Day 3 in Cancun!

Happy Birthday to me!  I turned 30 this day and spent my day the best way I knew how--sitting on one of these chairs, sipping on pina coladas, reading a book, listening to the wave crash and the mellow music play.  Heaven!  I actually got to read 3 books on our vacation between beach time and plane time and I think I only read 3 books total all of last year, so that was quite a treat!

Trent's not much of a reader, he's much more of a sleeper, so he thoroughly enjoyed our day too.

My goal was to feel comfortable wearing a bikini on a beach on my 30th birthday.  So, for the first time in my life I wore one and I know it's silly, but it was actually a huge deal for me to feel confident and embrace my body, stretch marks and all.  It's probably the one and only day I'll ever wear a bikini, but at least I did it!

Outside our hotel.  We decided to venture into the city a bit.  We heard that the bus tickets for the city bus were $.80 for an all-day pass, so we hopped on the first one we saw and headed toward the mall to walk around.  We walked for a bit downtown, then hopped on another bus and the bus driver started driving before Trent had both feet onboard!  He showed the man our tickets and the driver shook his head and held out 2 new tickets demanding money.  He spoke no English, so in my broken Spanish I tried to tell him we've already paid.  He demanded more money for new tickets and Trent kept telling him "No" over and over again and to just let us off at the next stop.  The man would NOT let us off the bus.  He even stopped at bus stops demanding money and would not open the doors thinking we would flee the bus.  People outisde were banging on the doors trying to get on and he would not open the doors!

It was getting pretty heated and I was trying to urge Trent just to pay the man and we'll talk about it later.  When I understood the bus driver saying, "You pay me or I will call the police and take you to the police station," I told Trent to pay him NOW and quite arguing just to get us off the bus!  It was CRAZY!!  So, Trent paid him and the man gave us some of our change back, of course not as much as he should have, but I was done arguing.  We got off the bus and Trent said, "I don't like that he took advantage of us.  We should have gone to the police station and told them we've already bought tickets, they'd understand."  Uh, sorry.  Reality check.  Police in Mexico don't work like the ones in the States.  They will not be on our sides and a police station in Mexico is the LAST place I want to be on my birthday on my vacation!!  Ugghh, only stressful, scary situation we were in all week--it was awful!

So we walked to a flea market area to get souvenirs for the girls and then took another bus back to the mall area where we went to an aquarium.  We saw this shrimp eating an anenome.  It was pretty crazy to watch him pick at it and eat it and the others came and helped him too.  We saw lots of fish an dother sea life that are indigenous to the Caribbean ocean.  It was a great aquarium.

We also saw and touched huge sea turtles and stingray in this tank.

We saw a dolphin show and sharks as well.

That night, we went to a Mexican restaurant at the resort and had the BEST steak and shrimp fajitas, chips and salsa/guacamole, and salad.  The mariachi band even came over and serenaded us with their rendition of "Happy Birthday."

Here we are at the restaurant enjoying yet another meal without a drink being spilled, silverware being thrown, or having to clean up anything after eating!

We saw this man making pictures with spray paint as his medium.  It was enthralling to watch him spray the page with many varied colors.

In between colors, he'd point a blow torch toward the painting to quick-dry the paint.

He used paintbrushes and combs and sponges dipped in sprays of spray paint to create his art.

This was his final product.  I was QUITE impressed that it was done only in spray paint and though I didn't buy any of his varied designs, still appreciated the work he did in a mere 10 minutes.