Holly's Latin American Adventure!

The wonderful speech

2009-01-21T20:19:00.000-08:00

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many.

They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages.

We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

The inauguration!

2009-01-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

`The day had finally come.

The excitement in the air is tangible. People are flocking to the nations capital from across these United States and from around the globe. Obama is in the house. The White House.

What started as a nine hour trip from Oxford to DC got extended to 11 hours by a wicked snow storm somewhere half way through. We arrived in the city about 5am exhausted but glad to have avoided the wretched traffic. Agent Ashley and Holly are on a new road trip. We packed cookies and fruit snacks, Gatorade and water and stopped for coffee in Columbus (double short caramel macchiato). We had made several song mixes and sang for hours. After two hours in blinding snow, a 30 minute nap in a bank parking lot and approximately 937 songs, we arrived in DC around 5am. We parked the car and carted our mountain of luggage into the apartment and were sleeping about 7 minutes later. It helps to arrive in your PJs.

We slept until noon and lazily moved about Chris' apartment making french toast and coffee. We felt able to function as human beings after eating and meandered out of the apartment around 2. We walked to the National Cathedral for a celebration for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It was an interesting and moving collection of of poetry, singing and speaking. The most moving was the violin solo by a high-school aged young man who paired his music with orchestra music and clips from MLK's 'I had a Dream Speech'. The music was so full of energy and emotion that he got a standing ovation half-way through the music. I was moved to happy tears. Everyone was glowing.

Agent Ashley, my brother Chris, several friends and I enjoyed an extended lunch at a French cafe and made plans for inauguration day. Since they involved getting up at 3:30 in the morning, we didn't stay up late.

3:30am. The multiple alarms we set go off. Sleep is inhibiting excitement for the time being, but that will change soon enough. We munch on some hard boiled eggs and coffee strong enough to chew (minimal liquids = minimal peeing) and put on our millions of layers. It is going to be a high in the mid 20's and we're going to be out in the cold for hours. By the time I'm finished with my layers, it is going to take any toots 30 minutes to emerge.

We call a cab to take us part way and they estimate 30-40 minutes. Five minutes later the cab arrives and we're not ready. We try to get them to bargain and start the meter and wait for us, but he refuses. We call the cab company and are on hold long enough for Chris to figure out how to play the jingle on his piano. Poor neighbors. The woman scolds Chris for not taking the first taxi "You should have been very happy to have that cab!". She promised to send another, but as he hangs up the phone, we can hear our order ticket being ripped to shreds, even from miles away. We call a second cab company and are also promised a cab. We're still waiting for both of them, two days later. After my second or third trip out to the balcony to cool off, we decide to head out on our own. We drive as far as Chris can and still use his parking pass, walk to the international spy museum to meet the rest of our group and march to the mall. It is dark, but we're moving fast and not feeling the cold. We pass army men and women in pairs of many of the street corners and the crowd gets more dense the closer we get to the mall. It is still in the dark of night, but the city is alive with the excitement of new years eve, mardi gras and christmas all rolled into one; there are folks selling t-shirts and buttons, corn dogs and bottled water. Part of our journey was along a underground bridge that is usually chock full of cars zooming along at 45 mph. Just before the mall, we follow a crowd squeezing through a small aisle between a fence and a church and several people begin mooing. We're a happy crowd.

We get to the mall expecting to go through a metal detector but weren't. I kind of wish I had been scanned. I guess I'll have to trust all of the snipers on the roofs. We stake out some ground behind one of the many jumbotrons and sit down to rest our legs after the hour hike across the city. We chat with the guys behind us from Wisconsin and could tell that the folks in front of us are from England. The world is watching as a beautiful sunrise unveils itself behind the white house. The stage has been set. We're ready.

At 9:00 am, a concert taking place on the Lincoln memorial is piped to the jumbotrons and we are all excited to have some music for entertainment and to dance to warm ourselves up a little. We've been outside for over four hours. Ashley and I try to get to the refreshment stands for some warm drinks. After fighting through the crowds for ever, we realize that there aren't even lines in front of the stands: it is a mob. We realize the futility of our goals and try to hike back to our little group. We wander through the crowd, some people letting us through, others not, but we can't find the group. Big shock, we're in the middle of millions of folks. I text my brother, but it takes several minutes to send "can't find u". When garth brooks begins to sing "shout", I think we'll be saved bacause the crowd should go down during the "little bit lower" part of the song, but garth skips it and we still can't see our group. Eventually the text goes through and I see a hat from our group perched high above the crowd on an american flag. We're saved. We sing. We dance. We eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

A little after 11:30 the band strikes up several marches and I march in a circle to stay warm. The moment is almost here. The invocation is punctuated by moments of standing up and sitting down. The first time the speaker instructs the crowd to take a seat, all of us standing offer a loud groan. Aretha sings and looks like a big happy present with the giant bow on her head and Biden takes the oath of office for vice-president. Obama, who has gained the trust and faith of millions has reached higher than super star status. He also stumbled a bit on his oath, which we all loved because he seemed so much more human. And then his speech.

His speech was powerful, inspirational, wonderful. He was brave, he spoke as though he could have been talking to each person individually. He spoke of our past, of our future, and they way we must join together and work for the common good. He spoke to the leaders of countries rich and poor, peaceful and at war. He spoke to the world and the world was listening. How fantastic to be a present at this moment in history. It was amazing to consider this is the 44th change of power conducted in a peaceful manner. I have so much hope for the future of our nation.

We left the mall after Obama lifted our hearts. We were immediately stopped by the crush of folks trying to do exactly the same. Partway through the crush as we're inching forward, a woman begins to sing a hymn about not being able to turn back. As this is true both literally and figuratively and the crowd offers an appreciative giggle.

It takes two hours to hike through the crush to our friends apartment. My whole body and my mind is exhausted. It is a happy exhausted; the kind you might experience after a long day of skiing compined with four hours of dancing. We appreciatively chow down on hot soup and sandwiches and drink hot cocoa. About 17 seconds after sitting on the couch I fall asleep. I sleep through most of the televised parade and eventually we trek home to order pizza and sleep. What a happy, wonderful, fantastic day.

What a wonderful country.

Top twelve: How things are done (and not done) here in Argentina

2008-11-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

1. Refrigeration: many things we refrigerate in america are simply left out including raw eggs, ham sandwiches, leftovers, jelly and cheeses

2. Windows: almost every window here is equipped with a storm shutter something to slide down and block out all light. It is possible to have a very sunny day going on outside and feel like the bat cave in your room. The argentines like to sleep in-my host here one came into my room with a quizzical look on his face. He asked if I knew that I could pull down the shutters to shut out the light, wondering why I hadn't done so already. I replied that I actually like the light. We agreed to disagree.

3. Dulce de leche: This is a wonderful argentine treat; a smooth, delicious caramel spread that can really go on anything-cookies, cakes, toast for breakfast, stirred into espresso or swirled into ice-cream. I'm going to be stuffing as many jars into my suitcase as possible.

4. Restaurants: argentines are terrible tippers, and so the servers have no sense of urgency when taking orders, bringing out food, checking on the tables or bringing the check. Meals are an extended operation here. Ditto for coffee-there are limited opportunities for coffee to go here.

5. Straws: anytime you buy a bottle of water or pop, it comes with a straw. I feel alright drinking straight from the bottle, most argentines do not.

6. Change: there is a severe shortage of change-everyone begs and pleads for you to pay for exact change, and you need change to take the bus. Sometimes people simply won't sell you something unless you have change. How are you supposed to have change if no one gives it to you?

7. Bread plates: most restaurants give you a selection of bread and crackers when you sit down, and through out the meal, you'll have individual dishes for the butter, the jelly, your espresso cup, and whatever else you happen to order. Except for the bread; I have seen no more than two bread plates in my entire month here. You simply make a crumby mess at your place at the beginning of each meal.

8. Whole grains: they're not done here. Period. White rice, white bread, white toast. When our host finally bought wheat bread for our toast in the morning, I was actually excited enough to wake my roomie up and bring her to the kitchen and show her. Whole grains are newsworthy.

9. Plastic bags: every single thing you buy, even the diet coke and straw combo, is put into a plastic bag. They think you're really weird when you try to take something out of the store before being safely tucked into a bag.

10. Recycling: it is sort of done here; usually you buy a glass bottles of pop or beer and they're returned to be refilled by the manufacturer. Sometimes you pay a deposit on your glass bottle. Everything else is thrown away. Later, people on the streets go through the garbage and fill giant bins with plastic bottles and other recyclables. I heard the government pays them. I think it is kind of a sucky job.

11. The sofa: Our hosts here in BA are quite formal. I was gently told to take better care of the common areas of the apartment after leaving my book on the coffee table one afternoon. The carelessness! This morning my roomie spent a lazy morning reading on the couch and fell asleep. Inez later pulled me aside and asked me to tell her that is not how things are done here-there is no sleeping on the couch!

12. Mate: this is a strong but tasty drink that has a nice social ritual around it. A gourd, usually decorated with silver feet, is filled with the crushed dried mate leaves. A metal straw is in the leaves and the host of the circle fills the gourd with hot water. The first person in the circle sips the water until its gone and the gourd is returned to the host to be refilled. The gourd is passed around the circle until the mate flavor is gone and can be refilled with fresh leaves. It is a great circle for conversation and laughter and the gesture of sharing is really nice. You never really see mate on a menu, it is only something to be shared among friends.

Boats, beaches and butts

2008-11-15T06:01:00.000-08:00

I am officially a TEFL graduate! I finished the program yesterday and went out with all of my classmates and teachers for a nice dinner complete with lots of wine and laughter. It is nice to be done. I can't believe my three months of traveling is nearing a close. The TEFL school has certainly kept me busy, but I've had time for some fun.

Two weekends ago I went to a nearby boating town called Tigre. We traveled by train, but it felt like we traveled by oven- the train had no open windows and we were standing up and sweating for an hour. Gross. When we arrived, we headed towards the Puerta de la Fruta-the fruit port-expecting to find some lovely fruits to quench our thirst. Turns out the port was misnamed because they were selling things for your home-the only fruit was chocolate covered strawberries. So I ate those. We had a leisurely lunch under sun umbrellas and bought a bottle of wine to have next to the river. Also lovely. We bought tickets to go on a cute little boat tour and were given a group discount for being lovely ladies. How nice. The tour went through the maze of seven rivers and was really beautiful. The river must have been really high because peoples lush green lawns simply dove right into the rivers. I love boats. We passed many people simply lounging on their docks, wine glass or mate gourds in hand. Argentines know how to relax.

In one of many parks in Buenos Aires, there is a giant metal flower that opens and closes each day with the sun. I have spent two afternoons laying und

er the trees and enjoying the sunshine. On one such occasion, we were wishing for water when a guy with a cooler of water walked by and sold us some. Ask and you shall receive, eh?

Last weekend I spend a lovely time in another river town three hours from buenos aires. I went with my american roommate and three argentine girls. We stayed in this super cute cabin and spend the whole weekend by the pool, in the pool or in a restaurant eating. We also used one of the row boats that the hotel had and apparently all those weeks of summer camp paid off because I could row our boat just fine as could my roommate, whereas the three argentine girls could only row us in circles. So while they were trying to figure out the paddles and never quite did, we all got to see the sunset again, and again, and again. :)

Thong bathing suit are the norm here for the ladies, although I stuck with my american "full coverage" bottoms that I brought we me. Seeing so many butts in one afternoon makes an earlier experience make more sense; I had dinner with an argentine family a two weeks ago and they had on the argentine equivalent to skating with the stars on the TV while we were eating. I wasn't paying much attention to it until I noticed that every lady dancer was wearing scandalous costumes; a few of them had on a half attempt at a skirt, most were simply wearing sequenced and bedazzled thongs. Butts are a public matter here. My american roommate and I are suppressing giggles and trying not to act like we're five, the argentines don't even flinch. I wonder if the skating ladies were cold. So back at the pool, I am realizing that this is simply how things are done here. I wasn't prepared for when one girl told her friend that her rear was getting quite sunburned and simply started putting on sun screen on her friends bum. It isn't like she couldn't reach!

Most of my time has been spent in TEFL school planning lessons, trying to figure out english grammar, observing my peers and reflecting on my own growth as a teacher. Two of the teachers have really constructive advice, two don't. I am proud of my teaching skills that I've been honing these past weeks, and I know that I'll be using them in the future. Someday I will be a nutrition professor, probably I'll be teaching english somewhere too. I'm still figuring that out.

Tonight is an annual event known as "the night of the museums". Most of the museums in the city are all open tonight until really late and are free. I am excited to go touring tonight. This afternoon will be spent reading and relaxing; I've earned it!

Self portrait

2008-11-11T16:31:00.000-08:00

I went to a museum on friday and saw lots of interesting paintings and sculptures. My favorite, however, was a portrait of me when I'm hungry.

Lesson Plans and Life Plans

2008-11-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

As someone who has had the blessing of knowing exactly what she wants, I have been overly frustrated with not knowing what my best path for myself once I return to Ohio in a few short weeks. I have had many options floating around in my head, along with their pro and con lists and the exhausting attempt to find a happy medium between too many factors (time, visiting family, money, the family reunion, what I really want, etc, etc, etc). I have been in kind of a funk because of this mental marathon and some extra chocolate has been in order.

In the early stages of planning for this big adventure, the two main goals were clear; to learn spanish well enough to apply for RD jobs when I returned and to make the world a better place. I was dismayed to find that the volunteering options I could find on the internet were more interested in my wallet than my person being there. That wasn't what I had in mind at all! Teaching English became a means to achieve the first two goals as well as preparation for my future dreams of being a dietetics professor. Now that I'm here getting my TEFL certificate, I have learned that most jobs are in language institutes teaching adults; so much for the crazy classroom of hooligans I was looking forward to. I was also hoping to get a teaching contract that included reimbursement for my plane ticket and that may not be possible for South America like it is for Asia.

