Vanessa becomes the Zenter of my universe...

So Jeff and I set off, blisfully unemployed and homeless, to Vanessa Manzano's wedding to Ty Zenter. We arrived after a red eye flight to Cancun via a layover in Mexico City with no sleep, no job, and no home!
Vanessa's wedding in Cancun was going to be our first stop off in our 10 month layover! After a 2 hour drive to Playa Carmen we arrived at the gorgeous Grand Occidental Xcaret ALL INCLUSIVE resort. We went straight to the pool and stayed there for the next 3 days! The joy of an all inclusive is that you get to eat and drink as much as you want and $1 bills always get you some extra alchohol in that drink!
The resort was beautiful and Jeff and I had a great room overlooking the tropical trees. During the day you could lay out and drink pina coladas by one of the many huge pools or head down to the beach area for an ocean breeze. At night you could hear frogs and howler monkeys and stare at bats flying through the sky- all while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.
The wedding was perfect, a gorgeous setting above the waves crashing in to the rocks. There was a bit of cloud cover to cool things down, but the humidity still did bad things to my hair! It was very surreal to see one of your best friends get married. I mean she is my first good friend to go and as I watched her walk down the aisle it brought tears to my eyes (seriously!). I couldn't have picked a better location or better friends to spend the first days of our year abroad with.
After MUCHO tequilla shots at the wedding, Jeff and I set up for a 6:30 wake up time to spend the next day at Chichen Itza (one of the new seven wonders of the world). I don't know why we thought the day after the wedding would be good for this, but we didn't really have much of a choice. We paid for it-so we were going. My legs were still sore from dancing at the disco-tecca (that's how the white girl in me says it!) and the humidity was about 100%, but we managed to hike all around the pyramids and ancient ruins. It really was an amazing sight to see these old buildings and to learn how smart the Mayans were. In 2012, they predict that all the planets will be in line, so keep an eye out for that!
After a few hours at the ruins, we head down the road to eat lunch and swim in a ceynote (sink hole). It was just what we needed. The giant sink hole was amazingly gorgeous and we were able to dive off the large platform into the water. Jeff and I even managed to get a few back flips in off the stairs into the ceynote. I did notice the catfish swimming around, but I figured if I kicked my legs real hard they would not swim anywhere near me. Plus, I have to get over my fish fear if I will be doing all the snorkeling and diving in Asia and the Great Barrier Reef.
The next day it was time to head back to LA for a week of rest before heading out to Tokyo. We arrived at the airport in Cancun super early and watched the thunder storms continue to roll in. Our plane left 45 mins late, which isn't a big deal, except the fact that we only had an hour layover in Mexico City. We did finally take off, in a storm and had quite a bumpy ride. Jeff watched the lightning outside of his window on the plane and I slept pretending that I wasn't going to die at any moment! When we finally got off the plane (alive) in Mexico City we had 10 minutes till our flight to LA left. Jeff and I (and about a group of 30 people) literally ran through the airport to catch our flight. We made it- but our luggage did not. Our luggage finally arrived at the steps of my house in LA 28 hours after our plane had landed.
All in all, it was a great and relaxing way to start things off. I greatly look forward to the adventures that await us in the unknown world of Asia. I am starting to get those nervous butterflies and am finally starting to realize that when I get off the plane it will be unlike anything I've ever seen before. I am practicing my sign language- hopefully that helps me communicate!

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