Well! Where to begin? Carson and I just got back from Cancún. We were there for the holidays as a gift from my parents, who planned the trip. My brother was there as well, who I don't get to see too often. We spent half the time in the "hotel zone", a day on Isla Mujeres, a couple of days touring ancient Mayan ruins in Chichén Itzá, Cobá and Tulum, and three days in Cozumel.

I love Cozumel. It's your typical tropical island paradise. Mostly it felt like a Mexican version of Hawaii, which suited me fine, especially since I speak a lot more Spanish than anybody else in my family. We went on a snorkeling cruise (with lunch and open bar), we played on the beach, we swam in the surf, and we ate at wonderful restaurants (Espacio's and Casa Denis). I could have stayed on Cozumel for another week and been perfectly happy.

Cancún is another story. There is absolutely nothing charming, cultural, or even attractive about Cancún. It was invented in the 1970's as a tourist trap (intended to be "an east-coast counterpart to Acapulco" says the travel guide) and activities seem to be limited to drinking and sunbathing. I guess that's enough for most people, but it seemed awfully boring to me.

The redeeming feature of Cancún is its use as a departure point for our tours of the Mayan ruins, which were quite interesting. Chichén Itzá is the site of the most famous Mayan pyramid, and its size can't really be appreciated without seeing it in person. I was somewhat shocked to see that they allowed tourists to climb up this thousand-year-old monument, but most of the structure has been restored in the last 50 years from being a pile of rubble so it's not like tourists are climbing on original stonework. I guess that makes it OK.

We did celebrate Christmas in Cancún though. We exchanged a few small gifts in our family. Unfortunately, my brother's gift to me was confiscated by customs on his way back from Germany, but I appreciate the effort. Apparently it was some kind of Czech sausage...? Anyway, I got some new tools, a really nice tie tack made by an Alaskan artist, and Digital Video Essentials to help me tune my new audio system. (Oh, before we left on the trip I got Pirates of the Caribbean from Nikki. Thank you, sweetie.)

This afternoon we arrived back home. Actually, we first detoured through Syracuse to get sushi, which turned out to be difficult on New Year's Eve. The sushi place we usually go to was only doing a $75/plate six-course dinner, and the other sushi place got rid of the sushi bar in an impending plan to convert the cuisine to Italian. As if Syracuse needs another Italian place.

Time for bed. I'll catch up on my 200 new emails tomorrow.