So right now, I am currently considering (in no particular order) volunteering in an orphanage in Peru that also teaches Spanish and is affordable, being a nanny somewhere spanish speaking, being a dietitian, working at starbucks, working at a language institute, running away, adopting a sugar daddy, working on an organic farm abroad, climbing in a hole. Whew.

I am trying to remember that it is a good thing to have options.

As far as my TEFL, I am almost done with my third out of four weeks. I have taught four lessons and three went well. My other lesson, to the beginner speakers of English was pretty rough; I planned way too much and wasn't in the groove of explaining things well. I finished my lesson with my heart pounding like I had just finished running a race! My mentor teased me afterwards; "Holly, what was the thing about your lesson? That it is over?". Luckily, he is a talented teacher and had lots of constructive feedback for how to have turned my lesson around. Lots of tools for the future! Overall I am enjoying teaching the adults a lot more than expected, but I am not sure if it is what I want to do for a long period of time. For a while I was worried that I was wasting my money on this TEFL course if I didn't use it right away, but I've changed my tune. It can't hurt to have education abroad in the 'ole resume, nor will it hurt being a professor in the future. Plus, I can always work part time giving lessons.

So that's about it. I am just mulling though things trying to figure it out. I can't believe I'll be back in the US in just over two weeks!

Holly Larson: Super Solid

2008-10-31T18:16:00.000-07:00

I have always been a very solid build. I'm not fat, I am just really strong and muscular. I have never been able to float in pools well, or even swim well, for that matter. I was the crying kid in swim class that the instructor carried across the pool while the others did their best front crawl. When I was a wee thing, by father used to throw me up in the air and catch me like all fathers do. One time, when another girl my age was over, my dad threw me up in the air first and then gave the other girl a turn. Turns out he almost threw this visiting girl through the ceiling because he was used to me being like a bag of bricks. Recently, a massage therapist was working on my neck and shoulders and asked if I my job involved physical labor; nope, I'm just super solid. Being super solid has come in handy. For example, when defending my siblings on the bus, I arm wrestled this guy who was picking on my sister. I pinned his arm down in front of all his friends and totally embarrassed him. It is also useful when I can carry all of my groceries form the car in one trip or can carry six or seven gallons of milk from the back of Starbucks to the front. Apparently, I am also able to fend of bicycles.

Walking to school last week, I was waiting to cross a street. The cross traffic had a green light, but the cars closest to me weren't entering the intersection because the cars across the intersection weren't able to move forward. Seeing the opportunity to cross, I looked left to make sure the cars were staying put and then checked the right to make sure they were still stopped too. I then stepped a single step into the street.

SMACK!

A man on a bicycle ran right into my leg, bounced off and landed on his side in the street. Holy crap! Barely able to register what had just happened, I asked the guy if he was ok, if he was hurt, and apologizing profusely. I am pretty sure it was my fault because the light was green. I also felt bad because he was on the ground and I was still standing up. As an after though, he asked me if I was ok too, but he didn't actually care. I quickly left the scene of the crash.

With tears gathering behind my sunglasses, I turn to Sara and ask her what happened. Apparently the biker had been behind a bus so I couldn't see him when I looked left and then he flew around like a bat out of hell when I looked right. It didn't really hurt that badly, it just scared me because it happened so fast and I didn't know what was hitting me. I didn't see the bicycle until the guy was on the ground already. It could have been a car for all I had known, but thankfully it wasn't. A quick wash of my leg and some tylenol and I was right as rain.

Look both ways twice before crossing the street.

Super solid strikes again.

Bienvenidos a Buenos Aires!

2008-10-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

So I have been here in Argentina for two weeks now, what say I let you know how it has been?

I arrived in Buenos Aires exhausted from not having slept for the past two nights, a combination of having to leave for the airport in San Jose at three in the morning (that is not a typo) and then not really sleeping much on the overnight flight to Argentina. I didn't trust myself to stay awake on a bus so I forked over enough pesos to pay for a cab to deliver me to my hostel. It was amazing to be here; after two months of countries drowning in the rainy season, the sunshine was like a giant dose of happy directly to my heart. The cab sped through the streets and we passed parks, fountains and big beautiful buildings. Almost every building has balconies! I couldn't believe how much is done here just for the sake of beauty; intricate wrought iron gates, delicately carved statues, trickling fountains and all of the adornments of every buildings. I am forcing my eyes to stay open long enough to take all of this in.

We arrive at my hostel and I think that the driver is kidding; it is beautiful. Can I afford a hostel with balconies? After a little confusion of finding the front desk (the first floor here is what we could call the second...go figure), I was checked in and in search of my bunk. I was on the top floor, the six floor, and I quickly showered and hopped into my PJs. After dozing for a while and feeling human once again, I decided to explore. I'm in a new city!

After a quick trip to an internet cafe to let the folks know I'm alive, I wander about. You know when you pass someone on the street who is grinning like an idiot and you wonder what is going on in their head? I think I must have been like that because I was so happy to be soaking in the sun! I didn't know until I had the sun how much I had been missing it! My first weekend I wandered around with some new friends from the hostel and by myself. I saw Evita's grave in the Recoleta Cemetery. It isn't a cemetery like in the US, it is a bunch of fancy mausoleums arranged almost like city blocks with tree lined paths between them. I couldn't decide if I felt like the place was peaceful or creepy; it is very quiet and beautiful, but I am looking at coffins. It is kind of a tourist area and a lot of folks go there to snap a picture. My guidebook also steered me to the grave of a woman who was buried alive after having been in a coma only to be heard screaming later. The guidebook doesn't say that she made it, so I'm thinking that she didn't. Yikes. I also rode on the A line of the metro, called the Subte here for 'subterranean', which is one of the oldest in South America; on the cute wooden cars I feel like I should be wearing a little suit from the 1920s and gloves.

My second night at the hostel, I got switched into the coolest room. The hostel is six stories tall and has a nice roof area that is open and complete with lawn furniture perfect for lounging and reading during the day and drinking wine at night. Perched on the highest level of the roof is a little dome room with five bunks. I quickly nicknamed the place and was happy to call this place mine for the next week. If only I didn't have to share! Travelers from around the globe were coming and going from this busy hostel; it was hard to remember who you had met, let alone their name and home country. Somehow the hostel employees were able to remember us all and greeted us by name as they let us in the locked doors each time. It all felt very safe and secure. I quickly met a girls that is also in my TEFL school named Sara. What a small world?

Buenos Aires is very formal; for the past two months I have been eating the majority of my restaurant meals on disposable plates and utensils and more often than not, the furniture was of the plastic, outdoors type. Not here; every restaurant window I passed here has a nice table set with cloth tablecloths, cloth napkins and wine glasses. I am about to panic! How can I afford a restaurant with wine glasses? I'm not working yet! As it turns out, you can get a really nice meal here for 10-15 dollars, which compared to the prices in the US, is a pretty good deal. The problem is that there are limited options for something less fancy than that except for empanadas. What is an empanada? It is a savory pastry of sorts; a circular piece of buttery dough is filled with meats, cheeses or veggies and baked and probably dunked in more butter. One spinach empanada is enough to fill me up for dinner and it only costs a dollar. I don't think that it is a coincidence that my hostel is next door to an empanada place; all throughout the afternoon and late into the night the smell of fresh empanadas. Since this isn't the healthiest fare, spinach can only do so much, it is a shame that the elevator has surround mirrors, allowing me to see with distinct clarity exactly where each buttery bite of empanada has landed on my body. Maybe I should be taking the stairs?

I have completed two weeks of school, halfway done already. We are taught by a cute guy from Ireland with the mouth of a sailor and a woman from the US who handles the grammar. The first week was lessons for all of us teacher wannabes from 10 to about 5. This week was both lessons for us as well as our first chances to teach the students who get free English lessons in exchange for being our guinea pigs. My first lesson was was with another TEFL student and it was kind of rough planning because we approached the lesson with different prospectives; she assumed everything would go fine, I worked my butt off and made sure it did. I am glad I'm teaching on my own from now on. I ended up teaching another lesson the following night because one of my classmates was super sick so I took over her plan and did a good enough job of winging it on only a few hours notice.

This is the birthplace of the Tango and I have taken my first lesson with a new friend. I got very clear instructions on where to meet this guy, but being the horrible navigator that I am coupled with my being late, I was too busy to read the street signs and managed to pass the place twice before going in. The room had the lofted ceilings of a small cathedral but all of the windows were blacked out. While it was bright and sunny outside, it was dusky and moody inside; perfect for the tango. Even though I was late for American standards, I was early for Argentine. I walked up to a guy to see if he was my new friend, and although he wasn't we chatted for a bit before the lesson started. I found my new friend eventually and we stumbled our was through our first tango lesson. Basically the instructors showed us some fancy footwork that looks beautiful and sexy and then we proceeded to butcher it. It was really fun and we laughed at ourselves a lot. Afterwards we sipped on a liter of beer and chatted for a while.

I have moved from the hostel to an excellent home stay. I was pretty stressed out trying to figure out where to live. The recommendation from my TEFL school was to wait to set up housing until I got here and so I did. But, trying to talk to locals with their difficult accent and not knowing if the person was a creepster or not was stressing me out. Sara, the girl in my TEFL school, is being an overachiever and is taking Spanish lessons as well as our TEFL classes. Her spanish school offered to set her up with a home stay and I jumped on the bandwagon and talked to them too. Long story short, I am staying in a fantastic, fancy apartment with a super sweet older couple whose six children are all adults and out of the house. The lady is a former cater and had hosted vegetarians before. I am in Heaven. Every evening that Sara and I come home from school we are wondering what fantastic, vegetable laden dinner is waiting for us and we have yet to be disappointed. I am so thankful to have trusted my instincts and didn't go with some other housing option that couldn't have shaken a stick at where I am staying now. A few nights ago, after having taught for the first time, I came home with Sara and we were both exhausted. Inez, our host, was trying to explain something to me and I wasn't understanding a word of it. She tried a few times, slowly and using different words. I was too tired to think. After seeing that I wasn't going to understand, she simply walks up to me and gives me a big hug and tells me we'll talk about it tomorrow. Turns out she was just trying to figure out if Katie's keys had worked because they were a new copy.

The End!

2008-10-29T11:17:00.001-07:00

After Montezuma, we make our way to the ferryboat to take us from the
peninsula back to the main part of the country. We pass back across
the section of road from a few days earlier and laugh at our
experiences here. The road is still there, and we pass over the zone
with no problems.
There are two towns with ferries to Puntarenas. We head to the
closest town and discover that the next ferry isn't leaving for two
hours, but that the other town is an hour away. We find gas, get
turned around and then straighten out and we're off to the other town.
We get to this town and discover that not only do we have to wait
three hours for this ferry, but we also don't have time to catch the
other ferry from the other town. Bullocks. The time drags by, we take
naps and play cards until the boat arrives finally. I had tried to buy
the ticket earlier but the guy said it was too soon. Suddenly the dock
is a rush of people buying their tickets as the same time the cars are
being lined up to go on the boat. Somehow I am supposed to be in two
places at once, since I am the driver of the SUV as well as the
Spanish speaker. I end up driving the car and Adam ends up getting the
ticket with the help of a sweet cowboy I was chatting with while
waiting in the line to nowhere. Finally we're all on the boat and it
creeps across the water. It is dark, and the rain finds us soon
enough. We go down to the enclosed area of the boat and focus on
trying not to puke as the boats rolls around in the water. When we
reach Puntarenas, we're tired, grumpy and super hungry. We all are
sitting in our cars waiting for the bridge to be lowered when we feel
another car bump into the back of our car. Ashley and I, with smoke
coming out of our ears, whip around in our seats to see who we need to
kill. We realize that it was actually the boat hitting the dock that
caused the bump, and tried to laugh it off. It was probably good we
didn't make eye contact with Adam in the back seat or his head would
have exploded.
We had originally planned to drive to another beach, but since it
took so stinking long to go on our little journey thus far it was now
dark and not really safe to be wandering about. We drive in search of
a Hostel and quickly realize that Puntarenas is the armpit of Costa
Rica. It feels really sketchy. The budget hostel we find first has no
hot water, a grumpy desk worker and nowhere to put our car off the
street. We make the decision to splurge on a nicer hotel for the sake
of safety and are happy to be taken in my a nicer hotel. They have a
locked, guarded lot for our car, big beds, and free breakfast. We're
in! We unload the car, clean up and go down the block to the nearest
restaurant to eat our weight in food. We stare at each other in
silence as we wait for the food and begin to be friendly with one
anther after a nice bowl of asparagus soup. We are actually chatting
and laughing again once we get our dinners and are relaxing. Probably
the highlight of mywhole day is when the waiter asks me where we're
from and after we tell him we're from the US, he looks at me surprised
and says that from my Spanish, he thought I was a local. Sweet! It
starts to pour and we're lamenting having to walk back to the hotel in
the rain. We look in the direction of our hotel and see a guy carrying
a HUGE umbrella towards the restaurant. It is a hotel employee,
carrying a table umbrella that is big enough for all four of us to fit
under. Is that service or what? We crowd under the umbrella giggling
and scurry back to the hotel. Needless to say, we sleep well that
night.
Feeling much more refreshed, we enjoyed our continental breakfast
(rice and beans, coffee, juice and some eggs), gathered. We were happy
to put puntarenas behind us and packed the car quickly. On the road,
we were talking smack about the town. Not more than five minutes out
of the town a kamakazee bird flew directly into my wind shield and
experienced, I can only hope, a quick death. Puntarenas was trying to
keep us in, but we were determined to get out! We had to skip the
beach we had picked out and headed straight to Manuel Antonio. Along
the way, driving challenges included areas where the road was totally
flooded (and looked like there could be alligators lurking
everywhere), areas where the road literally fell off (maybe marked by
a branch or an orange cone...remember this is a highway, we're going
fast), and bridges that looked so sketchy that we put down the windows
and took off our seatbelts in case we needed to bale out. There were a
lot of snickers eaten to sooth our nerves, especially mine, the
driver.
We arrived in Manuel Antonio and found the coolest hotel room
yet; it had an upper level with three beds and a hammock and a lower
table with a simple kitchen and a table for us to play cards on. One
whole wall was a screen (no windows needed in the jungle). Monkeys
were playing in the trees and we could hear them scampering across the
roof. The coolest restaurant here is called "the plane", which is a
restaurant made using a plane shot down during WWII. There is a giant
roof over the whole restaurant area and two floors of tables. The bar
is inside the plane. No walls needed. We had some good food and fruit
smoothies while looking out over the ocean. This was the end of our
trip and we had fun poking around in the shops, playing in the ocean
and laying low. The drive back to San Jose was really long and
stressful because it was super rainy, the roads were windy and full of
kamakazee buses and we almost ran out of gas. Luckily we made it
through, although it took several snickers each. Maybe I should buy
stock in snickers.

