Just in case I didn't get enough bureaucracy yesterday, today we went to Tulum and got our driver's licenses. It was pretty smooth, a little crowded but only took about an hour.

First we had to go to a lab and get our blood typed and an official paper with the results. All DL's here have your blood type on them in case of an accident. This isn't done up north, I can't imagine any hospital or EMT in the US giving someone blood without first getting it typed as the liability would be incredible. Had our DL's from Calif had this info on them though we wouldn't have needed the lab work.

I'm still O+ ...although I haven't paid any attention to my blood type in dozens of years. Nice to know some things never change, I wish I still wore size 29 jeans too.

For those of you down here and interested, all they wanted was a comprobante, copy of my US license, copy of my FM3.

We both used a copy of the same electric bill for a comprobante and it doesn't have either of our names on it, so let me know if you need one. My FM3 has my Mérida address on it and is from Yucatán but they didn't notice or they didn't care. I gave them my Akumal address and my Mérida cell phone number. No test, no driving, nothing else except $400 pesos.

Another plus, if you are a golfer, with a local DL you can play on the Playa course for $38USD! That's a savings of several hundred dollars.

When I was looking at the picture I took of my beautiful new license, I noticed that they spelled my name wrong. It made me laugh because they gave it a Yucatecan accent! Here in the Yucatan when a word ends in an N, it comes out sounding like an M. So, Juan is Juam and apparently, Harlan is Harlam.

We got done in time to stop at our favorite fish taco stand, Urge Taquito, with the fabulous tamarindo chipotle sauce. We like the place so much we even bought t-shirts this time.

It's warmer today but a lot windier. I've included some more ocean pictures for you in the frozen north. Really, I never tire of these pictures either or of looking at the many colors and moods of the ocean. I'm glad to have an excuse to post and take more pictures of it. We've even got small waves in our part of the bay today and big breakers on the reef and out at the point.

Also, I have a confession. My RSS reader that tracks all the blogs I read now says I have 287 unread blog posts! That is without the huge number from Engadget and Perez Hilton! Yes, I know, Perez! Can I say that I just read the articles and don't look at the pictures? No, huh? Anyway, I'm waaaaay behind on reading blogs and I'm not going to catch up until we get back to Mérida and my fast internet connection. So, if you've written something spectacular and I didn't comment, that's why.