mysterious bug bites...

I´m currently sitting in an internet cafe, it is raining outside, i have no plans and it is saturday. I came downtown to go on this `leyendas de la noche`tour...it sounded like one of those ghost tours in savannah or charleston, but I´m guessing it was cancelled because of the rain...or i missed it because i´m now accustomed to arriving at hour latina (15-30 min late). I don´t know what the rest of the group is up to because we all stayed out late celebrating Heather´s birthday, and when I say late, I mean early. I have this older sister/motherly instinct to try and make sure everyone gets home safely and I don´t like leaving people behind, luckily other people have this instinct too, so they make sure I get home too. Late nights for all. But it was fun. Recently, I´ve been concerned with mysterious bug bites. I had some bites that first seemed normal, and then went away, but as they faded, they turned into bulleyes (there were about 9...so I didn´t think I had 9 tick bites)...they seem fine now, and every pharmacist and person in the street I asked, didn´t seem to think I was in any danger. However, now I have one bug bite on my ankle that is swollen and painful to the point that I can´t move my foot. The shoes I chose to wear tonight aren´t helping as they rub the spot and aggrevate the pain. I don´t know when I got this bite, but I think last night. Anyway, I write this in detail in hopes that everyone will tell me that this is normal and I shouldn´t worry about my foot falling off after I go to sleep tonight. And, mom, if you are reading this and want to give Dr. Appling a call just to check, I wouldn´t be opposed. Anyway, at this moment in time, not much is going on. I have to figure out some plans for the night because if not, I might fall asleep from boredom (and I don´t want to sleep less my foot shall be gone when I awaken)

a new boyfriend, a new piercing, and a lost phone...

It´s hard to stay updated when so much happens everyday. I think I have some weird tendency to always be followed around by interesting stories that could only happen to me. I realize I left off at Xico, but I think I´m going to continue with a list of things I´ve discovered.

1) My french accent is better than my Spanish accent. I have been told this by many people here, I´m beginning to think that I should be taking french, or that they just don´t know what it should sound like.
2) I took a bus to a pueblo called Naolinco. It was the scariest bus ride of my life. To describe it in two words: Velocity and Curves. I was so unsettled at the top, I thought that perhaps I´d just stay there and found a lovely house to buy. Later I´ll share pics.
3) When I gained my bravery back (2 beers at lunch in Naolinco) we took the bus back to Xalapa and they have this cool system of ´pool boys.´ I realize that doesn´t make sense. I´ll explain, halfway down the dangerous cliff filled mountain, the bus stops and these boys (maybe 18 or 19 in tight jeans and cowboy hats) get on the bus and sell donuts and sweet breads. They are like pool boys that bring you tropical drinks, but instead of drinks, it´s delicious carbs and instead of a pool, a bus careening down a mountain at what was probably 100 mph. So, fairly similar.
4) I keep getting lost. But while lost, I find things. Like a track to run on and a marathon runner friend. However, earlier I was going to write how excited I was about my new friend, but she failed to show the next morn at 8 am for our scheduled run. Alas, she gains no fame in my blog. I woke up at 6:50 to get to the other side of the town, and waited and waited. Ran a bit, then got lost again. New vocab: Ella me dejó plantada (she stood me up)
5) Mojitos are the medicine of the gods. The secret is BOTH mint and yerba buena. I don´t know what yerba buena is, but I´m guessing it´s spearamint since my gum is flavored : yerba buena.
6) I got my noce pierced. I know. Some may be against it, but Bixler did it. And my roommate too. I´ll probably take it out when I feel more mature. Or when I have to teach.
7) NEW BOYFRIEND!!! I am now dating Rafa Marquez. google him. When I say Rafa is my new boyfriend, it´s kind of like when I said I was dating Mos Def and Wyclef was my best friend. ie, clearly not true, but on the list of options (mexican options that still include Gael Garcia Bernal y Diego Luna).
8) Dinah (the roommate) and I have 2 new theme phrases for the trip. La frase de Dinah: Tienes que dejar de pensar en el dolor. (you need to stop thinking about the pain...this was in reference to the piercings, but I thought it fit well with life). Mine: Vida, Hay que vivirla (Life: you need to live it...clearly stolen from Celia Cruz, however, Carnival is a good song and Celia´s a smart woman).
9) Gym Gold is still my favorite place, today I discovered that is is one of the only places I know here where you can actually throw the toilet paper in the toilet and not in a trash can. You have no idea what unique and special thing that is, specifically in a public bathroom.
10) I´m a good dancer now, this is too long a story to share here, but just believe me that it´s true.