Next stop Argentina...and I have been here for a week so it is time to
catch up on that too!

Much love.

2008-10-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

Montezuma

2008-10-25T20:23:00.001-07:00

The original route planned to Montezuma from Playa Ostinal had to be
reworked because the some river along the way was too deep even for
our SUV, Zorra, to cross. We're driving along the "highway"; a dirt
road with a higher ratio of pot holes to road and I am being highly
entertained by Agent Ashley. Every time we go over bumps in the roads,
especially when we're taken by surprise, Ashley's whole body goes limp
and she flops around with truly amazing dexterity. I've nicknamed her
Agent Rubber Bones. She claims that this ability has saved her from
getting hurt on several occasions because she doesn't stiffen up. As
always when I'm driving, there is a driving challenge. While coming
around a bend, we come up to a dump truck, just in time to see it dump
a huge load of rocks across the center of the road, effectively
creating an instant roadblock. There are deep ditches on either side
of the road and of course, the rain kicks in. The dump truck drives
away and the three of us are looking at each other wondering what
we're supposed to do. There are some other worker guys milling around
and pointing at stuff, including our car. We're all laughing at the
randomness of this situation as I try to figure out how to say, "push
down the mountain" in Spanish. A few other cars join the waiting party
and we all watch some guys on motorcycles go into, get stuck in and
then get out of the muddy ditches. Rural entertainment, I guess.
Eventually a backhoe comes rolling out of nowhere and gets straight to
work smoothing out the rocks to make the road passable again. By this
point, there are five or six cars waiting to pass. As I see the huge
tires of the backhoe mucking through the rocky mess all I can think to
myself is that I don't want to be the guinea pig driver to cross the
newest road in Costa Rica. The backhoe rolls back and forth a few
times, pats the rocks down with the front scoop thing for good measure
and then blows out of the scene. The guy in charge of this mess looks
at me and motions me across. Of course. I put the car in super 4-wheel
drive, the signal to Zorra for adventure, and creep across the mess.
We made it; onwards to Montetuma!
Montezuma is more populated by hippies and travelers than the rest of
Costa Rica. It is surprisingly international for being such a small
town. We roll in to town and find the first hotel on our list and
promise to bargain shop. We get the grand tour of the hotel, find out
we can afford to have our own private balcony and we're sold. We're
really terrible at bargain hunting when we can't stand to be in the
car any longer. We enjoy showers, a nice dinner at the local
restaurant that also plays movies and then poke around in the shops.
Bed time!
The next day, we go on a horse tour. Our guide leads us to the beach
where four horses are waiting for us to hop on. We're headed for a
waterfall, so we're wearing our swimsuits under our clothes as well as
the usual heaps of bug spray. We walk along the beach hearing the
ocean on one side and monkeys chattering in the trees on the other.
Our trail wanders in and out of the woods, up and down slick rocks and
in front of some beautiful huge houses. We arrive at the beach where
it is OK to canter and our guide tells us that if we get that feeling,
we're free to run here. I trot ahead, feeling out my horse and my
comfort level, since it has been a while since I have ridden. There is
that feeling! I gather the reins, squeeze in my heels and we're off.
It is just me and the horse running down the beach, the wind in my
hair. It feels wonderful! When I reach the end of the beach, I wait
for the others to catch up and we continue on. Eventually, just before
we reach the waterfalls, it starts to pour. The capacity of the sky
here to produce water is astounding. I feel like a fire hose just
sprayed me. We decide to turn around before the falls because the
trail will get too dangerous for the horses. We didn't get to swim in
the waterfalls, but from the status of our clothes and hair, we
practically went swimming on top of the horses.

Costa Rica: Driving tests, Playa Flamingo, Cheese tour, Sea turtle

2008-10-19T15:01:00.001-07:00

I am currently lounging in what is becoming my favorite hangout…the Houston airport. Bleh. By some cruel twist of fate and lack of funds to have bought a better ticket, I am in the middle of a nine hour layover before my flight to Buenos Aires tonight. What a perfect time to catch you all up on the rest of Costa Rica! Get ready for a really long email J

Last time I wrote, my two friends and I had just finished the amazing canopy tour in Monteverde (green mountain) and I had enough adrenaline pumping through my body to easily burn several of the snickers I had consumed in the past few days…or so I told myself. After the tour, we drove back down the crater infested roads to enjoy luke warm showers and change into fresh clothes. We called our important people using skype and wandered around town for a bit, which doesn’t take long because the whole town is about one city block. We saw some pretty jewelry made from various seeds, including watermelon seeds and just talked for a long time. We had dinner at a restaurant that was decorated with all sorts of butterfly things and drooled over our server. There really is no shortage of gorgeous Costa Rican men.

We woke up bright and early to get the car packed up before our cheese tour. For three people who love, love, love cheese, we were anticipating this tour with the same excitement of Christmas morning. We had breakfast once more at the restaurant next to our hostel, Los Amigos, and said a tearful good bye to the best banana pancakes on the planet. Maybe the cute old lady wants to come with us to be our cook? Unfortunately we would have to make the tough decision between our luggage and the cook…the luggage barely won, but only because I don’t want to limit myself to a single pair of underwear for the next week and a half.

We loaded our luggage into the car, a system that is already perfected; my duffle first on the folded down seat with the two backpacks on top, the two rolling suitcases facing in (keeps them from clobbering you when you open the door later), laundry bag in the middle, food in the nooks. We stopped at a bank and I tried an ATM once more and my some miracle, this bank liked my card and gave me some cash. The sound of the cash whirring out of the maching was music to my ears, although my happy screeches to those around me probably were not. We drove through the town to the cheese tour and got a private tour of the factory. It was founded by Quakers in 1953 who had left the US to object to all of the war and such…they had some yummy, yummy cheese and we plowed through all of the samples like the good Americans we are. We also tried caramel candy and coffee ice-cream.

Next stop, Playa Flamingo and Basilito, in the Northwest corner of the country. We picked playa (which means beach) Flamingo because the sand is supposed to be pink and my sister loves flamingos…pretty much as good as any reason when there are a bazillion beaches to choose from. The morning started out sunny and beautiful and instantly turned into rain as soon as we were driving. Seven billion pot holes later, we arrive at playa flamingo and it turns out they’re big fat liars and the sand is just tan, but it was beautiful none the less. We stayed in a hostel very close to the beach, enjoyed more food to the sounds of the ocean on picnic furniture at several local places and played about a billion hands of gin rummy. Very chill and relaxing. During our first afternoon of swimming, I took out my contacts and Adam took off his glasses thinking it would be better for our eyes when being crashed into by the waves and saltwater. Since Ashley was the only one of us who could see, Adam and I kept pestering her to look at the beach; Adam wanted to know if anyone was bothering our stuff laying on the beach and I wanted to know if the guys walking on the beach were cute. Obviously our priorities are different. It actually started to rain while we were swimming, but the sun was still out, more or less, and the rain was warm. It was just a different experience to swim in the rain that we enjoyed ourselves.

Each day of this trip manages to bring some large test of my skills as a driver and these days were no different. On our first pass through playa flamingo, we went up through some of the condos on winding and skinny roads that have a very sharp drop to the ocean below. Naturally, there are no guardrails to protect poor drivers from plummeting to their deaths. We were approaching what appeared to be the end of the road and were carefully inspecting houses we couldn’t expect to enter even as the cleaning crew when I suggested we turn around just before a bend in the road to make sure we didn’t get stuck. Ashley and Adam, using their X-ray vision super powers, assured me that we could turn around at the end of the road and that we didn’t want to miss out on whatever adventure lay around this last turn. Totally submitting to peer pressure, I press on and turn around the corner. Bad words, times ten. We have reached a locked gate at the end of a steep hill with a wall on one side and a plummet to death on the other. More bad words. I guess it didn’t cross my mind to back out, that seemed more dangerous at the time. In my state of terror, I decided to turn around. I put on the super powered four wheel drive and proceeded to turn around, taking about a 72 passes, feeling way too close to the cliff the entire time. May I remind you that this is a stick shift car with the ability to roll? After successfully turning around and making it back up the hill of death, I made them promise to buy me a beer and to let me make all further driving decisions. Humph.

Next beach was Playa Ostional, and teensy town with not much of anything but is famous for being a place where giant sea turtles lay eggs. The beach is also famous for its black volcanic sand. Of course the road provided some more tests; today it was crossing several rivers/creeks in the car. Thanks the lord for our super car with four wheel drive. I approach the river with caution, Agent Ashley pops our of the car to survey the scene. She walks back to the car and says that the river instantly gets super deep and we cannot cross. I guy pops out of a little shack thing on the other side of the river and waves us across. I asked if we were going to die, and he just motions us across again, pointing to a specific route that is more shallow. I take in a deep breath, put the car in super four wheel drive and creep across. The water is splashing around the wheels and I begin to screech as we get closer to the other side. The guide on the bank doesn’t even crack a smile; he must be used to dumb tourists. We did in fact live, and were feeling pretty proud of our super jungle skills only to see a guy on a motorcycle go across the river. A teeny motorcycle. He didn’t die either, nor did he scream going across. Oh humility.

I was happy to see that the guide book wasn’t lying about the sand here; very black indeed. We took a long walk down the beach, accompanied by several local dogs eager to make our friendship. They were also interested in digging up turtle eggs. Yuck. Other companions on the beach included these freaky black birds that looked like the vulture birds in Alice in Wonderland. Super creepy. I captured Ashley on video walking towards the birds to try to scare them but running away when they flew in her direction. She didn’t know I was filming, and said she would have acted more brave had she known. I took a nap on a hammock and read the end of another John Grisham book and we played more cards on a cute picnic table.

That night Adam and I went on a turtle walk after dark to try to see turtles laying eggs. The beach was lit by a small sliver of moon and the sounds of the ocean waves were soothing in the cool night air. It was so tranquil. We walked with our guide for a while and talked about turtles, the town, and searched for turtles. We didn’t end up seeing a turtle laying eggs, but we did see an old lady turtle who had popped onto the beach. She was really big and beautiful and it was so incredible to see this animal up close. They can live to be 100 years old.

The road we were planning on taking was not possible because of a river even our super SUV, now named Zora (Fox) couldn’t handle. We’re backtracking across the smaller river to Montezuma!

ATMs, Canopy Tour, Driving, Beautiful Guides

2008-10-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Our first morning in Costa Rica was sunny and warm. We took showers, put on fresh clothes and got a recommendation for a breakfast place down the road. Before long I am eating rice and beans, eggs and toast and a cup of delicious coffee. Things are turning around. After breakfast, we wander through a market where many beautiful crafts are fashioned out of a rainbow of woods; different shades of red, brown and purple woods are carved and polished into cutting boards, wine bottle holders, trivets and other household items. Very beautiful.

We walk further down the road and search for an ATM. I stick in my debit card, enter my pin and enter 50,000 colones, the equivalent to $100. Account invalid, the ATM informs me. Eh? No worries, I am sure the next one will work. We walk through the hustle and bustle of the pedestrian streets and soak in the scenery. We check out a beautiful cathedral, some other structures and buildings and try several more ATMs. Every single one says my account is invalid. In total, I probably tried seven or eight ATMs, but it felt like fifty. I am reverting to my poor mood of yesterday the more times my card doesn’t produce cash and I’m envisioning it bursting into flames from trying too many times. Ashley and Adam promise to pay me in cash in exchange for putting the car rental on my card, so that will buy me enough time to call the bank on Monday and figure out the problem. We have a pleasant dinner and head towards a mall to catch a movie. We decide on Mamma Mia in Spanish and those happy Abba songs lift my spirits again. We tromp back to the hostel and crash for the night.

We wake up, eat another hearty breakfast (Ashley and I had bagels with a side of rice and beans, Adam had the world’s largest cinnamon roll) and head back to our hostel where our compact SUV is being delivered. We fill out the paperwork, I promise my first born child for any damage and we pack up. Turns out there is a nail in one of the tires, so after a quick visit back to the rental shop, we have a new tire and we’re off! We cruise along highway 1 and soak in the scenery. The music selection on the radio is an interesting mix of Spanish and random American tunes ranging from Duffy to Madonna. When we reach our marker of a certain gas station, we turn off the highway and the road instantly gets worse, but not too bad. We cruise along more, and the radio is really funny. The higher we get in the mountains, the more suddenly the radio will come in and out. The singer will be mid word, I’ll go around a corner and the radio will go dead. Sometimes the scan will go round and around the stations with not a single station to pick up. The scenery is stunning. It is hard to describe the intensity of the green of the mountains. There are several hues of greens that look like crushed velvet draped across the elegant mountains. This is like color therapy after the dirt and grime of Mexico City.

