Merry Christmas!!

As if I even need to add words to this photo... Paul and I are getting excited for family coming. I finished my class today so we are officially on vacation until Jan 3. Thought we would get you in the Christmas spirit with this, the cutest photo of 2006 (although Kate´s photos are a close second!).

Merry Christmas!

Melissa

Kibbles Update

I didn’t want to mention anything before but it has all worked out now so here is the story:

The day I posted the ‘Gecko Naming Contest’ was the last day we had seen ‘Kibbles.’ I was thinking, oh crap, here we finally named him and he was eaten by a crow or something! But not to worry he was finally spotted in the bathroom last night (practically gave me a heart attack)and seemed healthy, I mean for a gecko. Phew. Thought we had jinxed him!

More soon

Melissa

Here’s what’s new with us.

Paul is officially on vacation until next semester, which only means he doesn’t have to get up at 5 in the morning to go to class and can work on the real reason why he is here, his dissertation.

A short-ish rant:
My Spanish class ends this Friday (Dec 15) and then we will be anxiously awaiting the parents to join us in Mérida for the week tour of the Yucatán. I have been a little frustrated with this class because it is a little too academic at times. I mean, I want to know how to speak in the real world before I start spouting off theoretical stuff, you know? So anyway, some of the vocab etc. is pretty worthless and some of the grammar is so complicated I don’t even know it in English (and yes, I am an ESL teacher, but that’s not the point). My other beef is that I am in the Yucatán and my teacher is from Mexico City – the DF. That’s fine and all but the book is very DF centered, which makes me mad at times especially when the lessons are all about indigenous language – meaning nahuatl. Teotihuacán is cool I’m sure, but we can’t visit it on the weekend. I missed a homework exercise about tenses because the sentence had to do with cars being able to circle on certain days. This is a DF rule and does not apply in Mérida. Cars can be on the road any day of the week here. God! Then there was the day we starting talking about the “indigenous problem.” I said, what is the “indigenous problem?” and the teacher went on this schpeel about how the indigenous respect nature and the mestizos who work for companies sometimes cut down trees and don’t replant them. Confused, I repeated my question, what is the “indigenous problem?” And she said the same thing again. Sounds like a mestizo problem to me… ugh. Then there was the day we were supposed to read these quotations, which were taken totally out of context and say if they were good or bad representations of Mexico. Well, I got the first one which was from Jose de Acosta (although they called him Joseph de Acosta in the book, anyone know why?) And I said, well the language is positive but the tone is not. Well, you would have thought I had shown up to class naked (which I did not) because I was WRONG, it was a positive quotation of Mexico, duh! Fine, whatever. I’m not going to argue but I know what Joseph (?) de Acosta is all about, yo.

In other, less controversial news, our hot water heater is fixed after almost a week without hot water. I had to get my hair cut so I could wash it in the sink without it going down the drain! The heater works better than it has the whole time we’ve been here, so it was worth the wait.

The weather is great right now. It gets warm, sometimes hot, during the day and stays cool at night. I actually got a little chilly last night. We keep our windows wide open all night with the fan on low and it is perfect. Of course, the Mexicans here are suffering from the ‘cold.’ They close their windows at night and wear scarves and sweaters all day. I’m not poking fun because if this were the only time I could wear a scarf or sweater all year without sweating so bad I passed out, I too would be part of this fashion scene (alas I’m the blonde girl in a tank top in winter) but I’ll save my scarf and sweater wearing for the air conditioned freezing-ness that is some of the restaurants here.

Since the weather was nice and cool tonight we went to Noche Mexicana for tamales and apple pie (I know, but it’s cheap and yummy) and we decided to walk home. We think it might be 2 miles but it is flat here so it takes no effort. It took under an hour and was a lot better than riding the bus.

We are getting some things together to send back with the parents at Christmas and New Years, and although we have a lot to send back, we (that means I) did a good job not over packing. Mostly we’re sending back things we’ve bought here – Paul’s books, my shoes, and my Carolina blue cowboy hat!

