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July 22, 2021: Day Thirty-One

Today was a travel day as we said goodbye to Mérida and headed to our last stop:  Valladolid. 

We worked until our normal time with one notable difference.  When we extended our hotel stay, we did so standing in front of the lobby desk, talking with people we knew (from having stayed there for a week or so).  Their price for each of the two days was MX$1,160 (UD$58.33 at our exchange rate, including all the taxes and breakfast each day).  Orbitz wanted $1,300 without breakfast!  I'm glad I checked with them rather than just booking online.  So, yesterday and today, we had breakfast thrown in.  That was nice.  As I mentioned before, the hotel is quite nice.

We hopped a cab to the bus stop and then hopped on the bus to Valladolid.  I finished reading one of my books and listened to music.  

When we got to Valladolid, we walked the few blocks to the AirBNB home we had arranged.  We met the host, checked in, made sure the internet was working and headed to dinner.  Keeping with the theme of avoiding Mexican restaurants when possible, we found an Irish pub, the aptly named Saint Patrick's Pub.

The walk to the Saint Patrick's restaurant took us past the city's main square, so we detoured for a quick tour on the way to our Mexican-Irish experience.

Center square, Valladolid with the cathedral in the background.

We liked it and we'll probably be back, but in terms of its inherent Irish pub-ness, I would say it was a good effort to create a reasonable facsimile.  It tried hard, but the only beer they had on draft was Mexican and they only had one Irish whisky - the one I don't much care fore:  the Catholic whiskey, Jameson's.  (Nothing against the Catholics, I myself am one - but in terms of whiskey, they really should take a few lessons from the Protestants.)  So, there I sat, in a well-intentioned, reasonable facsimile of an Irish pub in Mexico's sweltering heat with a hankering maybe to tip back a couple only to discover the two prime staples of every Irish pub lacking.  Undeterred, I persisted by indulging in shots of scotch with Mexican beer on tap.  The well intentioned, reasonable facsimile needed a little help from me.  My steak, on the other hand was the first bit of beef that had not been triple cooked since I arrived in Mexico.  It was quite good.

Francine - despite my taunting - (I even went so far as to attempt to bring the waiter in in the taunting, but he was smart enough to not take that bait.) elected to try the Italian fare at this well-intentioned Irish-styled pub facsimile in sweltering Mexico.  Chicken parmigiana.  She did it even though it was served with mashed potatoes and coleslaw. If there has ever been a bigger tip off to not order Italian food in an Irish-styled pub in sweltering Mexico, it was that it was served with mashed potatoes and coleslaw:  no pasta in the house.  She did it anyway - she's real persistent when it comes to Italian food.

And so ends day thirty-one.

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Location: Valladolid, Yucatan, Mexico

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