The road gets much worse; gravel and dirt road punctuated with millions of pot holes and craters make my driving slow down to a crawl at times. Neither the buses nor the locals feel burdened by going slowly and blow past us going both directions. We stop a few times to take pictures of the mountains, the clouds and the breath taking vistas. At one point we come to a huge puddle of dirty water that we have no clue how deep it is. Since another SUV is coming in the opposite direction, I wait for them to pass so we can avoid the small lake. The driver, obviously a local, pulls up alongside me smiling and asks why we don’t drive though. He promises it isn’t deep and I say that he can be the leader. He declines, so we stick with the original plan and skirt the puddle. Along the way, we blow kisses to the young boys riding bikes and they look super happy to be getting air kisses from pretty American girls.

Pretty close to on schedule, we arrive in Monteverde and after driving through the teeny town, pull over to consult with out guide book. We pick out a place that looks good and start driving again. Just down the road, we are motioned over my Anali, the smiling owner of a cute hostel nearby. The rooms are $30 for a triple, complete with free internet so we agree to take a tour. The place is super cute so we sign up for two lovely nights in Monteverde. We look over the tour options and decide to do a canopy tour and a cheese tour. We spent a peaceful evening playing cards on the porch as the rain hit the tin roof. Ashley won gin rummy even though Adam got 195 points in a single round.

The morning comes soon and we gear up with comfy clothes and lots of DEET bugspray. We are picked up at the hostel and trek up the gravel roads to the base camp of the tour company. The mini van takes the pot holes at warp speed and as we bounce around like pop corn, we wonder what the average life span of a car is here. We decide not long.

At the camp, we pay our fees, sign the waivers (that did mention something about animals attacking) and are shuttled into the next room. The very cute guides don’t bother with instructions and simply put on our harnesses for us. Good thing they’re cute, because they’re awfully close to my butt. I seriously wonder if they have a helmet big enough for my huge head, but when I ask, the guide thinks it is a joke…until the helmet rests of the very top of my head like a crown. He laughs, adjusts the helmet to the XXXXL setting and I am relieved that it fits. Safety first. Adam, Ashley and I are joined by three beautiful guides; Danny, Dennis and Don and four travelers from Israel. We’re off.

We walk into the woods for a quick safety demonstration and then quickly climb the metal stairs to the first slide. Ashley is the brave leader and slides down the metal cable like a champ. It is a short cable, but I still get an adrenaline rush. We had officially cut our teeth. The next cable was a stunning 600 feet across a cannon and through a cloud. We couldn’t even see the far platform. The first two guides throw their equipment on the line with ease and wiz down the line, taking picture of each other and laughing. We’re next. When it is my turn, I ease of the platform and don’t even have time to be nervous because it is so beautiful. The canyon quickly drops below me and I see the same beautiful scenery that I was desperately trying to capture on my camera the day before. Cows dot the field and a few small shacks wiz by below me. When I land on the platform, I am exhilarated; I have so much adrenaline surging though me, I am shaking. This is great! We wiz back an forth across ten more cables and then we get to our surprise; a repelling station and Tarzan swing.

The first guide barely pops on his safety gear before plummeting towards the ground very far below. I was somehow first, and I was really regretting this location in line. He straps me to the rope with my heart in my mouth and tries to push me off the platform I’M NOT READY! I dig my heals in but it doesn’t really matter. A quick shove from the guide and I’m off the platform and they drop me quickly. I say that it isn’t funny, in Spanish, just to make sure they understand, but they laugh anyway. Somehow avoiding death, I am on the ground and the rope is off. Yikes. The rest of the group hurtles towards the ground one by one and before long we’re trekking up a million stairs to the Tarzan swing. No wonder the beautiful guides are in such great shape; I hope they can’t hear my panting. We climb more metal stairs into the trees and we have reached the swing. Suddenly I realize just how high up we are. I’m third in line here and watch at they strap in the first guy. Again, this is a quick operation with no second checks. The guy sits back in the harness and the guide shoves him off the platform. He falls for eight or ten feet before the rope catches; he swings in a huge arc of 200 feet. When he was farthest away, he was a teeny man on the end of the rope. Getting off the line was a two-guide operation; a giant rubber band of sorts was attached to the lower platform and two guides threw it around your waist as you swung up and you were promptly “punched” in the belly as you swung back down into it. Created some very funny sound effects. Some ropes were quickly loosed by the experienced guides and you were dropped onto your rubbery knees. Ashley went next and I struggled to find her swinging speck in the viewfinder of the video camera.

I was next after Ashley and got the same shove off here that I received on the repelling platform. Judging by the laughter of the guides, my screams were pretty awesome. What a rush. This took the joy of playing on a swing set when I was little to exponential new heights. It was over much too soon. After being captured by the rubber U, I went over to the bench to regain the ability to walk. Two more short slides followed by the final, longest, slide. Adam and I were first and were informed that we went down on this slide in pairs. I went in front and Adam wrapped his legs around me. Shove! We glided through the wisps of clouds, over the lush mountains and then it was over. Much too soon. Towards the other platform, I realized why we do two people at once; to make sure that you’re heavy enough to reach the platform. Adam is a pretty skinny guy, and even though I had done my part to eat a snickers and several packages of gummy snacks, we weren’t heavy enough to reach the platform. No worries; the guide simply marched across the dewy grass, grabbed my ankle and marched back. I was hugely jealous that I saw Ashley’s legs wrapped around one of the hot guides and from my evil eyes I threw her way, she understood. She was smug, and rightly so. Soon the whole group had collected and we were out of our harness. Walking sure was easier. We walked into the station and literally, LITERALLY 10 seconds later the rain cloud released a torrent of rain. We look at each other in amazement and joked that our guides also controlled the weather. They agreed.

Costa Rica: It has been much better since this

2008-10-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

The trip to Costa Rica was a disaster. It all started with only getting four hours of sleep because I had a fun night of dancing with my new friends at a club to bid farewell to Mexico. Sleepily, I gathered my last odds and ends at Silvia’s house and then a nephew took me and my friend Elena, who had the exact same flight time as me, to the airport. In addition to my two stuffed bags, I was carting a cardboard box with a beautiful handle constructed from three pieces of packing tape. I was originally going to try to mail this goody box from Texas during my layover so it would be domestic charges, but when I called the airport (thank you skype), the comatose guy dully informed me that there was no place to mail it. Time for plan B.
We left for the airport with plenty of time for traffic along the way and to find the post office and mail the package. I guess I didn’t realize just how big the airport was. Elena and I asked directions to the nearest post office and we were off, rolling bag in tow. We walk for a bazillion miles until we reach the post office. Closed. Damn! How can it be closed on a Friday morning??? I tell myself not to panic and we set off looking for another. Several consultations with stragglers we could catch led us to a mailing boutique of sorts where I placed my box on the counter, not on the scale, mind you, and asked the lady how much it would cost to mail my box to the US. She asked me what was in it, and said, without weighing it, 1200 pesos. 120 dollars. I told her I would keep looking, thank you very much. After seeming years of searching, I finally find an open post office and the sloth in a Michigan jacket running it. He tells me it will cost me $38 dollars to mail the package to the US. I ask if I can buy insurance and he assures me that it is safe. Even still, I ask, is it possible to buy insurance just in case? No. Ok. I quickly write my address down for him and he painstakingly copies it down as if it the first thing he has written in his entire life. I restrain myself from strangling him as that would just slow down the process. A decade later he motions for me to pay. I hand him my credit card and he says no, cash only. Seriously? With Elena watching my stuff I bolt from the post office to a nearby ATM and SMACK come face to face with three police officers with huge guns. They’re changing the money and I can’t use the ATM. It is a pretty common sight in Mexico, but it terrifies me every time. I sprint past bewildered travelers in search of another ATM and my heart is racing as I find one. I enter my pin, ask for money and am told that the account is invalid. I brought my credit card, not my debit card. Aaaaahhhh! I sprint back to Elena, exchange my cards, sprint back to the ATM and actually get cash. Hallelujah. The package is in the mail, and with some miracle, it will be at my parents’ home before me.
Now we’re late. We race back to the international terminal only to discover that Elena is in the correct international terminal, but I am not. Just my luck; the other international terminal that I need is a cab, train or bus ride away. I say a hurried good-bye to Elena and am fighting stressed tears as I race in the direction of the other terminal. Did I mention that I have 100 pounds of luggage? I find the train and a scrolling sign informs me that I have five minutes before the next train. I am hoping I’ll make it. I hop on the train, dash from the opening doors when we arrive and sprint towards the desks. An information guy in a wheel chair asks me if I need information and I snap that I don’t. Reflexes from walking in the street and stress; I check myself and try to be polite. He kindly informs me that continental is to the left and I race towards it. Before I get in line, I have to weigh my rolley duffle. Two pounds overweight. *&@$!!!! Could this morning get any worse? I am still trying not to cry as I unzip the straining zipper and my luggage contents vomit onto the carpet. I search for the books I had conveniently placed on the bottom and squeeze them into my already super heavy backpack. My duffle is now regulation weight. At last, I scan my passport, get my boarding pass and try to pull myself together as we are waiting to board.
The flight was fine. The lunch was interesting. Somehow my vegetarian request was switched to vegan; shouldn’t be too strange. My lunch arrives and it is a sandwich. I open it up to see what I’ll be dining upon and see broccoli, green beans and other Asian vegetables. And a piece of lettuce for good measure. I am eating cold Asian veggies, no sauce, on a bun. Who comes up with this crap? The American Cattle Association? Obviously not anyone who is planning on eating it.
I hop off the plane in Texas and almost instantly hear tapping on the glass. It is Adam, one of my two friends joining me on this leg of the adventure! He is already here and has staked us out some seats in a waiting area. I am very happy to see a friendly face, but I am whisked along the corridor towards customs. My mood is lifted by the sight of Adam and the patriotic music playing as I wait in line. Apparently it doesn’t matter that this is just a layover. I still have to fill out the customs form, go through customs, go back through security (third time my bags and person were scanned on this day) and finally end up right were I started, just on the other side of the glass. Whew. We quickly vote of some Starbucks and a pretzel and catch up for a while. We have four hours to kill before our flight to Costa Rica.
It is finally time to board and we settle in for the three hour flight. Our seats aren’t together, so I tell Adam I’ll see him in Costa Rica and crack my latest John Grisham. The hours pass quickly, I doze a bit, and before too long we’ve landed. Ashley was supposed to have landed a half an hour before us and the plan was for us to either see her at our gate or at a coffee shop. Since we’re not smothered in Ashley hugs when we walk out of the gate, I’m assuming that we’ve moved onto plan B. Adam and I walk through customs, get our passports stamped and line up to get our bags scanned. Again. Grrr. Adam hurriedly whispers that he has a banana in his bag that he didn’t claim on his customs form. I decide that it couldn’t possibly be a big deal. I was wrong. As soon as Adam’s bags go through the scanner, a stern looking lady asks Adam if he has any fruit in his bag. He divulges that he does in fact have a banana. She confiscates it. We wonder later if he would have been aloud to quickly eat it and decide probably not.
We leave customs and suddenly are struck with thick humidity. We’re outside! Tons of people are waiting with signs, taxi drivers are surrounding the tourists. Where is the coffee shop? We walk through the crowd looking for Ashley and soon realize that she isn’t there. What happened? I ask the guard blocking our reentry to the airport if he could check on her flight. It is late, she isn’t here yet. Thank goodness we haven’t missed her. Now we’re hoping that she’ll do exactly what we did and walk through customs assuming that a café will be there too. After a half hour or so of waiting, we finally see her. Ashley claimed that us calling her name was the most beautiful sound she had heard. We have hugs all around and go in search of a taxi. After some bargain hunting, we get a fare we can live with and follow the driver to his car. The interior light was blue. Interesting. We cruise through the humid night listening to American disco. He arrives at a dark alley and tells us our hostel is up the hill. I don’t believe him and don’t budge from my seat. He asks a guy on the sidewalk if it is the hostel and he points down the street. The driver was only off my 20 feet, but they made a big difference. We got buzzed in, checked in and fell onto our bunk beds. A quick email home for all of us and we fell asleep quickly.