We had been going through this ‘bad movie period’ but I think we are out of it now. I realize I’m no rotten tomatoes but here’s my two cents: Some of the bad movies we saw included: Pirates of the Caribbean – did not live up to the previous one; Wicker Man – so terrible I can’t even go there; The Devil Wears Prada was almost cute except that she still looks like a runway model when she takes her “real” job at the newspaper and I actually own that “dumpy” blue sweater AND I really like it and I WILL continue to wear it because I live in the real world… see, you shouldn’t have gotten me started. We watched Inside Man (Clive Owen, Denzel, and Jodie) and I thought it was good, interesting at least. What else, oh yeah, then we saw Babel, which was good, though because of all the hype, I was excepting something more. Not sure if it is obvious enough for an American audience to realize the Americans were the only ones whose lives weren’t ruined. Then Thursday we saw Children of Men. OMG – great movie – you must see it. I won’t say anything about it because I think I liked it so much because I hadn’t heard all of the hype. Really, go see it. The only other thing out right now I’d see is Déjà Vu. Anyone seen it? Is it worth seeing? ok, well, let me know.

In other news I finally broke down and bought some peanut butter (and if you know me, 3.5 months was a long time to go without it). It’s so yummy. Organic peanut butter has not hit Mexico yet but every time I go to the grocery store they have something new. This week they had Arm & Hammer Toothpaste whereas before you could only buy different types of Colgate. And the only mouthwash they had for a long time was Listerine but now there is Plax – which is worse but a lot cheaper, if you’re curious. So it can’t be too long before organic p-butter hits the aisles. That and medium force bristled toothbrushes. Well, and tea…

In still other news 120 inmates escaped from a Cancun prison over the weekend during a prison riot and only 80 of them have been recaptured. Glad we don’t live there… lock your doors!

Oh yeah, I can’t forget to update you on our rummy game. For awhile I was getting spanked pretty hard (hence the silence). We were tied at one point in October but then I let it slip and was behind over 2500 points at one time. However, December has been treating me well and I have had some simply lucky hands. The lead is now down below 2000 (which, when you’re playing to 100,000 isn’t all that much) and the scores are as follows:

Paul: 87,165
Melissa: 85,205
(as of the evening of 9 Dec 06)

More soon!

Melissa

Y'all are Poop, well, some of you...

I have to say I was a little disappointed by the puny amount of emails I received with suggestions to name our gecko. (Who, we hope didn’t drown in the deluge we received last night – so much for the ‘dry’ season). I had imagined floods of emails with witty quips and ideas that would leave me in a pile of entries that I would have to sort through carefully, taking up AT LEAST an afternoon that I had planned to work on the thesis, but alas, the thesis is coming along. That said, many thanks to the contributors!

So without further ado…







(you have to scroll)










First Place goes to: (drum roll!!!)
The only non-humans to vote, Mr. Sutton and Miss Ellie of Bloomington, Indiana! The gecko’s name is Kibbles – but we are NOT going to eat him, pups.

For the record, Paul liked Roy Williams but we thought it might be strange to say every evening, hey, there’s Roy Williams, see him? We might look at one another as if one of us had gone crazy and then remember oh yeah, the gecko!

In other news, we have our TV back, though we had to pay for the repairs (?). I mean it’s not like we can bring it home with us in the summer… but whatever – 6.5 weeks to repair and the labor is guaranteed for 30 days, ha!

Paul is recovering from a pretty bad cold and is trying to get his project moving, but you know how complicated the life of a graduate student is... it’s a massive amount of work.

That’s all I can thing of right now – the café closes for the siesta (don’t even get me started) so I better try to publish this before we get kicked out, besides as much as I like tea that tastes like warm water with a dash of ash, I could use a cup of real flavor at home...

More Sooner than last time

Melissa

You know it's been a slow week when...

I am posting photos of the gecko that lives in our window. He is pretty cute, pretty fast, and all around loud at night. He chirps like a bird, except only at night, so you know it’s him. When we get too close to him he does this really funny run a little bit – blend a little bit – run a little bit again. He doesn’t just take off; he moves in sections. It’s interesting. He is usually a shade of translucent beige to match the color of the walls, but one night we came home late and he was on our front door, which is white. He was white. Cool and gross!

So here he is. We haven’t named him yet, so if you have any suggestions now’s the time to voice them:

Gecko Naming Contest Rules
(please read the fine print to avoid disqualification)

1. Post a comment to this post to enter your suggestion into the contest.
2. You may only enter one name per day per household.
3. Finalists and one winner will be chosen explicitly on the notion that I like the name best. (It’s very scientific.)


Happy Posting!!

