Avientame

Laura is come and gone. Time really flew there. She got in on the 17th,  and left the 26th. We had fun, she came to the school with me most of the days she was here, learned quite a bit of spanish (to Jon´s jealous chagrin), and we explored the town some. once, when we were walking down the stairs outside our house, an iguana fell from out of nowhere, landed right at our feet, and then scampered awkwardly away. Fairly irrelevant to the overall story of her trip, but still funny to think about. We hung out by the pool some, made some delicious dinners, watched sex and the city and other girly things of which i have been greatly depraved while living with all boys. One of my favorite things was going shopping for the first time since I have been down here (four months and no shopping! goodness!) Even so, I only spent about $20. Needless to say, it was quite a relief to have a female counterpart if only for a week. 

The next adventure to come is Spring break. We already have plenty of US and Canadian spring breakers around town, but next weekend, the the thousands of inland mexican vacationers are supposed to start popping out of the woodwork. I start my babysitting job next sunday, and rented a car to get to the town. It will be pretty exciting to try to drive here, though nothing compared to trying to drive in Mexico City. Im confident I will make it out alive. Then, after a week of babysitting, Jordan, Jon and I have tickets to Mexico City!! I´m excited to see my dad and sister, and of course the cats. Also, I may finally get to see the Templo Mayor downtown, which i missed the last two times due to meetings with the passport people. Boo. 

Once that trip is over, we only have one week in April, then May and June, and we are finished with the school! It may even be earlier, we had some teachers unexpectedly quit, and several had planned to only stay until the end of May, so there may not be enough staff to finish off the year. But we will see. 

Yoga may be in my future as well. In my attempts to keep myself busy, I have plenty of ideas but when trying to decide which to do, none ever seem to get done. Well, tomorrow is a new week. 

Lo de Marcos and San Pancho

Had a cool weekend. It was Benito Juarez´birthday so we had monday off as well. I found a babysitting job for spring break, but it is Lo de Marcos, a town north of here that I have never been to, so we decided to go explore it this weekend. Turns out its quite a bit further than I thought. But the bus ride was gorgeous, it goes through pure jungle. We arrived at Lo de Marcos in the late afternoon. We found a sparse little hotel a bit off the beach, plopped our stuff down and went to walk the beach. However, I was still hurting from twisting my ankle two days before, so it was more of a hobble than a stroll. The most exciting part was when we came across a huge boulder on the sand. When we got closer, we smelled and saw that it was a huge sea turtle rotting on the beach. The waves would come up and spin it around and ALMOST take it back out, but not quite. I took lots of pictures, intrigued by the fact that you could actually see the skin dissolving from the muscle dissolving from the bone. Turtle foot bones are very interesting! As we kept walking, the sun began to set, and we hit the end of the beach with surfers riding huge sunset waves against a backdrop of black volcanic rock outcrops. On the way back to our place, some renegade cowboys were racing their horses up and down the sand. I think they were training them for something, because one of them made his horse moonwalk to some reggaeton. Not normal. For dinner, we got some very disappointing chinese food. We were misled by an actual chinese person running the restaurant. But it was just for looks. 

The next day we got up, had some breakfast, and attempted to make our way to the town of San Pancho, about 10 miles south. We were told busses and taxis frequently passed on the main road, but after waiting abut 20 minutes in the blazing sun, all taxis ignoring us and no busses in sight, and with a failed hitch hiking sign, we were getting irritated. Finally a tour bus stopped for us, charging us $20 pesos each (it should be around 4.....). We got to San Pancho, a very pretty little town. We were greeted by the snack stand owner at the entrance to town, who was incredibly friendly, and gave us a map of the place not that we would need it. We went into town towards the beach, set up shop and enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon there. The sea however was not for swimming. I was tentative to do anything than wade with my sore foot, but Jon went in. By the time he got past the first wave, he had been carried about half a mile down shore. He decided against trying to battle the sea anymore and came in. There were some rocky cliffs we decided to go explore. They were made up of boulders that had fallen down and gotten wedged precariously together. You could be standing on an outcrop and then look down and realized you were 30 feet above roiling sea with nothing below you. Pretty impressive.