PS Mexico: Bike ride to Hell and back

2008-10-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

The mayor of Mexico City is a fan of the environment and Mexico is trying to improve their bad reputation on environmental standards. Mexico was chosen to host World Earth Day next year, according to my morning paper. One of the eco-activities available each Sunday is a bike tour of the city. A giant loop around the city is blocked for cars and bikers, roller bladders, and skatboards hit the pavement accompanied with their dogs and kiddos. I arranged to spend my last Sunday in Mexico with Lucy, a friend from language school and her husband. I had gone out the night before and somehow screwed up my alarm clock so I was late. Argh. I had been to her apartment once before, but not by metro, and it took a few minutes to locate the correct street to scurry down. When I got to her building, I stared at the buzzer buttons and realized I didn’t know which apartment number was hers! I was busily wracking my brain and staring at the buttons when the guard asked me what I was up to. I explained that I was here to visit my friend, Lucy, a Chinese-American girl who just moved in, but that I couldn’t remember which apartment she lived in. He looks at my quizzically and asks, “Maria?”….Um, no, I try to be patient. I am speaking in Spanish here, so it shouldn’t be so difficult. Her name is Lucy. I am already really late, I am stressed because I hate being late, and this jackass won’t believe me. We go back and forth a few more times with me repeating that her name is Lucy (how many Chinese-American women just moved into this building in Mexico City? Come on!) and he kept suggesting other names that sounded nothing like that. Finally, on the brink of loosing it, I turn on my heels and stop over to the payphone eight feet away and call Lucy. I explain that I am right outside her door and the guard won’t let me in. She laughs and soon she and her husband have joined me on the street. Sigh.
We walk to a nearby park in search of bicycles to rent. The park had a sort of carnival atmosphere with lots of fun activities for children, lots of food available on a stick, several motorized Barbie cars and hot wheels for toddlers to terrorize their parents with, a painting stand and a massage therapist with one of those cool chairs that makes is possible to get a back massage and still feel totally relaxed and comfortable. The bicycle stand we were looking for wasn’t there so we moved on to the next. The bicycle stand was there, but they only had broken bikes left, but we could wait. We moved on again. We found a bicycle repair shop and asked if they rented bikes. Eventually, after relinquishing my driver’s license and some pesos, we got two adult bikes and a purple bike that I dubbed Barney for two hours.
We were off. It was a beautiful sunny morning that was a remarkable change from the bleary gray weather we had been dealing with. I had a warm breeze whippings through my hair, the sun on my shoulders (covered in SPF 15) and I was laughing with two friends. The annoying guard was quickly fading. We wound through the Condesa and found the nearest street that was blocked off. This really is a major event to be coordinated by the city; there are police officers, armed with their whistles and orange cones, at every intersection. There are bathroom stops, water tables and pit stops.
We bike for about an hour and then we figure we need to start heading back. Problem is, traffic is really only going one way and so we ask about how close we are to our starting point. Our first ¨helper¨says we´ll hit a big road we`re familiar with in about ten minutes. Perfect. We ride on for another twenty minutes or so and realize we have no clue where we are...except that we`re no where near where we are. We keep riding, keep asking and keep getting near nothing we recognize. We are hot, we´re tired, and we´re feeling like we´re not going to make it. This is a bike ride gone bad. What further complicates the matter is that the police keep yelling at us to move over because they`re about to let in the cars. They maniac drivers that have no respect for walkers or bikers are about to be released upon us. I feel like I am about to have an experi ence similar to running the bulls in Spain. Eventually we find a person who actually knows where we are, for real, and we ask him where our neighborhood is. The expression on his face makes my heart drop. We´re really, really, really far away. Double damn. He points us in the right direction, and we are weaving in and out of the streets and sidewalk as the cars permit and the potholes reqire. Our happy chatter of the beginning is long gone. Lucy starts to tell us that she is recognizing this and that, but I am totally not convinced. After what seemed like hours upon hours, I see the metrobus, the wonderful little metrobus that only goes along one street. We're going to make it! We arrive to the park, super sweaty and hungry, and look at our clocks. We are only five minutes late.
We turn in the two big bikes and the barney bike: We walk a bit like a cowboy because of our sore rears and beeline to the nearest cafe where we proceed to stuff ourselved on sandwiches, soup, coffee and nutella crepes. At this point cardboard would have been tasty, but this food was heaven. Oh happy day.
After I left Lucy and her husband`s apartment, I walked back to the park and enjoyed a lovely 20 minutes massage for seven bucks. I was at total peace; the sound of children´s laughter floated through the air, the smells of the carnival food and a cool breeze. I visited hell and returned intact. Hallalujah.

PS Mexico: Loco por ti

2008-10-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

Part of my morning routine is to have my yogurt and toast or yogurt and pastry (with water, with Silvia thinks is really weird) and then to go back upstairs to put on my make-up. On my powder is a small green sticker in the shape of a heart that states “loco por ti”, or “crazy for you”. I got the sticker from one of the many children who are working at all hours of the day in Mexico City. I was riding home on the subway around 9:00 or 9:30, about as late as I feel safe riding the subway alone, when a small girl of 7 or 8 hops on the metro with a boy of 12 or 13, maybe her big brother. The girl is dirty, her eyes are very tired and her shoulders are drooped. She is here to work. This is the second time that I’ve seen this poor girl who, instead of playing with dolls or pretending to be a Disney princess, is trying to earn a small income so that she can eat. She passes out stickers to every forth or fifth person on the subway, which takes a few minutes because the subway is a big car. Next she goes around with a small dirty plastic cup to ask for money. I don’t usually give money to beggars…but I gave this poor girl a ten peso coin which is the same as a US dollar. I kept the sticker to remind myself to be grateful for all that I have.

The wedding, the ranch and more!

2008-10-01T08:53:00.001-07:00

So as I mentioned earlier, my friend Tracy recently got married here in Mexico City to Juan, a Mexican. The wedding was really cool. The ceremony was earlier in the day and then pictures were taken in a very pretty park. We were joined by another wedding party in the park to enjoy the peaceful surroundings. Tracy’s dress was princess in full splendor with a huge skirt that she actually hid children under a few times. On the way out of the park to get back into our undecorated minivan, I elbowed Tracy in front of the other wedding party’s decorated jeep. While the guards are chuckling near by, Tracy slides in for a quick picture and then we make a quick get away. So sneaky.

The reception was really a fun experience. In some ways, the weddings are really different and in some ways they’re the same. They’re the same as an American wedding with the big party, lots of family and friends, decorations, cake, booze. They’re different because the family does EVERYTHING. One relative made the decorations, another couple of cousins took care of the music, several families cooked the entire meal and then served it to all of the guests, the groom’s brother made the margaritas and other relatives made an apartment available for wedding guests. There is no catering, no wedding planner, nada. Kind of amazing. We got there kind of early so it started off a little slow, with some of the Mexican relatives staring at us as we milled about and found the beer. As more people trickled in, we gringos found 1 ½ tables to call our own and we were eating before too long (tortillas, a corn soup, rice, chicken with mole sauce, pickled cactus salad, fried poblano peppers stuffed with cheese and a potato pancake thing) and the margaritas were in abundance.

Enter the mariachis. About ten mariachis were hired for the wedding (la boda) and they marched into the hall in full costume. On their pants they had silver designs going up their legs, one guys was horse heads. They meant mariachi business. They would form a semicircle around two tables and sing the diners a song and then blast their next song towards another end of the room. Of course, we gringos were included as well and they head mariachi asked us for requests. Unfortunately, my mariachi repertoire is limited to La Bamba and La Cucaracha and so we needed a little guidance. He was kind enough to give us a few titles to choose from and we randomly picked. Very fun.

After the Mariachis took their final bow, the cousins took over the music and played a fun blend of Mexican and American songs. It is amazing how much American music has infiltrated the rest of the world. I remember feeling the same amazement when I was traveling in France and Switzerland in high school. We had the cake cutting, the cake smashed in the face (a new and surprising tradition for the Mexican crowd, haha) and then we Americans learned of a Mexican tradition where the bride and groom stand on two chairs and form a bridge with their hands. The guests line up in a big conga line and rush through the bride and groom….trying to knock them off. Eh? First all of the ladies and girls went and were more gentle and then I was personally responsible for saving Tracy’s life as the men went through the bridge like a high school football team. Yikes! Juan got the worst of it and although he was knocked down a few times, there were enough bodies to cushion the fall. I think I’ll be leaving this one in Mexico.

The kids attending the wedding were having just as much fun as the adults (probably more fun than the sullen line of relatives who didn’t move from their stations the whole evening). Two of the little girls discovered that there were a bunch of snails hanging out outside and proceeded to collect nearly thirty of them and build them a “play ground”. She was pretty grossed out when I told her that the French eat snails and decided that she was not hungry for snails. Oh well.

The days preceding and following the wedding, I was able to hang out with Tracy’s friends from in town and the new family. The night before the wedding we went back to Xochimilco to have a big boat party. Originally the plan was to return to the same boat guy that we rode with the week before. Somehow plans changed, both the time and the location, while I was en route. It took longer than expected to get there and I was worried that the boat would leave without me and when I got to our designated spot, out of breath, there wasn’t anyone there. Damn! Ever “helpful” are the people trying to sell you rides or sell you anything, there was a guy on a bicycle ready to help this damsel in distress. (The first time we went to Xochimilco the bikers kept appearing out of nowhere to lead us to a certain boat…pretty funny: oh hello again! It’s you again! You are sooo helpful…again!) I called an American friend who had a Mexican phone but it was turned off and also called a Mexican friend and couldn’t really figure out what had happened or where everyone was. My helpful biker wasn’t keen on me using his phone to call Tracy’s American phone and three stores were out of phone cards. Double damn! Eventually, I was sitting on the side of the road feeling and apparently looking pitiful when Tracy shows up in a mini van to rescue me. The brother asked if I was as sad as I looked, and I said yes, I thought I was lost forever. Tracy and her brother had driven all over from the new location trying to find me at the old location and along the way picked up an actual helpful Mexican man who knew the way but couldn’t explain. What a miracle.

The boat party itself was super fun…what started as eighteen or so folks involved in either couch surfing or the wedding grew to twenty-five or twenty-six. We had music, we had beer and tequila and we were ready to party. I don’t know how it worked, but along the way other couch surfers found our boat and jumped on. Another miracle, I think. We passed the island of creepy dolls (has anyone heard of this? It is an island that is covered in baby dolls that are in various states of decay), passed other party boats and even had some fireworks.

After the boat party, we were in search of food and found a place making “tortas”, Mexico’s HUGE hot sandwiches. For $1.80 I got an enormous sandwich with eggs, cheese, some veggies and refried beans. And I ate every bite. Yum.

After the wedding two car loads of folks went two hours outside of the city to the teensy town where some of the relatives live. We drove through the beautiful mountains and enjoyed lovely views while telling the driver to keep his eyes on the road! We walked around a bit when we got there, but it was getting dark so the tour didn’t last long. We ate some left over wedding food that we’d brought with us and spent a while chit chatting in English, Spanish and interesting spanglish.

Mexicans tend to stay rooted in one house for much longer than we nomadic Americans. They just add on or build up as the budget allows to meet the needs of their expanding family. It was kind of easy to tell how the original house had been just two small rooms and then the kitchen was later expanded and the second bedroom was plopped on the roof. Six of us crashed in the upstairs bedroom that you walk up a winding staircase outside to get to. I love it how much the buildings here let in the outdoors. In American buildings, you are either inside or outside, period. Here, you walk outside of the kitchen across the patio to the bathroom, or across the patio in the other direction to head to our bedroom.

The next morning, we were greeted by the sight of a lizard climbing around on the lace curtain and called in the groom’s brother for backup. We also found three HUGE spiders hanging out in the hand towel. Apparently the upstairs bedroom isn’t used all that often. We ate some breakfast and walked into town. We were passed by several guys on horseback and one guy with a pair of mules with a bunch of grass strapped to their back. The tour of the tiny town took all of 3 seconds and we kept walking up a mountain (hill?) to see a beautiful vista of the town and the surrounding areas. A very different view of mexico from the Mexico city that I’ve been used to. Very tranquil and lovely.

For lunch most of us pitched in to make sopas, a lovely dish that involved homemade tortillas (I helped!) that were cooked in an outdoor “kitchen” of sorts over an open fire. My teacher, someone’s grandmother, had obviously made about a bazillion tortillas in her life and I was glad my lessons were coming from a professional. She had bought a big chunk dough from somewhere and it was wrapped in purple paper. This tiny little lady easily grabbed a hunk of the heavy dough and began to kneed in water to make the dry dough smooth and pliable. She rolled a bunch of balls and brought in the heavy artillery; the hand press. Enter the gringa. You wouldn’t think that there would be that much skill in pressing a ball of dough, but you’d be wrong. My first several were too thin (I am so strong) and then the problems continued with my incorrect removal from the press and my incorrect placement on the grill. Eventually I got it right and everyone was happy. I will be happy to share my budding skills with any interested party.

The scalding hot tortillas are removed from the fire and are pinched around the edges to make a kind of crust like on a pizza. My fingers were too tender for this work. These tortilla shells are then brought to the indoor kitchen and placed on another pan and topped with oil (we would hate to do anything low fat people), thin refried beans, a red salsa and cheese and heated until crispy. Meat eaters topped theirs with pulled chicken, I stuck with the heavenly guacamole and cream. Did I mention that the avocados came from trees in their yard? Yum!

I spent the first half of the drive back to the city trying not to throw up as the driver rode the brakes around curves and up and down hills. We stopped at a market trying to find corn on the cob and were immediately trapped as a huge storm dropped about six inches of water in the span of twenty minutes. There wasn’t corn, but I busied myself checking out the various stalls, looking at the tortilla makers because now I am a pro and buying candy and pirated DVD (3 DVDs for five dollars). We stopped again when we saw a corn stand and indulged in this yummy treat. Mexican corn on the cob is skewered on a wooden dowel, spread with mayo, rolled in a shredded cheese and sprinkled with chili powder. About a zillion grams of fat, but super delicious. The healthier option that I vetoed is corn with lime, chili and salt. Bring on the fat.

Pictures

2008-09-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to see some of my pictures for all of you not on Facebook!

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2266181&l=2aae0&id=12329993

¡Viva México!

2008-09-17T14:46:00.003-07:00

Has anyone heard of couch surfing? I was recently told about this new way to travel. There is a website where people can create profiles for themselves and be both travelers and hosts. Major cities have a local chapter to have parties and events with new people. The idea is to be able to stay on someone’s couch for free in a new place and hang out with local people and meet other travelers when going to couch surfing events.