Just some stuff

Well, I haven’t been keeping up the blog as well as I have in the past so I thought I should post an update on us…

We are in a very happy spot right now. Paul’s classes are beginning to wind up for the semester, which gives him a little free time to work on his “real” stuff. He still gets up at the crack of dawn, but I keep my earplugs in and usually don’t hear him. I can’t complain too much because he can make a mean spaghetti here, which is a great comfort food when you get tired of tortillas!

An internet place just opened within walking distance to our apartment, so we no longer have to take a bus to check our emails, which is great. We also found an internet café – really a café, with coffee, that has wireless so our computers are breathing a sigh of relief as we update our software and such! We also learned how to call the US super cheap (as some of you know!) at this café after spending Lord knows how much to call parents.

I counted my tea bags (yes, I am totally for real) to see how many I had left. I have enough tea bags to get me to December 21, which is extremely lucky because my first shipment of tea will be arriving with the Worleys on December 20. Phew, that was close!

I am writing to you at this moment wearing socks AND a long-sleeved t-shirt. Now, it is not cold here (I mean really, we have all the windows open and the fan going) but it is definitely much cooler today than it has been, well, since we got here! Yesterday was beautiful too, (I don’t think I sweated yesterday) so we went out to dinner to a place that Paul has been wanting to try. The restaurant used to be a ways from our house but they recently moved two blocks from us. We went and sat outside in the chilly breeze and ate excellent tacos al pastor, some garlic bread (complimentary), and an order of guacamole and two beers. After tip, the bill was $13.00. I think we’ll be going back!

We are going on Thursday to a town called Huncmá, where a friend of ours teaches English. He is from Mérida but has studied in the U.S. We are trying to convince him to apply to Comp Lit at UNC. Hopefully he will and will get in!

Today, Monday, Nov. 20 is Mexican Revolution Day (we finally figured it out) we while you are all getting ready for Thanksgiving, we are relaxing and eating tacos. We do, however, have classes the rest of the week so think of us when you’re napping to football on the tele after having gorged yourself on yummy turkey and pumpkin pie… oh Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday…

ok, I’m off to enjoy the “cold!” Burrrrrr!!

Here's a photo of our new hammock! Paul's working hard as you can see.

The hammock is great and the temps are getting cooler so it is nice to lay in it and read a book, or nap, as shown. It is called a matramonial especial, which as far as we can tell, means it holds three people (don't go there) meaning two parents and a child. It holds the two of us fine, but there's no room for a friend! ha!

In other news, Paul is kicking my butt in Rummy, our TV is STILL broken, and we are loving all the yucatecans wearing sweaters when it is a chilly 70 degrees outside. It was wonderful, I don't think I broke a sweat all day - that would be except when I almost stepped on a dead rat on the way home from the bus stop from school, but anyway...

So we are going to head home after a hot chocolate and carrot cake at our wireless cafe. We got on the bus Wednesday night coming home from said cafe and we asked the bus driver when the last bus was (it was 10:30pm) and he says, this is the last bus all night! Phew! It's a long walk... well, until you hail down a taxi and go home, but still...

ok, we're heading home! more soon

Melissa 

My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable...

well, almost.

So there are 4 kinds of ants here: (by here, I mean near our apartment)

The little buggers that bite you. Luckily these ants live in the grass and don’t venture into the apartment. But man they hurt!

The mini-sugar-ants are super-small and oh, so ubiquitous. These little mites get into all the food Paul leaves out if I don’t find it in time to double ziplock it and then put it in another plastic bag. Note: they prefer bullion cubes, sugar, milk, and your occasional bread. They do not like salt, rice, avocado, or garlic. You can kill a ton of them ant they just keep coming back. (ha! get it?)

Black ants are really annoying too because they like trash. For the first few weeks we were here we used the trash can in the kitchen. ha ha! They were all over that mistake. Now we keep a plastic bag hanging on a hook way up high and take out the bag and put it in the trash can on our porch at least once a day. They are under control now, but work very quickly.