Ok, which brings us to today. So, sadly on Sunday my friend who lives here, Mariel, was in a car crash. It was raining, and a car infront of her flipped into her lane and her car is totaled. Anyway, she didn´t break anything, but she has to wear a neck brace and rest in the house for 2 weeks. (ie, she won´t be able to come to strip tease class with me). Today, I decided to go visit her, and bring the paper because her car and the story was on the front page of the Policia section. She lives out a bit, so I took a taxi. I had specific, word for word directions from Bixler about what to say to the driver about how to get there. A plan that couldn´t fail. It did, the taxi driver and I were confused but eventually we found the place. I get out of the car, tip the driver (fairly well because we were lost for a bit) and go visit. When, I notice, Chin! (cheen, the mex word for shoot) I left my phone in the car. So, I´m concerned because my phone is kind of my life line, one of the only ways to communicate here between me and everyone (how else do i schedule mojito meetings?) so we keep trying to call it. Eventually the taxi guy answers and says that he´s busy right now, the phone is dying, he´s going to turn it off and turn it back on at 6 and I should call. (it´s 5 to 6 now... so I still dont know). Please everyone, have blind faith and trust that this taxi guy will return my phone to me. Some of them aren´t too trustworthy. So, I leave Mariel´s house, and begin to walk. I keep trying to get a taxi, but it´s 2:30, which is the worst time to get a taxi because they are switching shifts. So, I keep walking. It´s a pretty neighborhood (ritzy) when all of a sudden I´m acosted by (no not a gang of unruley youths) but by jehovah´s witnesses. They kept yelling at me in english, ¨hey you , you speak english, hey you, i have a book for you to read to show you the way to the path of righteousness¨I stop to talk to them, as to not make a scene in the street, and they want to know my address so that we can talk about this alleged path. I told them I had my path, thanked them, and started to walk away fast. They followed for a bit, but got distracted by another gringa. Anyway, of course, I got lost. When I asked a nice señora where my street was, she just laughed and said far, far away.

Eventually I made it. I´m waiting to hear about my phone. My madre here is going to call because I have a test at 6, which, as time would have it, is now. So, I realize my english is poor and my stories may not be interesting, and even though my new boyfriend and his team lost the copa de oro on sunday, I´m staying positive and I have faith in the goodness of taxi drivers in Xalapa and all over the world.

¿quién huele de mole?

I´ll get to the mole (mo-lay) part in a minute, but I forgot to mention what was quite possibly my favorite part about the beach. The TV. Now, many of you know that I was once quite the tv addict, and now, without cable, I get by with trips to ohio that are filled with couch laying and tv watching (who can resist hd?), but nothing could have prepared me for the tv in Tecolutla (mainly just this one channel). In mexico, there exists this music channel that has many different programs- all music videos (think old school mtv). My favorite program is called Kareoke, which is pretty self explanitory. My second favorite program is called Ritmo Astral where they mix horoscopes and music videos and the star signs of the singers. I also liked a program that was called Sexy Sexy...it was mainly dance. As I write this, I can tell I´m not giving justice to how entertaining and fun this channel is. I can only suggest that you all go to Tecolutla and tune in to channel 12.

On the subject of music videos, I also want to share how differnt they are here. Basically, they are postmodern works of art in their own. I was even thinking of changing my thesis topic to postmodernism in latin american music videos when I was watching two singers ride away into the sunset on the back of a unicorn and then watched the unicorn turn magically into a guitar that spun into a record. It was really deep. Another example is of two middle aged men dressed in black leather singing in a forrest while samuri´s fought in the background with gleaming swords in a cgi crouching tiger style. Yes, it was a love song...who would have thought. Anyway, my new thesis idea bubble burst when I started watching the Musica del EEUU program and found that our music videos are just as strange.