Two of my friends from school are couch surfers and subscribed to the Mexico City list serve to know what is going on. Last monday night we went to a party hosted by a couch surfer to celebrate Mexico’s Independence day, said to be one of the biggest parties of the year. And while we didn’t end up going to the Zocolo to join in with the other millions, we had a smashing party in our new friend’s apartment. There were people from England, Mexico (duh), Russia, the US, France, Panama and more. We milled about for a while talking and drinking and then moved onto drinking games (I’ll have to play this new one with any willing people when I return to the US), limbo and lots of dancing. I had such a good time and was really happy to be able to have actual conversations with local folks. I have been complimented on my good accent several times and am proud of how far my Spanish has come. The cab ride home was punctuated with lots of fireworks and the driver tried to charge us $30. I gave him $10 and told him to get lost. It is really annoying to ride in cabs without meters because the drivers just make up whatever fare they think they can get away with and it is up to the person riding to know what is reasonable and to have the Spanish to be able to argue and negotiate.

Top 14: The buses of Acapulco

2008-09-17T14:46:00.002-07:00

Many of the buses in Acapulco are named, and I couldn’t help but start a list of the funny names. Some of the cabs are also named, but it isn’t as common. One taxi we took was named ‘Vivian’ and I couldn’t help but hear Richard Gere yelling to Julia Roberts in the end of Pretty Woman. Here are some of the bus names:

· Samauri
· Ferrari
· Maria Bonita
· Sacrifice
· Acapulcito (little Acapulco)
· Tazmanian devil
· Caliente (spicy)
· Excitement
· Stuart Little
· Angels
· Loonatic
· Mermaid
· Blue Label
· Alien

Acapulco

2008-09-17T14:46:00.001-07:00

It is getting late on Thursday evening as I ring the buzzer to get into my house. Cha cha, the crazy dog, is yapping away as Silvia, my host grandmother, makes her way to the door. As she opens the big golden garage door I exclaim and I have “una cosa bueno y una cosa malo” (a good thing and a bad thing because I don’t know the word for news). I tell her that I’ve decided to visit Acapulco this weekend “cosa buena”, but that I have no clean clothes “Cosa malo” she dramatically plays along. We quickly get to work putting in the dark load and then watch the telenovellas, the super over dramatic Spanish soap operas while the washing machine does its thing. There is no dryer, so all of my clothes are strung across rooms and hanging across broom handles. I pray that it will be dry by morning. I am disappointed and take a heavy ball of damp clothes to school with me. There is a dryer on the roof of the building and I beg the sweet cleaning lady to let me use it and thankfully, she does. I’m good to go!

This weekend I tagged along on a trip with Josh to Acapulco. His boyfriend is coming to visit but wasn’t interested in Acapulco so I generously volunteered to tag along and keep him company. I am so sweet. After school we have an hour to kill so we grab lunch and chat and then make our way to the southern bus station. It is no surprise that his small blue backpack had plenty of room to spare while my huge red backpack is pulling at the seams. I have yet to master the art of packing light.

On the bus I am surrounded by vacationing Mexicans excited to make use of the long weekend. 5 rainy hours are passed by American movies dubbed in Spanish and conversation with my seat buddy and her six year old son. The son and I play tic-tac-toe and taught each other the shapes in our native language (I still have the paper as a study guide). He was much better at counting than I.

Josh and I weren’t on the same bus, but his arrived soon after mine and we grabbed a taxi to our hotel, the Seascape Hotel. The taxi driver was telling us our far our hotel was from the beach and that we should check out his buddy’s place and gave up when we told him we had a reservation. The hotel had its glory days in the 1960’s, but beggars can’t be choosers and I was thrilled to be on the beach. Turns out our beach was a 10 minute walk down a steep hill; very manageable indeed. It was kind of late and we were both tired from the bus. We enjoyed a sandwich and a few beers from the outdoor kitchen and bar next to the pool and then went to sleep. Interestingly enough, one of the decorations from the pool was an Ohio license plate. Small world.

The next morning we grabbed our gear and swimsuits and headed down the hill to the beach. We walked along the crowded coast until we found a beach entrance and hopped down the steps, climbing over the guy sleeping and found the ocean. Yay! What a nice change from the noise and bustle of the city! There were about a zillion cabanas lined up and we rented towels, cushions and settled in. We were the only ones there other than the restaurant staff. Apparently we were the early birds. We ordered cheese quesadillas (apparently breakfast food here), fresh pineapple juice and coffee and settled in with our paperback, only to be interrupted every five minutes by someone selling something.

I have mentioned before that the volume of people selling stuff, all kinds of random stuff, is incredible. But, in the name of being a thorough writer, I kept a list of things that we could have bought without leaving the cabana:

· Sunglasses
· Green pumpkin shot glasses
· Massages (they carried around a text book to make themselves more official looking)
· Cover ups and swim suits
· Coconut water
· Shrimp (out of a sand pail, no less)
· Sand toys
· Giant toy boats
· Tons of jewelry
· Henna tattoos
· Our names written in a shell
· Some turtle lotion that is supposed to be an aphrodisiac
· Sandals
· Boat rides
· Hang gliding
· Glass bottles of what looked like kool aid that the sellers would clink together to let you know they’d arrived
· Hammocks
· Mobiles
· Hair braiding
· Giant masks made out of grasses and dyes (I wish I had taken a picture)

And, when he went to use the bathroom, my friend had the opportunity to buy coke and weed. He declined.

We spent two lovely mornings on the chewing through our paperbacks. We also visited the local fort, Fuerte de San Diego, built in 1616 to protect the area from pirates and offers an excellent view of the bay and city. We strolled through the center of town and went to a club for a while on Saturday night. The club looked like a pirate ship and the drinks were 2 for 1; both drinks arrived at the same time. I felt like I was a bit of a lush when there were four drinks on the table and only two people. Oh well, the first two disappeared quickly. The other cool thing we did was see the cliff divers.

I’m not sure how this spectacle got started, and my guidebook was no help as far as the history. But, for a few bucks, you can see a bunch of guys in Speedos climb down or dive off of the closer cliff into the rocky water, climb up the much taller cliff facing the audience, and time their impressive dives into the choppy water with the oncoming waves. There were different platforms (a generous term for the little areas no bigger than their feet) and the guys took turns, each guy diving a little higher than their buddy before them. The guidebook says that they dive up to 35 meters and I think it is no exaggeration. The final guy in hanging out at the top of the cliff and prays to the patron saint of Mexico, Guadalupe. I would be too. The top of the cliff is easily twice as tall as the first platform. It was a very cool show.

Weddings, mural, medicine and boats

2008-09-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Life continues to be entertaining and fun. I have been hanging out with a few new friends from school. Josh, a California native is an independent contractor and has a little more flexibility than most. He decided to come down to learn some Spanish because he has so many Spanish speaking friends and would like to be able to communicate better. Another friend, Tracy, is also an American and came to Mexico to get married to Juan, a Mexican. She is so very funny; she lives is Washington in a double wide trailer home from 1958, drives a car from the 1960’s and wants to start her own nonprofit foundation and import crafts from Mexico to the US for sale.

Last week I went to the inside of the palacia de bellas artes with Kathryn, a new friend from Switzerland. We wanted to go to the palace to see other murals but it was closed because of a convention, although the guard thought it was really funny that I dramatically snapped my fingers and said “que lastima!”. I like going to museums with other people who enjoy the “skimming approach” that I do. I am not one to consider a single painting for hours and hours and feel a little tied down by people who do. We spent a lovely afternoon checking out the murals and then having lunch at a new vegetarian restaurant we stumbled across. It was down a few winding halls and up on the second floors but 4 or 5 signs made sure we found our way. I never thought I’d get to eat soy balls in Mexico. Kathryn went home afterwards and I went to a Starbucks to study grammar for a while. Thrilling indeed.

Another afternoon this week I went to the museum of medicine. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find any takers to go with me so I went on my own. The building that housed the museum was huge and magnificent. According to my trusty guidebook this building is the former headquarters of the Inquisition of New Spain. It was a giant square with a lovely courtyard in the middle so all of the rooms had natural light. It would be a neat place to have some sort of party or dance; string lights across the top and strike up the band! The museum houses different antique medical equipment, herbal medicine (thesis flashback!) replicas of old doctors’ offices and interesting medical specimen, including wax replicas of different skin diseases all over the body (ALL over the body…gross). As I’m wandering around, a few young people are there, seemingly on assignment from school because they’re taking notes about the different displays. There are also medical students milling about in their crisp white lab jackets. Because I’ve spent so much time in hospitals, this place felt surprisingly homey to me.

After the museum and a quick lunch of a sandwich from a café and yet another conversation about small bits of meat in the soup actually counting as meat (the shock) I wandered around. You never know what you’ll come across when wandering and I was not disappointed. I found a neat used bookstore that had paperbacks in English for 2-3 bucks and a also found “oh the places you’ll go” by Dr. Sues in Spanish. I had previously purchased the first Harry Potter from a lovely street vendor but it turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated so I’ve needed to scale it back a bit. I took my new treasures to a new coffee shop and the very cute waiter brought me one of the finest lattes I’ve had ever. The foam was super thick and wonderful; well appreciated by this barista!

On Friday I want to Xochimilco, the “Venice of Mexico”; a series of channels that were created to farm. Mexico city used to be a lake, but some people got the idea to drain the lake and build, build, build. The huge cathedral closest to the Zocolo is now tilted because of being built of soft ground. The remnants of the former large lake are these channels. The farmers staked out an area with poles and then filled in the area with dirt to make a little island perfect for growing fruit and flowers and no concerns for watering the crops. Now, locals and tourists are able to hop on a flat bottomed, very colorful boat and be pushed around to enjoy the peaceful scenery. You can also by beer or pop from the drink boat that comes up, tacos from the taco boat, blankets and tablecloths or pay the mariachi to sing you a tune. There really is no place in Mexico safe from people selling something unless you’re inside your own house. Period. It is all very strange and wonderful. I got the brilliant idea that I wanted to “drive” the boat, which involves wielding a giant bamboo pole and pushing along the bottom of the canal to propel the boat. So while my friends are betting if I’m going to fall in or drop the pole, I gave my best shot at what our driver, Miguel, made look so very easy. While I didn’t drop the pole or fall in, much to my friends’ chagrin, I have a much greater appreciation for the boat drivers. Since the pole is bamboo, it wants to float. You have to jam the pole down very quickly in order to hit the soft bottom of the canal or you’re pole floats up before you can make any progress. And, when I actually did hit bottom, the boat is super heavy and not to easy to steer. I gave up rather quickly.

Pyramids and Puebla

2008-09-08T15:52:00.000-07:00

I have been up to a lot lately, and have been too busy to write. Eek! It is time to catch up a little bit.

It is too dangerous to go come late at night so if I would like to do something in the evening, I have been sleeping in a friend's apartment who lived in the school (now she is traveling around the country and I miss her already!). So this week in the evening I went to a salsa club, a regular dance club and watched a movie one night. Feels better to be doing normal young people stuff and not just watching TV or reading at home all the time.

Monday I went with six people from school to the Pyramids north of the city. It took about an hour by bus to get there and it literally was a welcome breath of fresh air from the craziness of the city. We met two guys traveling from Isreal and decided to do a tour. Our guide was fantastic and told us lots of stories and information about the people who used to live there, how they had hot showers, studied astronomy and geology. I think we got much more out of the tour than if we had just gone on our own. I climbed both of the big pyramids (the sun pyramid has 244 huge, steep stairs) and was sore for the next two days. I think that the priests of those days must have been in excellent shape. At the top of the sun pyramid there were a group of people in white clothes and singing, and really, it was beautiful enough to make one want to burst into song (¨the hills are alive...with the sound of music!¨). There was also a guy who was spinning one copper plate on top of another and had crystals and such. I asked him what he was doing and he said something about ¨turning on this big machine of energy¨and that there was a reincarnation of jesus, as a woman, nearby and how lucky I was to be there. Yup. Lady Jesus. I am lucky.

The salsa club was fun, but I really need to learn the local salsa because it is really different from salsa in the US. I guess I went to the club feeling like I was going to be decent because I have danced so much in the US but felt terrible that night. Yikes! When our group got there, there were two circles of people doing this kind of salsa-square dance thing that is really fast and involves a lot of changing of partners. Very neat to watch and would be really cool to learn. Who knows?

This weekend I went with two friends to Puebla, one of the largest cities in the Country. Peubla is famous for its architecture and spanish feel. We took a two hour bus to get there and immediatly searched for a hostel. We found one mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide (seriously the bible of travels) and got three bunk beds in a co-ed dorm for 13 bucks, with breakfast included. Sweet! We went to a history museum of the mexican revolution and were given a tour by the guard. It was really cool because I don't know much of anything about history but he was able to make it very interesting and the pride in his face as he is showing us different things was really amazing. We also went to the main cathedral of puebla and were stunned by the beautiful building. As we were leaving, a wedding was getting started and the bride was hanging out, alone, in a blue 1950´s car. As the crowd gathers to see the bride's entrance, move guests are entering the cathedral. Finally, the car moves forward and backwards, parallel parking style, and gets 5 or 6 feet closer to the curb (necessary?). The bride exits the car and looks super. Fun to watch!

We got dinner at a place called Super Soya. I couldn't believe that there was a health food place like that in Mexico. There was a restaurant counter where we got burgers (one of the girls was also vegetarian and the other went along with it) as well as foods and supplements for sale. Yum! We also went to an internet cafe for a while where I set up a skype account (excellent decision) and was able to talk to my mama. The first 4 times I tried to call home I could hear my mom but she couldn't hear me. She was so sweet because she said ¨I know one of you kids is trying to call but I can't heeeearrrr you!¨. Eventually we got connected and were able to have a long chat for 2 cents per minute. I guess I should clarify that my sister is currently in ireland, my brother is in germany and my other brother lives in DC.