The big ants, brown and black. Some of these ants are leaf cutter ants and they seem to go from the garden on the left side of our house to the garden on the right side, cut some leaves, and go back. They tend to work in the evening so if you go out and come back after dark be sure to step over the line of leaf cutter ants in front of the door. Later, I guess they get tired of cutting up leaves, or maybe just the renegade ones do, and some come into the apartment for some kind of crazy suicidal bacchanal, which leaves them all dead in the morning as mentioned before. Perhaps one ant steals another ant’s leaf and the shunned one challenges the robber to a duel. Either way, these renegaders end up in the apartment over night and dead in the morning…

I’ve used the ant spray but it doesn’t seem to last that long. The best thing to use is some good ol’ Windex because it seems to wipe out the trails (they smell the trials or something?) they use to follow one another and then they all get confused and start this massive retreat, which is funny if you’re in a good mood or a mass killing spree if it’s hot and you’re cranky. Keeping food triple bagged or in the fridge also works well too as does NOT putting raw meat outside on the back porch. Remember the Chupacabras, right?! An ant sponge works well for the ones on the counter (the itty bitty ones) so you don’t end up washing your dishes with a sponge with a bunch of dead ants stuck to it. Don’t even ask…

In other news: we are excited to have family coming soon. Our TV is still broken and my Law and Order DTs are almost over. I have almost completed one sock, which is gorgeous on size 1 needles. It is STILL hot here (I know this subject is getting tired, but really it was 93 today). No termites since the spraying took lace, happy about that. Have two chapters finished of the thesis. That´s all for now. More soon!

BTW if you like reading blogs, check this one out. It is so funny it makes me cry (in public at internet cafes):
http://smartypants.diaryland.com/index.html

Dia de los muertos / Jaanal Pixan

**photos coming soon**

The guide book says it best, Yucatán is the place to see a great display during el Día de los muertos because in Yucatán the celebrations downtown are primarily Maya celebrations of Jaanal Pixan, which is the Mayan Day of the Dead Festival.

So we talked to several different people and it seems that the Festival is three days, October 31, which is (sadly so) turning into an Americanized Halloween with pumpkins, candy, and the like. November 1 is Saint’s Day and the day to remember children in your family who have died. November 2 is the adults day and the day to go to the cemetery to remember your ancestors who have passed on.

The “celebrations” basically consist of family members getting together at a house and eating A LOT of tamales. Pib is used for these days. Pib is basically a hole in the ground with sticks or a screen over the hole. A fire is lit in the hole and the tamales or whatever food you’re eating is cooked on the sticks. It is AMAZING by the way.

Unfortunately it rained all day on Nov 2, the day set aside for going to the cemetery. Señora Ramirez did stuff us full of tamales, however, and some fried massa that was super tasty too (it’s sort of like fried chicken skin without the grease, except totally different) Basically for three days she showed up at our door with a huge plate of tamales in banana leaves (steamed over a pib). We love living here…

Here are a few pictures from the main square downtown. Various towns from around Yucatan built huts on the square and erected altars for the dead. The idea is that when a person dies he or she begins the journey to the afterlife. It is a long way, so he or she will need nourishment, food; some rest, in a hammock; possibly a light for guidance, a candle; etc. (The bowl-looking things are called luuch in maya and are made from jícara a type of gourd. These are used for drinking, should you get thirsty, and for eating your oatmeal-like breakfast).

Update!

ok, I think I finally have things working. There are two new posts with photos from our last two weekends. Enjoy - more to come soon!

Renting a Car in Mexico

Well, we took our first trip around the state of Yucatan and we had a great time. We rented a Tsuru with a/c and it drove fine. Paul navigated the streets of Mérida calmly while I was having little internal heart attacks at every intersection all the while smashing my right foot into the imaginary brake pedal on my side of the car. But it was fine, totally fine.

We took off around dinnertime on Friday and made it to Ticul in just over an hour. It was raining a bit so we went a little slow on the roads. I was just beginning to relax about half way there when we saw some police lights ahead. (Mind you by now it is dark.) We drove around a bad accident and kept going, a little slower. About twenty minutes later we passed another bad accident. yikes! Speed is a problem here especially when the roads are wet and it is easy to lose control of your car going slow. We arrived in Ticul about 8:00 I guess and stayed in a hotel on the square.