Yesterday, since I had a lot of free time, I went to this town called Xico with Ashley, Dan, Iliana, Noddy and Jared. It´s about 40 minutes away by bus and only cost 12 pesos to get there. Xico is famous for 3 things. 1) Mole (a chocolatey spicey salsa type thing) 2) a waterfall (i forget the name) 3) this type of sweet liquors that caused Hernan Cortes to stay in Xico for 6 months in 1520 because he liked drinking them so much. All in all, it was a great combo of good things. In addition, the main form of transportation was donkeys. AND all the donkeys carried big piles of bananas.

ok...I´ll explain more about Xico later...the school is closing. I´m such a great student that I stayed until the end of the day.

vamos a la playa...

Well, it´s been a few days, and I hate to say that nothing of great comedic consequence has happened. On Wednesday night we had an impromtu dance party in the House/photo shop of the family of Dinah´s cultural assistant and on Thursday we went salsa dancing at a bar called Barlovento. There, we practiced our ¨norteño^ accents. Norteños live in the north of Mex, I will be very pleased to demonstrate this accent upon my return, as I think I´m quite talented in using it... Friday we left for the beach, Tecolutla. Tecolutla is a town close to Guitierrez Zamora (look it up) it is also close to the beaches of Tajin. If my english syntax and vocabulary sound weird it´s because I´m used to spanish all the time now, so please view my lack of english skills as an increase in my spanish skills.

Bus rides in mexico are an adventure all in their own. First, every passenger has packed a picnic lunch ready to feed a family of 10. I, myself, had 3 of my favorite sandwiches of mayo, hotdog and ham (mmmmm) . I really need to talk to my madre about these sandwiches. Anyway, so everyone is loaded on the bus with plenty of food and drink. The buses themselves are big and tend to sway as they move, but are quite nice and comfortable. We were able to watch 2 movies, that were fairly recent (the other group that left early didn´t have our buses luck as they watched 2 chinese movies from the 70s). The drive was beautiful and I appreciated the view when I wasn´t fearing for my life. On this particular two lane highway (and many others I assume) there is no passing lane. Thus, when the bus decides that it needs to go faster than the truck carrying two cows, a chicken and 5 men in the bed, it moves to the left, seemingly not caring about the semi coming straight for us. Amazingly, what happens is that everyone scoots over just enough so that we are three abreast (us, the cow truck, and then the semi going the other way) going 60 mph. Apparently, this is completly normal. There is also a bathroom on the bus, but I don´t think I need to take the time to describe the lovliness of this particular necessity.

The beach was paradise, but hot. We stayed in what seemed like a 4 star resort (there was air conditioning) and we had our own pool and pool boys to order drinks from. In mexico you are allowed to have glass bottles in the pool. Also, the word for pool here isn´t piscina but alberca...incase anyone is interested. The second day at the beach we took the 40 min drive to see the ruins in Tajin. This is what the picture is of...Noddy the gnome and one of the pyramids. This weekend beach/ruin trip was great for the group to get to know eachother...Noddy is by far the most popular person on the trip...such a ladies man. Anyway, the ruins were interesting, they have these people that climb a pole and swing around it hundreds of feet in the air. They also have lots of shopping. The next day we woke up early to release sea turtles into the sea. It was nice to see the sun rise, I bought a tee shirt. We ate pizza twice at the beach, I enjoy eating tacos and salsa and beans every meal, but I didn´t realized how much I missed pizza...it was delicious. We even had wine (which is difficult to find here). When they restaurant didn´t have it, they told us we could go to the corner store and buy some and drink it there. There´s nothing like a good meal of convienience store wine and pizza. That´s why we went back the next day. For lunch, the pizza was just as good and the owners son serenaded us with his guitar. He was really talented. We tried to take him back to Xalapa with us, but alas, our powers of persuasion weren´t strong enough.

I´m sure I have more to say, but I´m getting mean stares from the other students in the computer lab. Apparently there´s a half hour limit on computer usuage that I´ve slightly gone over...I´m just smiling at them acting like I can´t read english, hope it works.

up to no good...

