NEW BLOG

ok, just fyi new blog templesofdoom.blogspot.com

It was all a dream...

Well, I´m attempting to leave Puerto Vallarta, but it doesn´t want to let me. I had the most incredibly pleasant last week. After an additional cancellation of school allowed me to visit my mom the week before, we finally started up again on Monday. It was awesome seeing the kids again. They were as rambunctious as always, but the knowledge that it was my last week let my patience extend further than usual. When I finally told them Friday was my last day, they were all very sweet, asking me not to go, and giving me tons of hugs. My favorite was Victor, Laura´s super ADD buddy, who came up to me and very sincerely told me that he really was going to miss me a lot, but that he hoped i had a very good trip. Kids, for all the trouble they can be, are amazing. I really do not regret spending so much time in PV, because I think they really did appreciate the commitment. Friday Zoey brought her violin too, wowing the kids with her skill. Saturday we had a little going away party at Marco´s house, with too much food and some night swimming in the pool. Sunday Jon and I shared my last beach day, and went to see Angels and Demons. Both were perfect. The hellish muggy heat that has been filling PV for the past 10 days disappeared yesterday, leaving it warm and sunny without the massive amounts of sweat. And Angels and Demons was full of amazing explosions and morbid scenes, so I was happy. I really don´t think I could have enjoyed my last week here any more. So, here I end the PV portion of the blog, and am starting a new archaeology focused one, templesofdoom.blogspot.com .

For those of you who have been struck with the urge to visit PV, a couple of recommendations

- Esquina de los Caprichos, best tapas in life

- Playa Punta Negra, great swimming beach

-The zoo. pay extra to play with the baby leopard.

- Benitos pizza. 

- walking all the way through the isla cuale, especially at night, when the cats all come out. 

- watching the fireworks on the malecon

- buying fabulous cheese at rizos, fruit at the market on lazaro cardenas, and enjoying it all with some white wine by your pool. 

ah, what a life it was.............

Its a Porker.

oh what a frustrating month! this pig flu is ridiculous! I feel like I have a curse that shuts down towns every time I move to Mexico. First Oaxaca, now this. Bars and schools have been closed for 2 weeks and they just issued a new decree to close everything till the 18th now as well. People are really suffering here, tourism is the main income, and without it they are going downhill fast! We had a charity night at Banana Cantina on Wednesday night, trying to get money for our school. Usually regulars come in and fill up the restaurant and you get a few people from the street too. This time the only reason we got ANYTHING was because Josh, the main guy who helps coordinate Children of the Dump, is the smoothest talker in the world. The restaurant only had 2 other tables besides us, so we moved downstairs to the bar on the street (bars can be open till 11 if they have food..) and basically accosted passersby. We made close to $200, which is more than even the restaurant did, but still. It is really sad. I miss my kids like crazy too. I´m only going to get about a week with them when all is said and done, and I hate it. I was supposed to go visit my mom this weekend for Mother´s day, but when I got to the airport, I was told my connection to Mexico City was cancelled. While they were trying to rebook me, my flight from Mexico to Guatemala got cancelled as well. They gave me the option of flying to Mexico 5 hours later, then waiting around for possibly days until I got to Honduras. No one is flying, and flights are having to cancel most of their routes. It really, really sucks. On the ride home on the bus though (while listening to very loud, angry music), I thought about what would make me happy about having to stay in PV this weekend, and I realized that we have yet to go to San Sebastian. It is this 17th century mining town in the mountains, piney, refreshing, and with no electricity. I convinced Jon and we leave early tomorrow morning. I miss fresh, crisp, non dusty air. That, along with a spare bottle of wine, and our neighboring church having its saints festival tonight might make it ok, at least for a bit. I also emailed the SPCA people again about fostering some kittens. Reading and kittens. Yes, that will do. 

And there is more....