After some pizza at a place I remembered from last year (the pizza is good but the service is still terrible a year later) we headed back to our room to watch the Tigers hand the World Series to the Cardinals. How disappointing was the series? I feel bad for the Cardinals b/c the press they are going to get isn’t going to be that they won, but more like they beat a team that played worse than the Durham Bulls with their three stars suspended from the game. That’s bad…

The next morning I awoke to find out my dream had come true: The lady at the hotel served us pancakes and fresh fruit salad and said, “You know Ticul is having a shoe fair this morning and all of the shoes are discounted.” I said, “I’m sorry, I haven’t had a full cup of tea yet today, could you repeat that?” Unfortunately for Paul, we had cash and the ENTIRE square was full of shoes. Then I found out my second dream came true:

I knew from a friend in Mérida that shoe sizes are different here than in the U.S. and that a size 9 (I’ll hear you if you snicker) in the States was closer to a 6 here. But there was a chance she was just being polite. So I went to the shoe fair and tried on A LOT of shoes and the man helping me says, “No, no, those are too big, why don’t you try a size 5.” “I’m sorry, but could you say that, like, 100 times while I stand here and listen…” A size 5. (wicked uncontrollable laugh-snort)

Well, I didn’t buy the 5s, they weren’t me, but I did buy a rock-out pair of chunky heels with open toes, black, for dressing up because EVERYONE here wears heels. (Maggi, you know what I’m saying.) Those cuties (size 6) set me back $12.00 and then I bought a pair of fake braided leather flip flops with a lower heel. Those (size 6) cost $7.00. Really they cost less than that but I can only do a 10 to 1 ratio in my head. It was incredible fun. Paul was beside himself, but only until he found the leather belt dealer and bought a really cool embroidered belt. Then he ran into a group that does promotional stuff for Mayan culture – then I had Plenty of time to shop.

Finally it was time to make the 8 mile trek to Santa Elena. We arrived without a hitch and couldn’t believe how much the town had changed since last summer. The Bonilla’s cinderblock house is almost done though I am glad they are keeping the original hut that his father built. It is fabulous, catches the breeze, which keeps it cool.

We chatted with them for a long while and they fed us even though we tried not to let them go to any trouble. Mariano assured us that they happened to have shot a wild turkey in their milpa (farm land) the day before and had a special treat for us. We had wild turkey cooked in a pumpkin-corn sauce. It was fabulous. Doña Fidelina’s food is always yummy.

After the Bonilla house we spent a few minutes with Kristine and Santiago at the Flycatcher Bed and Breakfast and then headed back to Mérida. Paul maneuvered through the city streets once again and we came home and passed out – after I wore my shoes around for a good 15 minutes or so!

I don´t know what you did last weekend...

but Paul and I sat on the beach and drank beer. The weather was warm, the wind was nice and the view was great! We swam in the ocean, walked the beach, ate seafood, saw some flamingoes at a nature reserve, you know, your basic weekend at the end of October. (Are you drooling yet?)

Also, we have friends! Woohoo! Do you know how you can tell? We’re both finally in a picture together! Our friends Guillermo and Kimberly are awesome. Paul met G at (surprise) a bookstore. G’s uncle runs a used bookshop not too far from our apartment. It turns out his girlfriend Kimi is studying English at the university to be an English teacher. So the two of us get together for coffee or ice cream a couple of times a week and I practice my Spanish on her and she practices her English on me. So they decided to take us to Progreso for the day last Saturday and that is how we ended up at the beach. Did I mention they like dogs and G’s aunt has an Estetica Canina! ha!


Let’s face it, you know by now the story isn’t complete without some news about another cute dog. This one really stole my heart, really. Apparently Chico (that’s what I named him) lives at the flamingo reserve (not bad for a homeless pup) and likes to chase the other birds that hang out on the beach – the seagulls and such. He came up to us as we were leaving. Super cute, super polite, and super docile, which convinced Paul that Masha would take to him. But no, we didn’t bring him home if that’s what you’re wondering (but trust me, had we been in our car, he would be ours by now…)

We’re off to Santa Elena this weekend (for real this time). We’ll let you know how our first adventure with a rental car goes… eek!


More soon

better late than never

Finally! Here are a couple of the photos from Independence Day (yes that was over a month ago) but I jut now got it to work. I also posted a new blog earlier so be sure to scroll down to read it. Thanks for all the comments!! Keep them coming. More soon. M




















This last photo was taken at the same vantge point as the first photo taken earlier in the evening. Lots of people, huh!? 

Quick Entry

Here is a quick entry while I am waiting for Paul...

Our TV is broken. Luckily Mexico is not a place where you throw out everything that breaks, you take it to the repair shop a half block from your house. More on this developing story when more news is available. Hopefully it won't take long and we'll have the playoffs back on.

