Welcome to Century Village (or not!)

Mark's parents bought into this development when it was brand new, so his mom has been going there every winter for more than 30 years now.

She has an end unit in one of the 2-story buildings, which they call "Garden" buildings. It's also in a pretty nice location not far from the main entrance to the village.

Above is a view from the parking area, and below is a view of the pool area directly behind the building.

It's nice that this pool is just outside the patio door, and it's not too crowded because there are pools all over the village for the various "neighborhoods" and people tend to stay in their own areas.

Many of the areas consist of clusters of high-rise buildings like this one in the photo below, which overlooks the golf course and one of the many ponds. It's a lovely place, yes, so why my snarky comment about not feeling welcome in this place?

Well let me tell you ... in addition to a ridiculous rule that prohibits any outdoor grilling (huh?) this duck is about the closest thing to a pet you will find in this entire little village of more than 16,000 residents. They have a strict "no dogs or cats" policy, which I think is insane. No wonder all those old people are so crabby all the time! When we were there in November Mom was telling us about the "scandal" in one of the associations where someone was trying to use a doctor's note to keep a small dog. She wasn't kidding! I was just trying to find a link to the association and its encyclopedia of "rules" you have to follow there and I found this news story about it that appeared just today. What a coincidence!

They do however have a lovely club house, where you can take classes of all kinds or go see cruise ship-style shows several evenings each week if that's your cup of tea.

It's kind of sad to see at least 1/4 of the parking lot closest to the club house is reserved for those with handicapped stickers, and it's kind of scary walking around the village because there are way too many people driving who probably should not be behind the wheel anymore.

Use the shuttle bus service ..... please!!! They have a whole fleet of these little buses that go around the village all day long.

As I mentioned they have many classes at the main club house, including water exercise every morning. They were working those noodles the day we watched them!

Over the last several years as more and more units have been resold, the village has become quite popular with the French Canadians. Apparently they are really big into bocce, so they have taken over the old shuffle court and turned it into a bocce ball court. I'm not quite sure how it is played or scored, but it didn't look too exciting to me.

Although in some neighborhoods it seems like all the cars have Canadian plates, the village is still predominately Jewish.

Schlep is one of my favorite words, so I got a kick out of this poster on the wall in the golf course snack bar. And bagels with lox is one of my favorite snacks, so you know I was over there almost every day!