Beach Break « criplomats

Beach Break

Lookin’ good, Mr. Crippen!

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it. I came down to Vallarta on Monday afternoon to cover for our Consular Agent while she’s out of the office. It’s a busy office and I really enjoy interacting with the U.S. citizens who are resident down here or vacationing. We see all kinds of cases. On Friday, I did a few notarials and passports, then I and one of the consular assistants here went to see a judge who’s handling a case regarding an American citizen. We can’t interfere with the Mexican judicial process, but we do monitor the status of cases. Afterward, we visited a U.S. citizen in prison, then headed over to a small private nursing home to check on the U.S. citizens there. Then we found out in the late afternoon that two U.S. citizens were being held at the airport for bringing in illegal substances, so we ran over there to explain the legal process to them. I was pooped by the end of the day, but it was fun and a good service to the American people.

When I got back to the hotel, John had arrived. We had a nice steak dinner at Rincon de Buenos Aires, not too far up the road.

Saturday morning we went whale watching! They’ve had a very bad season here without the usual amount of whales due to El Niño, but we got really lucky. We found two mothers with their babies out near the Mariettas Islands and we watched them for over an hour. They normally stay near the surface because the moms are teaching the babies how to swim and dive. One of the babies was very playful and stuck his big head out of the water several times and did a lot of tail flipping. Other times they just slowly floated near the surface and made the arc where their backs come out of the water – first mom, then baby. Toward the end, the mom flipped up her tail as if to say “goodbye” – we were are thrilled that we got to spend so much time with them! (pictures to follow!)

In the afternoon, we indulged a bit in the spa, then for dinner we went to the Blue Shrimp and had, well, shrimp. It was quite good and overlooked the estuary, so we also saw some birds.

This morning we’ve been lazing on the beach reading and listening to the waves. The weather’s great this time of year – not nearly as hot as it was last October when we were here. Also, I’ve finally started to feel better after fighting a virus all month – I think the salt air is good for me!

I’ve been really worried about Mom’s kitty since Aunt Bonnie died – he had moved in with Bonnie when Mom got sick and the caregivers were in the house. But I super good news this week when Cousins Sue and Ann offered to take him – I just can’t thank them enough. So far he seems to be settling in with Ann OK! This is a huge relief for me!

We watched an excellent movie this week – “Bridge of Spies.” Also, I watched “Still Alice,” about early onset Alzheimer’s – also a very good (and terrifying) movie.

Here are a couple of photos from this week.

A man and his Bassett (named Toby)

Vallarta Sunset

Shell art on the beach

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 6th, 2016 at 11:58 am and is filed under Foreign Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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