First of all, kareoke was wonderful last night, I think I have found a new hobby. I didn´t get to sing any Journey as planned, but there were some great renditions of Celia Cruz, Destiny´s Child and Shakira. In other news, I got a tatoo yesterday. (ok, this is where the parents can stop freaking out) it´s henna, but I still feel pretty cool. We got home from Kareoke pretty late, and I´m amazed I was able to make it to my dance class this morning. I was very excited because it was labeled at ´zumba´and ´baila.´ I arrived at the class and it had the same instructor as yesterday (the one who knows I can´t dance). It was fairly crowded filled with about 20 people, all women, the majority in their 50´s. We started out slowly, stretching with the beat and when the stretching part was over we went to get chairs. (chairs?) I was confused and thought that perhaps I had misunderstood, but, following the crowd I went and got my chair. About 20 seconds into the song I realized that this was the "estrip tease" baila class. So there I was, surrounded by madres with this instructor (male and straight) doing the best stripper coreography I have seen (though, admittingly, I´m not well versed). He looked very stripper like. Anyway, not as to allow you guys to think that I´m scandalous, I realized I might as well stay and dance because 1) I was in a gym NOT a strip club, so it seemed more reputable and 2) I was surrounded by women older that me (and my mom). So yes, I stayed and danced. The sad part is that the madres were way better than me. I think the best part of the class was dancing to the Backstreet boys "everybody," right said fred "I´m too sexy" and Shania Twain´s "Man, I feel like a woman." So, if anyone needs pointers on this specific style of dance, I can let you know what I learned. I hope friday´s dance class is salsa, because I think that would be more useful, but who knows.

lack of pictures...disgraceful, i know

You may notice a lack of pictures, this isn´t because I haven´t tried. There´s something strange with the internet, it doesn´t like me uploading pictures. So, I´m hoping to find a place with faster internet, but until then, please enjoy the following keys from the keyboard: ççççççñññññññ¡¡¡¡¿¿¿¿¿¿ aren´t those fun? Anyway, yesterday things improved imensely. 1) I wasn´t shot 2) I joined a gym 3) I got a new ´cultural assistant´4) I got a cell phone. Ok, so I know the whole gym and cell phone thing may seem a bit like selling out in a way, but I was experiencing serious exercise and phone withdrawl. I am now a member of Gold´s Gym...here they call it Gym Gold (pronounced Jim Goal, said quickly with a mexican accent). I started running (even though the treadmills are no match for trails) and taking classes. The man who taught the pilates class today was the most graceful and flexible man I have ever seen. We did bar work (think ballet, not serving drinks) and he was just flowing around meanwhile the whole class starred at me when my foot landed on the bar ( I had to lift it with my hands) and made a really loud crashing noise...he asked me if I´ve ever taken ballet or dance before, he didn´t look surprised when I said no. My new cultural assitant friend seems really nice. Her name is Beatriz and she studies medicine. I think we were meant to be because when the subject of Harry Potter (the new movie) came up, she invited me to come with her at 12:01am to see the first showing. As for the phone, I feel cool walking down the street with all this technology. My phone is quite small with a color screen. I say color screen, yet it is just a sticker they put inside the phone, it doesn´t change really and you can always see it. It´s of a guy with a sea kayak by a tropical island, could be worse. Anyway, last night we saw a presentation of folk dance with a receptions of free wine and mini cheeseburgers after. Then we went to a little cafe which I loved called Cubanitas (so it was cuban...the decor was wonderful and the mojitos pretty good too). Tonight we are going to a cafe called Chibas and then to sing kareoke. I can´t wait.


oh, and I have my first class tonight. I totally forgot that I´m in school.