In the mean time we have resumed our Rummy Game! Remember our rummy game? Well, if not I'll bring you up to speed. On our first trip abroad together we started an ongoing rummy match-up. That was in Auguest of 2000. We have played this rummy game all across Europe, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Guatemala and now Mexico. As of last night here is the score, remember first one to 100,000 wins: (Wins what ou ask? I have no idea, bragging rights, I guess) Paul: 70,380 Melissa: 70,290

Oh yeah, I don't think I ever mentioned the ant wars. Apparently there are ants at war around our apartment. At night they come into our apartment and fight - to the death. At first I thought maybe it was a mating ritual thing but now I'm not so sure. It seems to me (though I am not an ant war or mating expert) that they usually both die, which made me think it was a war, not mating. To tell you the truth I have no idea what it is but I do know that in the morning I sweep at least 10 ants out the front door... weird.

That's all for now except that weve been invited to party this weekend, in a little town outside of Merida. Oh boy! We might rent a car too and go visit our friends in Santa Elena. Hope that works out! eeek!

a few notes that may or may not add up to a post...

1. I realize that it is probably the same in the U.S. but Halloween is in full force here. There are electric pumpkins for sale everywhere and pumpkin candy baskets also for sale everywhere. The only thing that is weird about this is that Halloween isn’t a holiday in Mexico. (ok, some might say it’s not a holiday in the States, but there is a tradition there somewhere, whether it is linked to the devil isn’t the point right now…). The holiday here is the Day of the Dead, which takes place on October 31, November 1, and 2. I will certainly have a post with photos about the festivities – I have heard they are a must see especially in Yucatán because the people here celebrate the Day of the Dead the way the Mayans do here. More on that in a few weeks. My point is that the lovely “You must buy something for this (non)holiday” has infiltrated here as well. I mean, you’re just not Mexican if you don’t have an electric pumpkin in your yard, yikes!

2. In keeping with the Day of the Dead, there is a type of bread you eat around the Day of the Dead. It is a yummy sweet bread and it is in every panadería here. We bought our first one two days ago. Be looking for a post very similar to the Patria Donut post, we will have photos of the bread soon. It is important to enjoy it now because I am told after the Day of the Dead there will be no more bread like this until next year.


3. This might be funny to SOME of you: So it is sort of a funny thing (not to me of course) to people around here that Paul cooks and I don’t. It clearly makes me less of a woman (and I’m crying, can you tell?) and gives Paul super-awesome points. Anyway, said super-awesome husband locked me, poor, helpless wife, out of the apartment one day. Luckily the Ramirez’s were around. They had just finished lunch and I told them what happened and Señora had an extra key. Phew. So I chatted with them for a while and Señora all the sudden turns to me and says, Paul’s not home? I say, no. She says, he won’t be back for awhile? I say, not for awhile (mind you it is lunchtime). And she says, do you want me to make you some lunch!? So I had to (in Spanish, of course) explain that I CAN ACTUALLY COOK, but Paul enjoys it and is better at it than me so he cooks – not because I am physically unable to light the flame and heat up a quesadilla or two. Geez!

4. I guess it is only fair to mention that said super-awesome husband rescued his helpless wife yesterday. I had gone to my Spanish class and then headed across the street to print out some stuff for my next class. Well, the printing cost more than I thought it would – but I paid for it and left. I was walking to the bus stop and remembered I had bought dinner the night before (the BEST pizza al pastor, BTW) and had 2 pesos to my name (4 50 centavo pieces no less). I didn’t have enough money to get home! Ooops! So I had to call Paul to come get me and pay for my bus ride home! Ok, before you get all sappy about how nice Paul is, he got cash the night before this mishap and didn’t give me any of the money so while it was “super-awesome” he came and got me, it was a bit his fault I got stuck at school completely broke in the first place, just for the record…

5. Well, I have to get back at some thesis work because my/our day ends at 4pm today. Why, you ask? Are you going on a trip? Maybe another booze fest? No, no sillies, Playoffs! (If not interested in Baseball skip to number 6 now.) Paul has a lot of complicated reasons for wanting certain teams to win (something about pitching yaya and getting killed by the Mets, yaya) I have a much easier system: Go Tigers b/c they seem like the underdog to me and let’s face it, they have cool colors. Sorry, but the Oakland caps are super ugly and that bright yellow bill makes the pine tar painfully obvious. I’m just saying… Also for the record, I really wanted to pull for the Dodgers but Paul reminded me that both my Dad and Fer are really far away and I am living in a one room apartment with a Mets fan. Enough said… Sorry! OK, so go Tigers until they play the Mets, then Go Mets! Woohoo.

