Back

When Friends Arrive: A Day of Discoveries in Playa del Carmen | Day 294 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Oct 22, 2023· 3 minutes

When friends arrive.

Jetlag is a real thing. It affects our emotional life more than we had expected. It might be the sleep deprivation or the chaos on all physiological levels; I am not sure.

On our second day in Playa, we waited for friends to arrive and spent all morning working and exercising. I ran in the other direction on 5th Avenue and found the craziness to evaporate and leave space for street art, which was a great relief. It's also lovely to reach a point where I could run 3k without stopping. It has been a long journey.

Another achievement of the day was to find the local market so we could later enjoy a lovely lunch at home with even better produce to work with. It might become hard to stay on track with losing weight, as the food is so damn delicious. Let’s see how it goes. The jetlag is not helping either, and that will at least change fairly quickly.

On the way to the market, we realized Playa might not be AS hellish touristy as first impressions suggested. And there was even more street art. We love street art.

I went out for coffee with Silke in the morning, a treat I enjoyed very much. Talking about dogs and life and coffee, we walked by the cover photo of this post about thinking outside the box. What a lovely way to highlight the general idea of winning by coloring (or playing) outside the lines.

394563662_2646194128852954_1139523309325556812_n

Reminds me of my baseline, of my lifestyle, of most of my friends, of the way of thinking that makes me happy.

In the afternoon, Silke and I met our friends in the street after buying Silke a bikini (she had forgotten her swimwear in Spain), and the rest of the day was spent talking nonstop. We hung out in the sofas, walked to photograph more street art, got to see other sides of Playa, and hear stories from the almost 20 years Kenia has been coming here.

“If I have a place to stay and a friend to show me around, I am ready to go.” This is my friend Rohit's line, and it is coming true in Playa for us.

We are going to enjoy our time with Kenia and Sophie very much. No matter how many other people gather here to enjoy the sun, the beach, and the cilantro.

With love

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our lives like this, and we get very happy when we get your feedback. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

See more images on Facebook!

What is unschooling? What is it not? And why defining it is so difficult? Sand Dodd, Sue Elvis and Cecilie Conrad explore how unschooling is not just…Read more
What is the price of unfreedom? How does managerialism control our work, childhood, and daily lives? Inspired by our conversation with Dennis Nørmark…Read more
We live by the stories, we can imagine, we understand through the lens of eyes of heroes and victims and witches and kings and everyone else from the…Read more
In Finhan, where we live in February 2025, not much is happening. The church in the square strikes its hour, funnily enough, twice, so if you didn't …Read more
In this first episode of season two of The Ladies Fixing the World, we explore the philosophy and practicalities of unschooling and showcase its tran…Read more
How did we end up in Scandinavia mid-winter, and why did we need to see that contrast? How life crashes suddenly, like hitting a tree on the side of …Read more
There is this saying about lemons: if life throws them at you, just make lemonade. But really?! To me, it sounds like bullshit. When life gives you l…Read more
Sometimes, we have to stay very clear and keep the spirit very open when the Universe is talking, and there is a delay in the translation. This is a …Read more
I often say that I love change and that I trust the process. But what about pain? When is it hard? What when I did not choose the change, did not wan…Read more