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.