Intro to our Cancun trip, with "malaquinta" explained

This was the first day of our reunion with the Westovers (dubbed the "Bestovers" by Ted) and I want you to notice the nice red tint already exhibited on John's face despite the only sun exposure being at about 5pm for a half hour or so. For any who might be curious, the previous post, entitled "Malaquinta" is a little joke that happened as a result of our fiesta down in Cancun with John and Christy [B]estover. To get the play by play, you can read their blog entry here. Our week mirrored theirs, but I'm here to offer a little more detail into the goings-on and the reasons for the ridiculous amount of laughing that accompanied us wherever we went. Expect a post or twelve on it.

First, the Malaquinta. Upon arriving at our villa which had a kitchen bigger than the one in our first apartment, we shopped for a few breakfast items at the adjoining store (with mostly marked-up prices, of course). One of the items we purchased was a stick of butter. They thankfully sell them individually wrapped and priced so that people like me who don't want to waste the extra 3 sticks don't end up buying a cooler and either dry ice or a Blue Ice pack to transport it home on a 3-leg plane ride home. Thank goodness I didn't do that. The airline lost our luggage, so that butter would have been DOOMED for sure!

"Butter" in Spanish is "Mantaquilla". We were having breakfast one morning (John deserves accolades once more for his perfect egg-making skillz) and Ted wanted to butter my muffin - er, toast - so tried to ask for the butter en Espanol, without knowing the Espanol. It came out "malaquinta." John (who went to Spain on his mission and kept his Spanish sharp by ordering tacos at the local roach coach for a few years) paused and said, "You know you just said 'bad fifth?'" We chuckled and stuck with "malaquinta" for the rest of the trip.

Ted and I arrived a day before J&C, so I took the liberty of setting up Settlers so it would greet them upon their walking through the villa door. We played several games together, revisiting our passion for playing when they actually lived here. I love people who share the same addiction! Since they left our town in November, we haven't found anyone who shared their contentiousness and their cupboard goodies with equaled aplomb. Here's a photo of the most awake Christy I've ever seen, and this was after a red-eye flight. Impressive, Christy B.

Let me insert a word or two about our villa. Included in the kitchen were the customary plates and pans with which to make meals and such. Upon the opening of all the doors, however, I found that they also had stemmed goblets for our subsequent wine-bibbing. Since none of us bib, those "stems" came in so handy for everything else: yogurt, peanut M&Ms, juices, etc. They were hardy, too, so I could put ice in them for all the Diet Coke ("Coca Light") we could guzzle. We felt so fancy!

The one downside to those stems was that the base was too big to fit on the coasters they also provided. To quote Gob from Arrested Development, "Come on!" I snapped this picture of John putting his to good use, however, despite the bowl sitting right next to him. Popcorn during Settlers with the Bestovers became a drug.

More Mexican adventures to come. I've got to get all this down for posterity's sake. Y'know, those posterity we don't have yet...