to get up sin despertador Monday, and got to school just on time. I was asked if I wanted to take a placement test and opted to do so, but didn't have time to finish the whole thing before I was pulled out and put into a class. I love my group - five women! There is a girl who is going to be a high school senior in the fall, a Russian woman who speaks no English, a Swiss 20-something who is multi-lingual, and a young woman who just moved to Playa from Philadelphia with her husband, who is in real estate, in December. I will post more about them later. Our teacher for grammar this week was Juan Carlos, who would surely be the World Champion Charades Player if there were such a thing. For conversation I had Alicia, who would tie him for the title! My classmate in conversation is Sheila, who is also here through her connection to Gavilan College. This is all subject to change every week, as the groups and teachers are shuffled around. We'll see what tomorrow will bring!
Hasta luego.....
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