25 Wednesday Dec 2013
Posted in Sentiments
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Kappy, Bernie and Kathy, Doyle, Michael, Beth and Jim, Sybil and James, Cole, Lillie, Weston, Hayden, Topaz, and Kerri — thanks for making our Portland Christmas everything we hoped it would be.
But enough of the freezing fog already. It’s back to Puerto Vallarta (and sun, and beach, and surf) tomorrow.
Tom & Louise
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(Photo by Sybil Lichty Fontaine)
24 Tuesday Dec 2013
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Downtown Portland in gingerbread
Max, the light rail train, was waiting for us inside the airport. The fare was a dollar. It took us downtown, within two blocks of our hotel. We had arrived for Christmas in Portland.
09 Monday Dec 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
Everyone who knows Louise knows that she’s a varsity-level shopper. Leaving the theater last night, she lingered at numerous shop windows even though the shops were closed. Closed! When the shops are closed, she plans strategy. When they’re open, she manipulates prices, selections, and even vendors with the precision of an NBA star on a charge to the basket. The woman is shopping’s Kobe Bryant.
05 Thursday Dec 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
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That may be a poor choice for a title. Tim Taylor worshiped power tools. (“More power!”) At Los Tules, repairing palapas is done without a power tool in sight. Just three guys and a machete. Sorry, Tim.
27 Wednesday Nov 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
If you’ve ever traveled to Mexico, you’re familiar with the FMM — the Forma Migratoria Múltiple that, for most of us, is acquired on a plane. You fill in the blanks while you’re still in the air and surrender half of the FMM when you pass through Mexican customs. Don’t lose the other half! Trying to return without your half of the FMM guarantees an eternal encounter with Mexican bureaucracy. You say you’ve never met anyone who has had that experience? I rest my case.
21 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Short
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We’re all savvy now. We know the answer to that question: no one! Unless you live in Los Tules. It’s a different story here.
13 Wednesday Nov 2013
Posted in Travel
The patio-sized tequila distillery at Hacienda Don Lalin
The best Mexican tourist-fleecing operation is not the timeshare industry, it’s not the machine-carved wooden dolphins sold by beach vendors (“my family make them here!”), it’s small-scale tequila distilleries. And I say that with high praise.
05 Tuesday Nov 2013
Posted in Travel
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4:30 PM
I take a bottle of water from the refrigerator. It begins to drip before I get it to the patio, instantly sheathed in condensation as if it had been dipped in wax. It is eighty-eight degrees and the humidity is more than that. A storm is coming to Puerto Vallarta.
03 Sunday Nov 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
“They were out of white.” Louise had just returned from the makeup store bearing brushes, remover, and a large tube of silver makeup. “They said silver will look just as good.” Silver? Who’s ever heard of a silver skull? I was destined to look like a piece of jewelry, not the sugar skull I anticipated.
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18 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
I’ve written earlier about Los Tules, our home for six months — a former coconut-palm plantation, complete with fear of coconut missiles falling from sixty feet. Amazingly, there’s no concussion wing at the local hospital.
How do they avert danger (and certain litigation)? They harvest the coconuts by climbing up trees with machetes between their teeth.
The Expat Almanac 