When we finally decided to go home, we had a little bit more bus trouble. We caught a bus fairly easily, and were happily riding it into what we thought would be town, when it stopped not in town, but twenty miles outside of town, at the airport. Ok, we thought, well, we will just catch a little bus into town. We get onto a bus headed to town, but five minutes later, it veers off course and starts going completely opposite of town. Next bus, slowest driver in the history of the world, and when we get to the very very very edge of town, he announces that he is going no further. Thanks. At that point we were very irritated, and decided to just walk the mile and a half home. We go a block and find that the streets are crowded with tourists come to see the show set up for Benito Juarez´birthday. Jon had had enough and pushed his way through and headed home, but I was optimistic about the presence of fireworks, and so stuck it out for a minute. The mexican navy sang ABBA, and then the pirate ship shot up its fireworks for us. So yes, it was, in the end, worth it. 

AND NOW LAURA IS COMING!!!!! WOOOOOO

Playing Catch up

Wow, I just realized its been over a month since I was on this thing. Well, mid February Jon headed off to Calgary for his cousins wedding. He loved being in cold weather again. Just kidding.  Jordan, Jon´s brother joined us at the end of February. He loves it down here, and I haven´t heard him complain about anything yet. His friend Dana followed him down here on March 1st. While Jon and Jordan were in Calgary, I took the opportunity to visit my dad at his place outside of Mexico City. It was a great getaway. Cats and movies and fireplaces. At the beginning of March, Jordan, Jon and I moved out to the southern edge of town, to the best apartment in the history of life. Its a great place, with a breeze, a huge tree over the balcony, a view. Both bedrooms are legitimately awesome, so I don´t feel bad that Jordan has the smaller bed. In fact I´m a little jealous. Our bed is so big I feel like I´m drowning in it! A big change from having to share a single in the last place. My pa came to visit for a quick weekend trip, so Jon and I slept on one of the couches, and even THAT was comfortable. Having my dad come down was really fun, to show off my town, take him around. I think his favorite part was Xocodiva, this great chocolate store, though he wont admit it since he is supposed to not eat sweets. He took us all out to dinner as a treat, and when we got to the restaurant we weren´t sure if it would be right, and the hostess thought we were going to leave and so offered us all a free glass of wine with dinner. so we ate there, and it ended up being one of the best meals we have had yet. (ignoring the fact that for the most part we only spend about 10 dollars a meal, and survive greatly on spaghetti and pb and j...). 

On the work front, we have now worked at the school for about 2 and a half months. It growing on me. Zoey ended up coming on as full staff and is a huge help in class. Jon´s help quit, so now he is all alone in class. Every so often Dana or Jordan will show up, and I think they enjoy the work. My class has been fun, we have invented several games in which the stressfulness of teaching is relieved by making the students do things that make us laugh. Last week as a friday surprise, we blasted reggaeton and made them dance with moves that corresponded to the weekly vocabulary. That week was ¨family¨. I think my favorite was the grandpa. 

Jon found a private english student 5 days a week, which he is pretty excited about. I´m proud that he is so good of  a teacher that he can get paid for private lessons. I think I have decided to give up on my job search. After interviewing at numerous places i found that if you aren´t willing to work 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, and commit longer than 6 months for about 3 dollars a day, then you´re not going to find work. Laura is coming soon (NEXT WEEK!) and after that, we are thinking of going to Mexico City for a week in spring break. So, having to work like crazy just to make enough to eat, and having to give up the ability to enjoy my time here just didn´t make sense. So I´m buckling down and saving what I have for as long as I can. The funny thing is, I found a babysitting job for a week in April. That one week of babysitting will pay me as much as if I worked every day until then. So if I can find the random job every so often, I think I can make it. I wrote to the orphanage, the animal shelter, and the ecotours place to volunteer so that I don´t go crazy in my free time. 

Ill keep you posted on my sanity