6. P.S. Very jealous there is no UNC alumni club here for UNC BBall games, and yes, I checked… might need someone to Tivo them…

7. P.P.S. Quickly running out of my tea (without which I may not survive). Let me know if anyone can find it: Yamamotoyama Gen Mai Cha / Brown Rice Tea in tea bags.

ok, Thesis stuff… more soon!

Cubans in Mexico

where to start...

There is a woman in one of Paul's classes who is a little older than we are (most of the students are quite a bit younger), she is really nice and invited us to go to a party with her. All we knew was that the party was in the campo, we would stay for a few hours and come back to Merida that night and she would drive. So off we went!

After an hour on the road we arrived in a small town called Tecoh, which is something like half the distance between Merida and Mayapan. We arrive at this hotel that has been converted into this woman's house. She is (Mexican) having a party for her friend's mother's arrival from Cuba. The relationship between all the people at the party was a little unclear, so bear with me on the details. What we found out later was that the woman, whose house/hotel we were in, was the former municipal president of Cancun. Basically that means she is super PRI and super rich.

Ok, so we arrive, one of the first people to get there and they proceed to stuff us full of amazing Cuban-Mexican food. We had all kinds of stuff including venison tacos, beans and pork, chips and salsa, and much more. We also had way too much to drink!

We had the best mojitos ever, which makes sense because almost everyone at the party was Cuban. (No offense to the great Mojitos Mo' Problems party! those were the second best mojitos we have ever had!) Then we had a drink, I forget the name, have to ask Paul, but it is bascially a really good, really spicy bloody mary, but better. Yummy and dangerous because they weren't skimping on the alcohol if you know what I mean.

Then the DJ arrived and it got a little confusing. Apparently (we found out later) they hired the DJ (who was almost blind) by telling him they were celebrating a quincienera (a girl's 15th birthday). That was sort of funny because I was the closest one to 15 at the party, ha! They thought he'd never know becasue he's blind, which was not cool, but I'm sure they paid him well. So we danced.

Then the mariachis showed up. They were great! Everyone (but us) was signing along with them and everyone was getting very drunk very fast except (luckily!) our ride!

So we had more food, more dancing, and then I knew it was time to go when everyone started getting up and telling dirty jokes. Now, I know A LOT of bad things to say in Spanish (thank you Paul) and I was lost. These jokes were out of this world, and women were telling them too! Things were getting a little crazy and I noticed one of the sons, who was carrying around his 3 month old and 1 year old at the same time and was taking shots of tequila like I have never seen. He would lean back and his mom, yes, mom! poured tequila down his throat for 5-10 seconds. The guy has to be dead - anyway- I hope he put the kids to bed before he started stumbling!

So we left and came back to Merida and passed out! We've been watching the playoffs this weekend. It was great to see the Yankees lose yesterday. Woohoo! More baseball tonight too. That's about it for now.

I'm in my new favorite cafe that has wireless so I can actually work on my computer while sipping tea (my favorite thing to do). It is funny b/c there are bunch of dressed up older men here and me in my tank top. It's hot here!

Much Love

Well that´s just what I get...

for saying that things here were pretty calm - not much to report except the chupacabras.

I was cleaning out one side of our closet the other day and noticed some interesting dirt, shall we say, on the wooden book shelves. Turns out we have termites and they are gross. Even though I was beyond my limit of grossness and whinning a lot about my clothes, some of which had tunnels in them, we only actually lost one book. The book, thankfully, was bought here and it will be easy to replace. My clothes are fine, just dirty and need to be washed.

The problem we then faced was how to tell the senores we have termites and what their solution might be. Luckily, they are wonderful people and had someone fumigate the very next day. We hungout outside for most of the morning and afternoon but were able to sleep in the apartment that night. Phew. They will come back to fumigate once more in a week but we think we are rid of the little buggers.

In good Paul and Melissa form, the books that were once on the shelf are now sprawled out everywhere across the room, which somehow (?) bothers me A LOT more than it bothers Paul. You don´t even want to know how many books he´s bought in a month.

