3 days, 3 DAYS!

Until we leave this apartment behind. I can. NOT. WAIT. I left my clothes on the floor of the bathroom when i got in the shower and forgot to pick them up right away. When I did they were full of about 15 huge black ants. Gross gross gross. Oh, and when we went to talk to the landlord about the internet being out, he came back at us with "well, i'm actually being nice because you were supposed to be out of here on the 27th." Yes, Benjamin, when we said we wanted it for January, we meant only until the fourth to last day. UGH. Enough about that..

Well, Jon and I started our teaching volunteer on Monday. I was put with 3rd and 4th graders (no babies :() and Jon with 5th and 6th. This was supposed to be a trial week, with us helping out the normal teachers, but on Tuesday I showed up to a class of 30 and no Rachel, the teacher. She was out with asthma for Tuesday and Wednesday. I tried to pull some kind of lesson out of thin air, it went alright. Wednesday was better when I actually had time to plan, and I had a good time doing art projects and some games to teach the numbers 1-20. Today Rachel was back, which was a little weird because she took over, but good, because I got a chance to relax. One of the poorer girls has a little brother who comes with, but is too young for any classes. I saw him hanging around outside and went to invite him in. So cute, he comes up to me and asks "Excuse me, where is the classroom for 1st grade, section B?". So I brought him in and while Rachel worked with the class I helped him learn a few words. I like that I found the only 5 year old in the whole place. He is a smart guy too, I drew a sun and an apple and wrote SUN and APPLE  and asked him to read which was which to me and he goes "SUN... and an APPLE but it looks like a sun..." So, teaching is going pretty well. 

I also interviewed for another job on Tuesday. It was advertised as a barista job, but when I showed up, its a little corner bakery owned by an american woman. It smelled amazing. From what I can tell, only one mexican woman works there, baking everything from scratch. My job would be to help work the espresso machine (more like one that you would have at home than an industrial one), and then learn to bake. It sounds really fun, but doesn't pay well. But i got a free cinnamon bun with the interview!! I still may end up doing it just for the experience. 

I feel a lot better about being down here now that I have something to do every day. It does mean that jon and i have become really lame, watching a movie and going to bed around 10 every night, then waking up to plan lessons, but I feel more settled in. Yesterday we found the pirated movie stand, a local grocery store AND tamales. What a good night. 

I'm a little behind on blog posts.. a couple fun things with good pictures happened-

We watched obamas inaguration on the computer!!! wearing matching obama shirts! and then went into town wearing them trying to find other nerdy people like us but none existed!! 

We said goodbye to Jons aunt and uncle (not fun, they were sweet and felt like family! i miss them!) by going on the weekly art walk around PV. there were some really amazing portraits and other things. a lot of gay art too, given the location. but i really enjoyed going. 

The next day was Jon and my's designated anniversary day, and Jon surprised me by taking me by bus to the zoo. (An even greater gesture, because jon absolutely hates the zoo.) The Puerto Vallarta Zoo is pretty well known, and was really fun. We bought a bag that they provide at the beginning, filled with several animal specific foods : carrots, pellets, bread, peanuts, corn. We got to get up close and feed every animal they had! My favorite, boringly enough, were the monkeys. Wait thats not true. I found a new animal, called the coati that has a nose like an anteater and is cousin to the raccoon. The funniest was a cage with a hairless dog in it. I'm pretty sure they had just grabbed it off the street and put it in the cage. All it wanted to do was play chase. I think jons favorite was the zebra. They had learned what a person with a bag meant, and as soon as we got close, they tilted their heads back and opened their mouths. I really loved the zoo, I will probably have to go back several times. 

Our last grand adventure was our attempt at a hike. The zoo was located by a sign that said "hike, 2.5 miles to waterfall", so we decided to go back and do that. Jon and I set out with plenty of water, swimsuits, and walkin shoes. We walked down the road where the sign pointed... and walked down the road some more... and walked on more road... pretty much it was a road through the jungle that led to....... dun dun dun...... THE PREDATOR MOVIE SET! so, instead of being a hike, we kind of just walked 2.5 miles (as tourists passed by in taxis) to get to small waterfalls surrounded by ziplines, a bar and a restaurant. So, we sighed, took some pictures with the sets, had a beer and some guacamole, and jumped in! We were the only ones at first,but as soon as we discovered that one of the rocks was perfectly formed to be a waterfall waterslide, we were joined by many. 

oh, and i saw a manta ray jump out of the water the other day. yessss.