Cataclysmic changes!!! We sold our house in Seattle! A little sad, but then I think about our neighbor and I am no longer as distraught. Also, I got my scholarship for Belize! I decided to go to the earliest session, which begins May 25, meaning I only have a little time left here and I have a feeling it will fly by now. I feel bad having to leave school so early, but the other sessions had a week long gap in them meaning I would have to stay over a month, shortening our travel plans. I still have to break the news to our director. ick. I really am going to miss jose though, when we stopped by pre pig flu, he was just so cute and sweet and funny. Jordan is heading out asap as well. He bought his plane ticket for a week from now. So, instead of having to figure out a place for june, jon will be all alone in our nice apartment for the end of may. He maybe will stay with a family at the church or something to save money. Meanwhile, we are trying to quickly get an outline of our travel plans together, while simultaneously trying to figure out an apartment in Mexico once we return, study for the GRE, and apply to grad schools. whew. I am getting really excited for grad school. I think the professors at the field school will be really good mentors and have some advice for where to go etc. ARCHAEOLOGY! woo. Jon and I found a tianguis (outdoor market with everything from clothes to pirated movies to vegetables) and i found some great archaeology pants. it was really just like going to good will, but i havent been to good will in so long that it was a lot more exciting. ok, im going to work on posting these pictures. 

Ch Ch Ch CH channnnges

PIG FLLUUUUUUU. just kidding. well, we had one week of school after our spring break, but unfortunately it was not to be. On monday we found out swine flu had forced all schools in mexico to cancel until May 6th. Unfortunately Jon and I found this out after already having arrived at the church, so we went with them to tell the kids at the school. They made us wear ridiculous masks, and then put us in the back of the pickup for all to see. This was when masks were not quite fashionable yet, and so everyone stared at us like the plague. When we got to school, two people were on tour. These two people just so happened to have photography as a hobby, as well as three huge lensed cameras with them, each. Really huge. Like two feet long. We apparently proved to be amazing subjects, and my face is now plastered all over someones vacation photos. After telling the kids that there would be no school, and consequently Children´s day (and the huge toy give away that goes with) would be cancelled until further notice. It just sucked. I really like those kids. Then we went to go feed the people at the dump. I felt kind of ironic because with the pig flu and whatnot I bet the dump is the place that you  are least supposed to go... BUT, TO THE DUMP we went. And now we are on our second two week vacation in a month and a half, and I may be going crazy. I did sign up for unlimited Yoga though, and have gone every day this week! And wendy comes tomorrow! So maybe life aint that bad. 

Ode to Fireworks

The international firework symposium is in town for the week. Awesome. I thought the pirate ship fireworks once a night were heaven, but I had no idea!! On Monday, Jon and I went to the sports field to watch the ¨castillo¨shows. These are rickety structures about 2 stories or taller, made up of sticks with fireworks attached in fabulous ways. They tend to have parts to them that spin, like huge sparker wheels. The trend these days also seems to be to attach a piece at the very top that will fly off at the last minute. The area was taped off when we got there, to keep the crowd at a safe distance. However, the crowd did not want to be at a safe distance. I think my mexican side is where I get my morbid nature, because I highly suspect most of the people that inched past the tape like I did were a little excited to see what could possibly be disastrous. It was a fun festival, because since it followed the insanely busy Easter season, it seemed like the firework symposium was a festival to make it up to the poor locals, now that the messy tourists were gone. So, Jon and I got a seat about 5 feet from one of these castillos, which I thought was the coolest thing in the world. Unfortunately, I am not as ballsy as I think, and when they lit the one we were close to, and the top shot up into the sky, my reaction was to run (without worrying about Jon, I might add...) very quickly in the opposite direction. I can´t be completely sure but I think one of the fireworks had shot debris straight into the crowd across the field from us at an earlier time... Anyway, Jon had a good laugh at my cowardliness.But I do have to point out that his hair was full of ash.  On our way home, there was a typical fireworks in the sky show on the boardwalk. Also incredible. The other nights this week I spared Jon the trek to watch the smaller works every night, and contented myself with watching the sky fireworks from our house. Tonight, they made a HUGE castillo downtown, visible from our house a mile away. The top of it opened up like a flower into an eagle made of fireworks, who then proceeded to flap its wings, and take off into the sky. Oh, pyrotechnics... Tomorrow is the big finale. I cant wait. 

A whole whopping novel

Well April flew by too! We ended our school with Zoey and I completely giving up on a friday attempt at class and instead just having a big party and easter egg hunt. It went well if quite hecticly. Then on saturday, they invited the whole school out to pizza, so Jon, Zoey and I went. It was fun, the kids really are sweet once you aren´t trying to worry about the amount of English they are learning. I miss them….