Being cool young people, we wanted to check out the night scene and got ready in the hostal. We were told that we should go to the city center and look from there. So we walked, on empty streets, towards the city center. Are we forgetting that it is saturday night? Once we got to the city center, we saw a bunch of familys and children. Where are the clubs? Along the way, we were invited to a 15th birthday party (a very big celebration in Mexico) but decided to pass. We did eventually find a few clubs and were immediatly surrounded by three club representitives of the clubs offereing us drinks if we would please just come to their clubs. I guess that is what celebrities feel like. We walked through a bunch of guys looking us up and down as though we were steaks and sat down for a few drinks and a bit of dancing.

Sunday we went to the Africam Safari. I think it is the largest zoological park in the Americas and it was really cool. Our guide suggested going early, when the animals are most active and so we set the ole alarm for 9am, had our free breakfast (cereal, toast, juice and coffee) and walked back to the square where we looked for our safari bus. It took about 10 false starts and a lot of waiting in the rain, but eventually we were on our way. Even though it was raining, the animals were out and about in the park and very close to the bus. I was very close to lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) as well as elephants, birds, lots of deer like animals that I didn´t recognize and many more. Very cool tour.

Top 8: Things being carried

2008-09-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

1. A live duck wrapped in a blue blanket being carried across the huge city square
2. a plastic quart bag of juice (an accident waiting to happen)
3. a light bulb that was 10 feet long
4. a huge stack of 20 chairs with white slip covers
5. three chubby men...by one teeny vespa
6. a louiz vuitton purse...used to hold change by the guy selling water in the street
7. a package of diapers strapped to a bicycle with a belt by a young guy...new father?
8. Clear plastic garbage bag of fried pig skin squares on the subway...do you know where your pig skin has been??

Mexico city: the new Paris

2008-09-04T15:50:00.000-07:00

Mexico city, or the D.F. as it is known to the locals for the Federal District in spanish, may be the new Paris.

How can this be, you may ask? The city is not leading the world of fashion, there aren´t billions of tourists and the tallest tower doesn´t put on a light show. What does this city have to make is similar to Paris? Couples making out everywhere. Everywhere.

What is the cause of this phenomenon? People tend to live with their parents until they're married. And because people ¨don't have sex until they're married¨, they're not allowed to bring boyfriends home or date a lot. Although, with the number of pregnant teenagers I've seen, it isn't a perfect system.

So, what is a young, or not so young couple to do? Find the nearest park bench, corner of the metro, side of a building, taxi or whatever and pretend no one is watching. As I´m sipping coffee, the couple across the tiny cafe is feeling each other up. As I´m riding the crowded metro, couples are sitting in each others laps and making smacking noises in my ear (it is 9 am!). As I walk down the street, I pass several coupled parked against buildings and on benches.

It must be tough to be an angel at home and a girlfriend or boyfriend in the street. Whew!

My new boyfriend

2008-09-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

On saturday, I was walking through the big park, Chapultapec, on my way to find some lunch. I had just visited the castle and it was a beautiful. As I'm walking towards the park entrance, I am walking by a crowd of people surrounding two clowns passing out balloons and playing music. The crowd is laughing at what they're saying, but I'm not really paying attention. As I get closer, my ears start to burn and I realize that one of the clowns is talking to me. I try to ignore him and walk a little faster but then he keeps talking and I turn around to see the entire crowd looking at me. Dear lord. The clown asks if I speak spanish, and I lie and say no. He says he can be my teacher, and not wanting to be a chicken, let him take my hand and lead me into the circle.

So, an entire crowd of people is surrounding me, smiling at the gringa, and taking my picture. I am glad that this memory is going to complete people's family albums and websites. Yikes. So the clown asks me to repeat some things, and I repeat a few that I know are safe, but once I suspect he is asking me to say dirty things, I refuse. He asks me how old I am, and if I'm single, to which I reply yes and the crowd cheers. The clown asks if anyone is interested in me and this high school aged guy immediately pops up, with a rose, wanting to tell me how much he is into me. How a teenager just happens to have a red rose? I don't know. His friends are hooting at him and egging him on. I'm caught between laughing and wanting to cry.

The clown asks the boy how old he is and he replies "16". The clown turns to me and asks if I'm interested in him and I motion with my hands that he is too little. The guy, immediately understanding what I meant, jumps up to demonstrate just how tall and mature he is.

The clown then gathers some more people in the circle; five guys and five girls. There is one lady older than me from Miami Florida who is supposed to be translating for me, but she isn't really focused on that job. It turns out that the clown is arranging a dance competition between the boys and the girls. Team Guys goes first, and to "rock your body" by the backstreet boys, the first guy, the guy with a crush on me, proceeds to bust an erotic move to a cheering crowd. It doesn't matter that those moves are appropriate only in a club at midnight and it is 2 in the afternoon and there are lots of kids. Next goes the girl from Miami and she does some salsa steps. One more guy goes from the guys side and then it is my turn.

In my mind this can go one of two ways....I can run away and hope that they don't catch me and never live down the shame, or, I can jump in with two feet and dance my heart out in front of a bunch of strangers. I chose to dance! I shook my hips for all they're worth and just lived in the moment. How often does one have the chance to show Mexico that Americans can dance too? The crowd cheered and I saw way too many camera flashes. I'm telling myself that they were all deleted.

The dance competition continued with a young boy, probably 6 or 7 years old, beginning to do a strip tease to the same backstreet boys song. He got his jacket off and then his t-shirt (does he practice this in front of his mirror?) and was going to take off his undershirt until his mother shot him down. What a party pooper.

The final round of the dancing was pairs. The miami girl and the tallest guy danced and then it was my turn to dance with my boyfriend. He looked like he could barely contain himself while I was trying not to laugh. The clown told the guy to dip me, so with me screaming, he did. He said something I didn't understand and then dipped my again. Apparently not what he wanted because he was motioning for me to kick up my leg. This time I did and again the crown cheered. Third time's the charm.

The spectacle ended with the teenager pronouncing his undying love to me, something about the sun and the moon, who knows. And he gave me the red rose. The crowd began to shout "beso! beso!" for "kiss! kiss!" and to stop him from kissing me on the mouth, I gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

When it was all over, I asked to take a picture with him and he snuck in one more kiss for good measure. What an afternoon. Very funny.

Top 8: Things being sold on the street

2008-08-31T18:08:00.001-07:00

1. Ladies underwear, including thongs (so much for victoria´s secret!)
2. Any type of food you can imagine: fruit smoothies, sweet breads, tacos, fried stuff I can´t identify, something on a leaf, etc
3. baby car seats (safety first)
4. A leg massage...some guy was getting his hairy legs massaged at a bus stop.
5. 3 foot tall disney princesses, super heros, barney and other characters
6. Viagra
7. kitchen scissors
8. cameras and accessories (what is the return policy?)

Settling In

2008-08-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

I have finished my first week of school and am settling into a nice routine that includes waking up at eight, chatting with Silvia (and beginning to actually understand a lot of what she says), riding the buses to school, sardine style, and having four hours of Spanish. Next week my class of seven is reduced to three. I think each week will be different as people come and go.

After school, I have some site to visit, an adventure to do or I just wander around until I find something interesting. Here is what I have been up to the past few days:

I stumbled across part of a huge peace march. Millions of Mexicans joined together for a march across the city, meeting in one of several famous sites in the city. Everyone was dressed in white and was carrying white balloons and flowers, candles, peace flags and Mexican flags. They are objecting to all of the violence that is happening in the city. I was in a cab earlier in the day and the driver pointed out a few of the walkers getting assembled. He said they are marching for peace, and I asked "world peace?", and he said no, that they needed to start with peace in the city. I found part of the march back at the Zocolo, the part of the city where I saw the flag being lowered because I wanted to return to the book store. The square was already crowded, but people were pouring in from all around to join in. There was energetic chanting, balloons and bubbles in the air, TV cameras and helicopters and lots of cameras recording the whole event. The energy was great; buzzing and hopeful.

Saturday I hopped on the Touribus, Mexico's version of the red double-decker tour buses in London. I was trying to find information about where to find the ticket on the company website, but it was all in Spanish. My (old) tour book promised a information station near my school, so I went there in search of info. Turns out that the tourist spot is now a police something, and some men, possibly criminals, told me to go next door. Next door was a lawyer, also not a tourist site, but he was able to direct me correctly to a tourist kiosk. I got my info, and found a spot where I can hop on the bus. There are two routes; you buy a ticket on the actual bus and you get a wrist band so you can hop on and off as you see fit about the city. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I was loving seeing the city from so high up. I was educated about the history of many of the cites and listened to the Mexican elevator music in between. Other than some sun burnt shoulders, it was a very lovely day.

Wednesday I was feeling pretty homesick, sick to my stomach, had a headache and was generally overwhelmed. I missed home, had no emails other than spam in my email and was overall feeling pitiful. I wasn't at my best with communicating with Silvia and I was getting frustrated because I didn't feel well. I think that the most overwhelming thing so far is the noise. Everything is soooooo loud here; the buses, the cars honking, people yelling to sell their wares, the people selling CDs that have boom boxes with them to sample the play list, the dogs barking, the construction next door, yikes! I didn't know how much I valued quiet times in the day until I had none. Having said that, I have since felt much better and have found several parks to sooth myself from the noise of the city. It is to be expected to be overwhelmed when doing something new, and I'm not trying to complain. I just want to record the true experience.

Today I went to Chapultepc, Mexico City's Central park and saw the castle, now home to a History museum. The walk up to the castle is a winding, paved avenue that slowly rises through the trees up to the highest part of the park. The first part of the museum houses many ancient and not-so-ancient artifacts including sculptures, jewelry, clothes, carriages, tools, paintings, etc. Interesting and beautiful, but I can only take in so much, especially when all of the descriptions are in Spanish. The rest of the castle is set up with furniture as the people of the castle would have had. You can't actually go into the rooms, but you get to peep in the doors and check things out. The views from the castle of the city are amazing. The noise is muffled by all of the trees and it is very peaceful.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Revolution street, a famous street in Mexico that has many sculptures along it and statues from every state. The last Sunday of every month the street is blocked for cars and everyone bikes, roller blades, skate boards and runs up this beautiful street. It is really nice to see all the sites at a different pace and to be able to people watch so much. I can’t imagine learning to ride my bike on a street that usually houses eight lanes of honking cars and buses.

Other than that, I have held hands with Antonio Benderas…in the Hollywood style mall that has the handprint and signatures of famous people. Also in the mall there was an opportunity to take pictures with a real lion. Pass! I don’t want to be lunch! One of my first days here, I kept hearing what I thought was music from an ice-cream truck. Finally I heard things just outside the window and went outside to check things out. Turns out it is a traveling band of three guys playing a wooden xylophone that sounds exactly like an American ice-cream truck. They were really happy to see me when I had a few pesos in my hand but not so thrilled to have their picture taken. Tough luck. Lastly, I saw three young boys swimming in one of the fountains in Chapultapec park. It was really cute and I hopped off the Touribus to snap their picture and wander around. There is so much to see here!

Holly Larson-bad ass navigator

2008-08-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

I had a sucessful and fun day. For those of you who don´t know, I am possibly the worst navigator on the planet. Whenever I´m at my parents and drive somewhere, a phone call of ¨I´m lost¨ is never far away. Bearing this in mind, it is a huge accomplishment that I had a wonderful day going around the city today....without getting lost!

I have school from 10 until 2 each day. For some reason, I thought school started at 8:00, and was quite wrong. I walked to the first bus stop, about two blocks away, and got on. It was still a bit dark, but the streets were busy with people setting up their various wares to sell; clothes, meat, sweet bread, baby-blankets and clothes, furniture, fruit, whatever. You name it, you can probably find in on the street (except for english books). I switch from the bus to the metrobus, which is a tall, two unit long bus that has its own lane in the sea of traffic. You get on the bus at station in the middle of the street. There are cops there, making sure you don´t cause any trouble, and you wait for the next bus to arrive for a few minutes. These buses are packed as tight as sardine cans; sometimes you can squeeze in, sometimes there is literally not room for another body. I recognized where my school was and got off at the right stop, thank goodness. The school has a guard at the door. I told him, in my super spanish, that I was here for school. He told me that it started at 10, and I insisted that it didn´t. He let me in, and I waited in the empty class room until people started to arrive at 9:30. Super. In my class there are three students from korea, one from japan, two from germany and one from england, and me. The teacher started class 20 minutes late, very mexican, and jumped into grammer without much of an introduction. I am fine being in a beginners class right now because all of the grammer is pretty rusty. I may try to switch to a more advanced class in a week or two, when I feel more warmed up.

After class yesterday, I had lunch with some of my new friends at a mexican restaurant a while from the school...we were on the hunt for a specific restaurant but never actually found it. I had black bean soup, which the host insisted had no meat in it, but actually did have pieces of something in it (flavoring? I don´t know). I picked those out and topped the soup with cheese and cream and washed it down with half melon juice, half lemonade, per host recommendation. All for $3.50 plus tip. I went home to finish a John Grisham book and do my homework.

Today, I arrived at the correct time, dispite bailing out on my first bus too early and having to walk for a while to the metro bus and had another grammer filled lesson. I walked towards the Mexico equivalent of central park, and stopped in a restaurant that turned out to be argentinian, aka, lots of meat. I ended up finding a delicious salmon salad and was happy to be eating a few vegetables. I gave up on finding the park because there was thunder and headed back to the school for a clean bathroom and directions.