tortillas, oil, and shootings...oh my

I'm here in Mexico...and thus far, it has been an interesting trip. This may be a long entry, so read at your leisure. First, I need to explain the trip here. Luckily, I was with the group that arrived on time. We got to Mexico City at 12ish without problems. However, there was a group of 11 students flying from dulles that had their plane diverted and delayed many times. So, we spent 6 hours in the airport waiting. Airports are easy places to spend money on food. They are also easy places to lock yourself in the bathroom. I had the luck of getting the stall with the stuck lock, as soon as it closed, I knew I was in trouble. I looked at the 10 inch space under the door (not only could I probably not fit, it's the floor of a public restroom) I started to think about climbing over, but as the cleaning lady was there, and another person in the stall next to mine, I didn't want to look like the crazy gringa who got stuck in the bathroom. So, I waited....thinking. Finally I put one foot on the comode and one foot on the paper dispenser and attempted my escape. However...it became apparent that this could be dangerous and/or crazy looking. So, I came up with a brilliant idea (take time to imagine this...) I put my back against the pliable wall and my feet against the secure one (both feet)...I was suspended in the air, and with one great pull, I undid the stuck lock and tumbled out of the bathroom...quite a sight. So, after the six hour wait, we took at 5.5 hour drive to Xalapa, arriving at 1am. I didn't go to sleep until 3 am (keeping in mind I woke up at 4 am that day to catch the plane...). The next day we went on a tour of the city and met our "cultural assistants" (ie, students that get paid to be our friends). However, out of the whole group, I was the only person who's 'friend' didn't show up. I learned a new word "mal tercio" meaning- third wheel. Anyway, It was a fun day, at night we went to a bar and I realized that I'm 5-6 years older than everyone on the trip and I became for some reason, the "purse holder" on the couch in the corner. If only all the young people knew how much fun I really am...Yesterday we went on a picnic up a mountain and got caught in a two hour down pour. I was cold...I was wearing running clothes. Our lunch for this picnic was sandwiches. Mine had 1 cup of mayo, an avocado, ham (jamon), cheese, and two sliced up hotdogs... All the food I have been fed for every meal has been fried, cheesy and bread/tortilla like. Also lots of ham. The madre talks about being on the adkins diet while eating tortillas and bread. She's very nice. She has a 10 year old son (Carlitos) and a 16 year old daughter (Samy). Samy has this novio, Ricardo (also 16). I like Ricardo, he gave me his sweatshirt during the rainstorm. Anyway, I don't have class until tomorrow at 6. I'm spending my time at a cafe across from the school people watching and reading emails. It's just like blacksburg, but the wireless internet works better than bollos. I may go join "gym gold" (ie, Gold's Gym) because it's near my house and I do need to be able to fit into Erin's bridesmaid dress...

The sun is still sleeping.

Despite Noddy, Chicken Clock and I going to bed early to wake up at 4 am and head to the airport, I'm sitting here waiting for my delayed flight (check out the "I'm so happy it's 5 am and I'm at the airport" smile). There are a couple positives about the situation. 1) Roanoke still has free wireless Internet so I can catch up on important news at www.thesuperficial.com 2) the bagel shop is open 3) watching the sunrise at Roanoke regional is majestic...although it has yet to rise, so I can only assume. Anyway, I'm with Ashley and April and we are ready to start the trip south. We're meeting up with a Sara (I say 'a' Sara because I believe there are a few on the trip) in Charlotte and the rest of the group in the D.F. (D.F. = the cool way to say Mexico City, stands for Distrito Federal). Spanish word of the day: Cansada (not to confuse with Casada...look it up).

Kanye says 'Jesus walks', I say Jesus emails...

I'm not trying to offend anyone religiously, but I find it quite an auspicious sign that before my trip, Jesus sent me an email. Granted it was about software, but I still believe it's a good sign. Sorry for my attempts to cover up the other emails (all the black marks). You can probably still read that my credit card has reached its limit and my target red card statement is in...

I haven't left yet,

However, I feel the need to keep updating because who knows how updated I'll be in Mexico, it could be pretty poor. Plus, Lucia, Gina's sister, is in town, and she deserves at least one photo. Here we are drinking some delicious white sangria with Noddy. He prefers red wine, but as it was a hot summer night, the pinot grigio based sangria suited him well. He's quite the lush. The top picture is just Jeff looking silly, because that's what Jeff does. I still haven't packed, but, that's the plan for tomorrow, and if I get it done then, it can still be counted as early. As long as I'm still not packing friday at 4 am (my flight leaves at 6) I'll be fine.