Mexico, Day 3

We had most of the morning off today, with our meetings starting around 1:00PM. I woke up late and, after lounging around my room awhile, headed down to the pool. I met up with a bunch of Emmis folks and crawled into the water.

All told, I spent about an hour, hour and a half, just floating around. Got out, went back to the room and got ready for yet another round of meetings.

Today was a boat. :)

This was taken long after the meetings were over. Tonight is our official last night, and there was a big dinner celebration being thrown for us all. Walking towards the dinner area, I came across this cat (I swear, Mexico must be run by cats).

Odd thing – this cat lost a bad fight to *something*, because on its neck there was a patch of fur missing and what looked like two vampire bites.

Dinner celebration, from a distance. I’m not entirely sure if this is for us, but I’m walking towards it.

Yup. I think this is for us.

Mariachis!
Dave (Indianapolis), Chris, and Renee (Terre Haute), chatting before the festivities.

The guys of Emmis Interactive (where’s Deb?).

Ben, posing. Is this a potential album cover?

Deb, tallying up the results of our quiz from yesterday and thanking everyone for making the trip possible.

Rey, thanking everyone for their hard work and encouraging all of us to be like Rudy and never give up.

After dinner, we were entertained by a local Mexican dance troupe.

Ah, I wish I could remember this guy’s name. He rocked. Just him and a lasso. And he fucking owned the stage.

These women were able to weave really complex patterns out of some simple hankerchiefs.

Final dance.

After the dance troupe left the stage, Ben ended up taking the stage with Matt’s guitar.

Originally, we had talked about performing a song for everyone, with every member of Emmis Interactive playing an instrument. Sadly, though we did get together to mess around, the decision to perform was ultimately voted down. I’m not going to say by who *cough* rey *cough*.

Ben, incidentally, sings himself a mean song. I bet if you write him and ask, he’ll even send you an mp3. I’ve got some video of his performance (he did three songs, all told). Once I get done with updates, I may come back and try to add that.

Adron (St. Louis), took the stage shortly thereafter. Keep in mind, this was all impromptu and wasn’t really part of the official ceremonies.

Next up: Matt.

And to top it off, one of the servers asked to get up on stage. He couldn’t speak any English, but everyone cheered for him anyways. I yelled out to him in Spanish, and found out his name was Eric.

Aaaaand finally, something totally unexpected.

Keith (New York) and Justin get into a heated, four-round beat box contest. I gotta dig for video on this one, but man… awesome stuff.

After dinner, I went back to Justin’s room and cleared out my memory card (he had a laptop with him). Then, a bunch of us reconvened in the lobby to head into town (Playa del Carmen). L to R, it’s Justin, Mia (Canada), Brian (Indianapolis) and Dave (Indianapolis).

The Blue Parrot! This is where a bunch of folks were hanging out, last night.

Lo and behold, look who we meet. L to R, it’s Marissa, Monica and Melinda (who, from here on out, I am going to refer to collectively as The Sisters Dallas). Justin met them last night, and we happened to run into them again tonight.

They’re all super cool, and were incredibly fun to talk to. Our two groups sort of weaved in and out, over the course of the night.

The bar here is pretty neat, as all the seats are actually swings.

Marissa and Justin.

We ended up moving out to the beach area. And I gotta say – drinking on the beach is quite nice.

Let me apologize for the rough images from here on out. There wasn’t much light at all, and my camera lens was a bit dirty. This shot is looking back, away from the water, towards the bar.

A little later on, I stumbled across a girl who was just standing near the wet sand alone. I went over and talked to her (mostly in Spanish). Found out she married (6 years), had lived for a year in Chicago, and was now back in Mexico. It was one of the most pleasantly platonic conversations I’ve had in a long while, and she helped me struggle through some basic Spanish and I helpe
d her struggle through some basic English. When I said goodnight to her and turned to leave, she kissed on the cheek goodbye.

I’m not sure how else to describe it, other than pleasantly platonic. There wasn’t any over sexual gestures or anything of the sort – just two friendly strangers, having a conversation. For some reason, this conversation stuck with me a long while.

Justin and Marissa, chatting by the waves.

A bit later on in the evening. Shannon (Terre Haute) and Melinda shake on the beach.

Shortly after this (circa 3:30AM), I decide to call it a night and head back to the hotel. And while the rest of the company packs up to head back to the states, Justin, Ben and I are staying a few extra days.