At the school, I explained that I was looking for a specific bookstore I had found in my guidebook and could she please help me find it? Between her little english, my little spanish and the help of one of her friends more familiar with the area of the bookstore, she found directions. I had to take the metrobus to the metro, change metros and then walk a few blocks. Mission impossible? Maybe! I carefully wrote the directions into my little notebook and went over where I was going, twice, on my poster-sized map (very convenient for use in busy streets), as well as how to get from the bookstore to my house. I took the metrobus, and with the helpful nudge of a nicy lady, found the metro stop and the right metro, in the right direction. I was humming mission impossible theme music to myself to keep up my courage.

When I emerged from the metro station, I realized I was at the Zocalo (duh, zocalo stop). The Zocalo is a HUGE HUGE HUGE city square surrounded with beautiful castle-like buildings and the biggest mexican flag I had ever seen. I wandered across the square, taking a few pictures and then got down to business. ¿Donde esta la calle bolivar? I asked a pair of non-threatening ladies. They motioned, vaguely in the direction I was already headed and I was off (dun dun, dun dun, dun dun; the mission impossible music continues). The streets around the square have the most beautiful architecture I had seen yet and my eyes were taking it all in. There were lots of jewelry stores, as well as food, ice-cream and clothings stores. There were very few street ventors; only those selling newspapers and magazines. I new from my careful directions that the street should be only 3 or 4 blocks from the square, and sure enough, I found it! I made a guess which way to turn and voila! I had found the bookstore! I am a navigating champion! I quickly found the paperbacks and selected running with scissors. The books are about twice as much as in the US, but I didn´t care; that $25 book was my prize!

I walked across the street to a cute little coffee shop and ordered a decaf vanilla latte (I´m trying to get used to not having coffee three times per day...rough business) and settled in for a great three chapters. I didn´t want to devour it too quickly, so I stopped when the coffee was cold and left.

As I was wandering back across the square, I noticed that a crowd had begun to gather. My quide book had discussed an interesting flag lowering ceremony every night at 6 pm, but I had no idea what time it was and saw no harmless ladies to ask. I waited in case this was the real deal and was quickly rewarded. A silent group of about 60 or 70 soldiers is full uniform marched out of one of the castles and split when the got to the square. One by one, they stopped about 15 feet apart , creating a giant square with the flag in the center. Then, other soldiers shooed the rest of the bystanders out of the square (¨we´re trying to lower a giant flag, people, move out!¨). Next came two groups of musicians and three groups of sullen soldiers with guns. They marched around the square and gathered near the flag pole. After more marching and heel tapping, a group of the soldiers began to lower the flag, which is no simple task because it is easily 30 feet tall and 60 feet wide. Huge. There was a line of men waiting to catch the flag- they did a formal heel click something and then made a dash for their section of the flag. They rolled the flag into a giant tube and formally walked off (I was wondering how they were going to fold it). I didn´t stay, but apparently they raise the flag again, sans parade, half an hour later.

Very satisfied with myself, I headed home, and didn´t get lost, again. Wow.

Black bean soup for dinner with cheese and tomatoes. I´m off to do my homework!

First weekend

2008-08-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

I am learning more spanish by the hour as my first weekend zooms by! I got to meet my hostuncle, Carlos, Silvia´s son. We hung out at the dining room table for a while and chatted, sometimes understanding, sometimes not. Silvia is a good teacher for me because she will keep talking about something until I get the drift. Carlos helps too because he speaks some English, but gets a little more frustrated when the message between us isn´t clear. But, they are both incredibly patient teachers and I am feeling right at home. Friday night I was again exhausted from thinking so much, so I just went to bed pretty early.

Saturday, I had my first outings beyond the corner store. After a leisurely breakfast, we drove past some of the famous monuments and visited my school (I hope I can find it again tomorrow). We parked, went into a mall and found a map for the poor gringa. I was excited that my credit card worked, thank you 5/3, and we walked across the street to buy a metro pass. I am all set for school!

Next stop was sushi. We went to a really nice sushi restaurant and stuffed ourselves. It is a little funny that my first restaurant was sushi, not something local. Oh well, there is still plenty of time. We drove around a bit more and then went home for naps. I explained ¨food coma¨ to carlos and he thought it was funny.

Last night, Carlos, his friend and her daughter went outside the city to a small town that was celebrating the birthday of the abuelo´s patron saint. On the way, we were stuck in lots of traffic. In the street, there are tons of people selling sweet breads. They put a few breads in plastic bags and tie two together so both of their arms are completely covered with bags. I didn´t see anyone buying any. The party was a carnival, complete with lots of small rides, lots of food I didn´t recognize and beer. It was fun, I tried beer with chili powder and lime, different, but good. I rode some rides with the eight year old daughter and tried not to throw up :) There were fireworks to celebrate the saint and everyone seemed to be having a great time. The funny thing, was that even though it was no less than 60 degrees, everyone is bundled up as though they´re in alaska. The kids are wearing hats and scarves and puffy coats, the adults are wearing heavy jackets and vests. Very funny. I ate some cheese quesadillas and did a bunch of people watching. I wish I had brought my camera!

Today I watched more of the olympics and I am off to see some local art (I think). I am greatful for the internet in the house so I can chat with friends, email and post blogs and feel connected to the world. Hello OHIO!

Over and out!

Mexico City- the first 24 hours

2008-08-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I´ve officially started my Latin American Adventure! I am in Mexico City, landed last night.

The few days before I left were a blur of loose ends to tie up such that I didn´t really have time to feel nervous. When I drove to the airport with my mama, however, it began to sink in. I tried not to throw up. For those of you who claim I´m brave, I wasn´t feeling too brave just then.

The first flight was to Hueston and was very bumpy, and I was glad when we landed and I could stop feeling like a pair of dice. The second flight was on a much larger plane and was much smoother. While everyone was getting settled in their seats, I´m staring out the window, trying not to panic. ¨HOLLY LARSON?¨says a loud voice in the aisle. I startle and turn around, wondering what I did wrong and the flight attendent says that he has a vegetarian meal for me. Whew. Close call.

As the plane got closer to the city and went below the clouds, I almost gasped at how HUGE the city really is. I know that this is one of the largest cities in the world, but it is hard to truly comprehend how big that is. Mexico City is surrounded by mountains and the size of mountains help to grasp just how huge the city is. For as tall as they are, the city is soooo much wider. Being a strong contendor for the worst navigator on the planet, I am wondering what I´ve gotten myself into.

In customs, the guy didn´t speak English (didn´t I get in the foreign visitor line?) and asked me a few questions I didn´t understand. Then he came around the counter and looked at my shoes, and seemed satisfied with what he saw. Beats me. I got my first stamp in my passport (which shouldn´t have been, but the tricky tricksters in Eurpoe felt no need to stamp it a few years ago) and I was off. When I got my bags, I moved towards the door and was stopped by a customs person who motioned that I needed to push a red button. I did, a light went on and she nodded me to move on. Again, beats me. I found Silvia, the sweet lady who is my host for these 6 weeks and we went in search of a taxi. We needed some ticket to get a taxi that we didn´t have, and it took some time, and some pesos, to acquire what we needed. We loaded my luggage into the trunk and motored off.

The driver needed to more than an inch margin to merge from one lane into another. The trip to her house wasn´t long and before I knew it, I was pulling the huge duffle back out of the trunk. The entrance to the house is two huge gold doors. We walk into a space the size of a one car garage that is tiled with powdery pink tiles. I get a quick tour of the place, find my room and unpack a bit. The house has the homey, comfortable and worn feel of some grandmothers houses. It also feels like a rabbit warren a bit because the apartment was added onto at some point so it isn´t a square. We walked to the corner bakery and bought sweet breads for me to try. I had one called a concha, because the sugar pattern on top looks like a conch shell. We hung out in the TV room and ate our treats while watching spanish soap operas and commenting on the handsome men (muy guapo!). I am not understanding plenty of her spanish, but I am getting more than I thought I would. I tried to wait for her son to get home from work, but I was almost falling asleep at the table so I went to bed.

This morning, I helped myself to the yogurt smoothie I bought last night and talked with Silvia for a while. I asked to go on a walk so I could find a phone card and some fruit and she made sure that I meant a short walk. I think she had no intention of tromping all over the city just yet :) I got to call my sister to tell her that the I was alive and well and then hung up fast because my pesos were being used up quickly. Be bought some fruits from a shop that sold chicken (pollo) and fruit...interesting combination. As I picked out a huge papaya and some mini bananas, someone is pounding chicken as flat as a tortilla right behind me. We did walk around a bit, passing store that are very different from the US; most of the time, you walk up to a window of sorts and ask the store keeper to give you whatever you need. There are bars across most of the windows and many of the buildings are very colorful. It is a little run down, but I feel safe.

That is about it. I am happy to have figured out the computer and internet so that I can send a few emails and delete my spam...just like home :)

50 pound luggage max; emotional baggage need not apply

2008-08-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

I have had a whirlwind three weeks in Oxford working at the local Starbucks, buying things I need for the trip, studying for and PASSING the exam to be a registered dietitian (I get to put RD after my name now!) and visiting with friends and family. I am about to walk the plank!

I am leaving for Mexico City tomorrow and am tying up several loose ends. Copy of passport? Check. Computer and cords? Check. Suspend cell phone? check. Luggage under 50 pounds? Barely! What I am really excited about, though, is ridding myself of some emotional baggage from a few hurt feelings and poor situations over the past two years.

In true ceremonial fashion, one of my best friends and I decide to host a "bye-bye bonfire" to start the next chapter of our lives with a clean slate. We write letters about past injustices and parts of ourselves we wish to part with and take a trip to the local woods. Because we're not actually allowed to be there after dark, we arrive at the park entrance at dusk, park, and ride our bikes to one of our favorite spots in the park; the dam overlooking Acton Lake. One of our bikes is changing gears on it's own accord so the peaceful evening is punctuated with the crunching sound of the chain and gears (ka-chung, kaaa-chung!) When we arrive, much to our chagrin, the place is swamped with people doing archery and making out on the benches. Not the best place for a magical ceremony! We go to plan B and bike to a different car entrance (ka-chung, ka-chung, ka-chung!) and bike to the trail head. It is getting dark as we park our bikes and begin to walk down the trail. I try not to remember the details of the blair witch project as we make our way to a different shore of the lake with our letters and our mini bottles of champagne. Our eyes adjust as we walk the familiar trail to the perfect sandy beach. There is a log for us to sit on and a few twigs about so that we can build a teeny fire to send our letters to heaven (or maybe hell? I don't know). We quietly build the small fire...there are boats on the water and noise carries easily across the water. We take turns reading our letters aloud and burning them and feel much lighter than when we started; we have let a lot go. We celebrate with a champagne toast and think that there is something missing....we stand up, grasp hands and shout "FREEDOM" at the top of our lungs across the lake, William Wallace style....BRRRRROOOOMMM. A boat motor starts, very close to our little (illegal) fire and my friend and I fall over each other grabbing our few belongings and race up the trail. The trail follows the edge of the lake for a while, so we don't stop sprinting until the trail went deeper into the woods. Giggling, we slow down and decide it couldn't have been better. We have our clean slate, felt a little bit like spies and have a good story to remember. We bike back to the car (kaaa-chung, ka-chung) and go in town for evening and get ice-cream!

If you're interested, my email is halarson@gmail.com

My next posting will be from Mexico City!

Travel Prep

2008-07-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

I am working on one of those lists that sprouts five new items for every one thing you cross off. Jeepers! Getting ready to leave the country for a while takes a lot of planning. Am currently working on health insurance, malaria medicine, reading the travel books, finding an apartment in Argentina, not to mention making lattes and mochas full time and studying for my RD exam. I know that working hard for something makes it so much more satisfying, and I'm trying to keep that carrot in mind.

Thankfully, I am making progress! I bought my plane ticket, have been given permission to stay in a friend's apartment for two weeks in Costa Rica and have been given a grand list of places to visit and people to phone in Mexico City, as well as safety tips. I am working on the housing situation in Argentina, but it seems to be ok to figure out once you get there.

The Itinerary:

Mexico City: August 21-October 2
Costa Rica: October 3-October 16
Buenos Aires: October 16- November 20

It is strange to only have one week left in Columbus. It has been a great two years. I am glad to be finished with my masters degree (especially the thesis!) and will be very very relieved to be done with the board exam. My goal is to officially be a Registered Dietitian by my birthday in mid august. It is sad to be arranging good-bye events and to say hasta luego to those special people here in Columbus. Maybe I'll be back in a year or two?

Summer plans...

2008-06-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

It is late at night and the apartment is quiet. My heart is pounding in my chest.

Name? Holly Larson. Dates requested? Credit card number....

Submit? Can I do it? Eeeek! It is official, I am going to Mexico and Argentina! I just made the deposit!

At the end of August, I am leaving for Mexico City where I'll do 5 weeks of immersion Spanish; 4 hours per day, five days per week. I get lost easily, so I'm sure I'll do plenty of that too. I also hope to check out some fun dance clubs, eat lots of food and not get too sick. I have three weeks off, and then I am off to Buenos Aires to get my TEFL certificate. This is the certificate that I need to get a job teaching English and I'll spend 4 weeks getting it. My goal is to end up teaching in Costa Rica, but I am still working on that.

So, I am officially done with school for a while. How strange is that? I am currently working hard at several Starbucks locations around Columbus and Oxford and am saving my pennies. I am also studying for the ADA license exam I'll be taking at the end of the summer (I'll finally get to put RD after my name!). Until then, I'll continue ballroom and salsa dancing, laying by the pool and making a latta lattes!

2008-03-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

Hello! This is my first blog...getting ready for my traveling adventure. I hope to be able to post somewhat regularly so that you can keep tabs on my trials, errors and certain humorous situations of getting very, very lost.

Look forward to tales of interesting foods, funny words and expressions and other elements of culture adjustments.

Adios!