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.  

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