It Really is a small world

1/3/2014

Thank you so much for the Christmas day dinner :)

It Really is a Small World
I find it pretty common to run into people you know while you’re in
places like Mexico or Cuba because most Canadians travel there. I have a few stories- too many to mention them all. I remember Thailand, where I ran into a guy I went to elementary school with. Joey was into Thai boxing and a couple of other things that I thought were funny. I met an Italian guy in New Zealand, who was learning English. I ran into him again five countries later in Thailand.He freaked and could not believe it. I laughed and said, “Let’s have a beer.”

The funniest coincidence occurred when I was traveling through Singapore and Malaysia with two girls from England and a guy I had just met named Ron from Calgary. When I was boarding a boat in Thailand, I ran into Ron and another girl named Dana, whom I knew from Calgary They were traveling together and holding hands. They had met each other in Thailand.

While in Panama City a couple of years ago, I was walking by an outside restaurant and I looked at this girl who looked like my friend, Jill, from Calgary and it was. I walked up and said hi. She was just in the process of
buying a beautiful condo with a beach on the Caribbean side of Panama where she lives for the winter months. Lucky girl.

While I was in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico I was at a Telcel store. Telcel is a Mexican mobile phone store. I wanted to find out why I can’t text some people. I saw the clerk having a hard time communicating in broken English
with a Polish couple, so I went behind the counter to help her thanks to my new 99 cent app translator. I got the deal done for all and while she was busy with them I asked the next person, Denis, in line, “Can I help you?” He had a problem with texting with his Canadian phone. I also tried and could not get the phone to text. At the same time I told him that I don’t work here; I’m just trying to help out and I mentioned that I’m also from Canada and gave him my TravelCheapWithPete card. He had heard of me on a job site in Calgary. He said that he had heard
of TravelCheapWithPete from Mark, another worker at the job site. I said, “Wow. I also work with you. I am your union rep on holidays.”

For the next couple of days Denis and I hung out. I took him to a resort in Cancun where other union members were staying. On Christmas Day I put on my Facebook page that I was in Playa Del Carmen and my friend, Adrienne, invited me to join her and her sister Suzanne's family for Christmas dinner. Wow, what a treat with great people from home. I thanked host very much. It was great.

Rio Hostel, Christmas eve

The Prices in Mexico have Gone Up

I found that the prices in Mexico for accommodations and restaurants
had gone up from 20 to 50 percent, but it is still a lot cheaper than Canada and the States.

Talk about cheap-how about free! Yes, the girls at the hostel drink free
between 10 and 11 PM. A few bars later we found even more bars. The girls got free drinks. They call it “ladies night”.;-)

In every country I go to I like to stay in a hostel for the first couple of nights because that’s where you can learn so much about places to go, things to see and, most of all, the great people you get to meet from around the world. Even though I left the Rio Hostel in Playa Del Carmen I was still welcome to hang out with everyone after I formally checked-out. The think I like about hostel is “a home cooked meal.”

Talk about prices: My lovely daughter, “Princess” Tiffany, went to St. Lucia with her husband, Bill, and stayed in the Sandals resort (wow). They came in too late to take a helicopter to the resort. Instead, they took a bus and took the helicopter from the resort to the airport on the way back.:-0

They flew from Calgary, west to Vancouver, then east to Montreal. On the afternoon of the next day they finally made it to St Lucia. (They could have called me for a better itinerary. I know I could have gotten them a better flight and maybe even a better deal by calling the Sandals to say that I am TravelCheapWithPete. You never know unless you try.) They had a great vacation for a week. (Don’t tell them that I will spend the same dollars in two months traveling.)

This is the Travel Cheap With Pete office tower

I am so lucky I took a leave of absent for two months off work
without pay. :-P
I wrote this on my flight from Cancun to one of my most
favorite places in the world, Panama. I’m off to somewhere new,
Columbia, in 6 days for two weeks..

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