Sunday I started my stint babysitting in Lo de Marcos. The first day Jon drove up with me. It was so nice driving! The way up there is gorgeous, cutting through a jungly hill with peeks at extensive mountains going off into the distance on one side, and the ocean on the other. Then I met ZiZi and her mom. No abhorrence of babysitters  in sight! ZiZi was a little shy, but once she saw that I could play like the best of them, we had a really good time. The first day I spent almost all 4 hours in the pool. I didn´t even notice, but the next day I was incredibly sore. All in all the week went really well. Dana and Jordan came up one day and hung out on the beach with Jon while I worked, and then we had a FABULOUS dinner at the next town down, San Pancho. I learned how to pass cars, and that driving through downtown PV is HELL.  All one ways, left hand turn lanes jump from the far left lane to the far right in a block, and tourists take their sweet time walking directly in front of your car. On Thursday Jon met me after work, and we had dinner with ZiZi and Kendall. It  was really fun and nice to have dinner conversation. Friday I said goobye to them, and headed back to return the car and head to Mexico City with Jordan and Jon.

Mexico City has been awesome.  We got here at 6pm Friday, got home to meet Wendy and the cats, have dinner and relax. Blaze ignored me at first and then we were back to normal. I ditched Jon to sleep with Blaze in my bed, and he doesn´t hate me for it, so ten points Jon! Saturday, we went to the Anthropology Museum. It was nice having read more into the Mayan cultures, I felt like maybe I am retaining some information. We speed toured the thousands of rooms, and then had a quick lunch at the restaurant. The museum is located in a huge park, like Central Park almost, so afterwards we went on a walk through it towards La Condesa, one of the areas Jon and I are thinking of moving to. It was a long walk, but we found some cool places. Then we met my sister, and she took us on a speed tour of the downtown monuments via the main road. It was a full day, but I felt like I got to know where some more things were.

Yesterday, we went back into the city for Easter church. Jon and Jordan valiantly made it through the hour and a half service, I think mostly because midway through, Jordan and I left to go hide the eggs. We hid about 180 for 12 kids, so I think everyone was satisfied. When church let out, it was a mad dash, but luckily we had a few good spots and I managed to help some slower moving adults find eggs for themselves too.  And I managed to squirrel away three for us too.  After church we headed to Coyoacan, another neighborhood we were interested in with a weekend crafts market. It was nice walking around and it even started sprinkling a bit which felt incredible. On our way home, we attempted to see the oldest pyramid, a circular one on the south end of town, but after several failed attempts at finding a way in we had to be satisfied with a drive by view.

 

Today we may try to drive to the dormant volcano crater by my dads house, or possibly just enjoy the fact that we have nothing we have to do, and nowhere we really have to go. We shall see.

(INTERNET was out so i saved that last one in word.... heres an update...)

On monday, we ended up going on a little day trip to the hacienda, an old hacienda from the colonial times, converted now into a retreat center which my dad is the president of. It was gorgeous there, and we walked around for a little while and enjoyed the orchards and views. Then we drove on to a couple more towns further down the road, one of them a cute little mining town. 

Yesterday, my dad had to work all day so he dropped Jordan, Jon and I off downtown and left us to our own devices. I beguiled the boys into going to the Templo Mayor, the original Aztec center of Mexico city, built over by the Spanish, and then uncovered during some road work and when they began to build the metro. It was the greatest thing I have ever seen. It might not be big or grand, but it blows my mind that the whole downtown area covers an entire civilization´s core. I got even more excited when I saw that they have a program going on with the school I want to take classes at in the fall. I guess every time there is construction in the vicinity of the known boundaries of the aztecs, the archaeologists get first dibs in digging around to see if there is anything under the house or street or whatever it is they tore up. I CAN DO THIS! AHH! it drives me crazy that i have to wait though, I want to be working on it RIGHT NOW. Anyway... after making my way through the museum while Jon and Jordan waited outside, I remet up with them. We walked around for a little then split while they looked at the monuments and I shopped.

We had a nice dinner with Wendy who was so kind as to let us stay the night with her. It was fun, and I am definitely looking forward to living around family here again. 

Today we went to the pyramids at Teotihuacan. The boys were pretty impressed, and I had fun seeing it again after having visited numerous times when I was little. We got a lot of good pictures this week. Saturday is picture day.