Yesterday was a quiet day around the Casa, we lounged around the pool waiting for our 7:30 pm dinner engagement with Bob & Denise at 130Degree Steakhouse. As I said the other day, it has the reputation as being one of the better restaurants in Merida. This is just a little different type of steakhouse, they have a charge by the "ounce" for their steaks, depending on the cut, the price per ounce varies with the cut of meat. We had heard that the size of the steaks were large, so Deborah and I had agreed in advance that we'd split a steak. After we placed our orders, the waiter brought a board of steaks out to the table to show us what we had picked. We'd ordered two 45oz. steaks, yes I said 45oz. The waiter suggested that we order just ONE for the four of us and in the end it was just perfect. The final result was amazing - good choice Bob. Before I go any further, we want to wish the very Happiest of Birthday's to our girl Keli. We made the annual 7:30 am telephone call to sing Happy Birthday to her but as luck would have it - we didn't get to wake her up. She saw a weird phone number and decided she wouldn't answer the call - drat. We got her later in the day and spent over 40 minutes getting caught up on all the news. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETHEART ! We had some pretty detailed discussions during dinner with both Bob & Denise about their 7-month (less a day) stay here in the White City every year - trying to uncover the good, the bad and the ugly, but they love it here. I get the opinion that while they still spend 5-months a year at their Ontario home and continue to travel around the globe, their Casa Oasis in Merida has become their true home. Intrigued as we have been for the last four or five years about the possibility of living in Mexico (now Yucatán) full-time, we have scheduled a meeting with Bob's builder to discuss what options might be available for us to do something in the same Colonial enclave - Santa Ana. We're looking forward to getting together tonight to crunch some numbers and see what lots if any would be available for a ground-up build. We figure if at all possible, we need to beat the rush of baby-boomer retirees (according to the stats - 10,000 people a day will be retiring over the next five years) to this hot colonial area of Merida along wth a host of other "third-world" countries. After a great dinner with some great conversation, Bob offered us a drive back to the Casa, so it saved me hooking us with UBER for the trip home - thanks Bob ! I thought it would be important to briefly summarize some of the Meridan history. Before this was brought to my attention a few years back, I had no idea what a Merida was. Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán as well as the largest city of the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about 35 kilometres from the Gulf of Mexico coast. According to the 2010 census, the population of Mérida was 970,377, ranking 12th among the most populous Mexican metropolitan areas. The city, like much of the state, has heavy Mayan, Spanish, French, British, and to a lesser extent Dutch influences. Mérida has the highest percentage of indigenous persons of any large city in Mexico with approximately 60% of all inhabitants being of the Maya ethnicity. Merida features a tropical wet and dry climate. The city lies in the trade wind belt close to the Tropic of Cancer, with the prevailing wind from the east. Mérida's climate is hot and its humidity is moderate to high, depending on the time of year. The average annual high temperature is 33 °C (91 °F), ranging from 28 °C (82 °F) in January to 36 °C (97 °F) in May, but temperatures often rise above 38 °C (100 °F) in the afternoon in this time. The rainy season runs from June through October, associated with the Mexican monsoon which draws warm, moist air landward. Easterly waves and tropical storms also affect the area during this season. Mérida has been nicknamed "The White City" (La Ciudad Blanca"), though the exact origin of this moniker is not clear. Some explanations include the common color of its old buildings painted and decorated with "cal" (though anyone visiting modern Mérida can see that buildings are not all white nowadays) or the fact that the residents keep the city particularly clean.