Anyway, although it could have been terrible, our termite problem looks to be a thing of the past. Happy Day. I´m off to meet some chicas for coffee. They are studying English and so we are going to have an intercambio so to speak.

BTW a couple people were asking me how big the city of Merida is: I just read in the newspaper that there are 912,000 people in the city. So, it´s not small.

Melissa

Chupacabras

The Chupacabras
(not sure what Chupacabras is/are? check here)

ok, you want a story of our adventures in Mexico? Here you go:

So there wasn’t much to blog about last week: we are into our routines, and believe it or not living here is a lot like living there, except there is only one Wal-mart, (not 50 within spitting distance), you can get everywhere here by bus, and, most importantly, you can get kinder buenos here. But besides that, there really aren’t exciting moments everyday that can be turned into interesting blogs. “We had quesadillas and avocado slices for lunch”... ooh aah.. not very riveting, until last night…

So, I should start the story by prefacing that two days ago Paul bought some turkey at the grocery to cook up later in the week. The package said it was good for three days when he bought it. However, the night he brought it home it started smelling REALLY bad (I’m talking dead yucky road-kill, a week old) in the fridge. So the next day (are you surprised we said, we’ll worry about it in the morning?) it smelled even worse so we bagged it up in two bags and put it outside. We have two porches here, a front porch where the front door is (there is a picture somewhere below) and a back porch for washing clothes (which we send to the laundry), where the hot water heater is located, and where we put our empty beer bottles because you can return them for a deposit on, well, more beer.

I should also say that there are 3 days for trash, which is separated between organic and inorganic trash. We have a tupperware in the kitchen in which we put the organic foods and put them out for pick-up on Mondays and Fridays. Inorganic trash I put on the back porch until Wednesdays for pick-up. ok.

So it was really stinky so I put it (I know, raw meat) on the back porch. Where else could it go? We don’t have a big trash can outside. Whatever, the organic trash goes out the next morning, no biggie…

We go to bed, the bad pavo (turkey) is outside and forget about it. Now, I have had some trouble sleeping lately, mostly because I’m over-stressing about the dumb thesis so I was very happy to fall asleep relatively quickly. About 3:30 in the morning we wake up to the two beer bottles falling over on the stairs on the back porch. OMG! What could it be? The Chupacabras.

So Paul rolls over and goes back to sleep in good Paul form (the ah, we’ll worry about it in the morning thing again) and I, now super-wide awake, decide I’m going to catch a glimpse of our Chupacabras, if for no other reason, I will feel more at home here if I have my very own Chupacabras story to share with others.

Well I saw them, and yes there were two. They looked like over sized rat-ferrets. They dragged our lovely bag of rotting meat across the porch and attempted to carry it over the wall but dropped it and crawled onto the roof instead. I made some noise (like, please go away nice really big rat-ferrets!) and they left. That was at 3:30, and at 7:00 I decided to give up trying to fall back to sleep and went to Spanish class!

After class Paul and I went downtown and happened into the bookstore on the main square (imagine us at a bookstore). There was a touristy book entitled, Mammals of the Yucatan and I looked in it and sure enough there were my Chupacabras. They are called Boxoch, and are really a version of a possum. Actually they are much cuter than possums in the book but in the middle of the night are actually a bit scary especially if you think they are some kind of mutant, over-sized rat-ferret. It was 3 in the morning and I had no other reference to measure the strange animal couple climbing over my wall.

So the mystery is solved, we have possums and we haven’t seem them since we cleaned up the raw meat mess they left! (um that was me and not Paul...) No more pavo from the grocery!

more soon…

P.S. the Dzibilchaltun photos are loaded now, just scroll a little to see them!

Dzibilchaltun

Hi all,

We took a day trip to see some ruins that are off the beaten path a little. It was well worth it - we had a great time. Photos coming soon. We also found a great restaurant near our apartment that is now our favorite taco joint - yummylicious! If you come visit us, we will take you there... is that incentive enough?

photos of Dzibilchaltun to come... be patient...

Oh yeah, on the way to the ruins we took a road we had never been on and we drove past the Costco. Not even kidding. The Costco... wow.

Viva Mexico some more...

Ok, here it is the post-party post.

Friday night:

We went downtown Mérida (which by the way is the capital of the state of Yucatán. So that would the equivalent of going to Raleigh, the capital of NC) about 6 pm, which was way early for the festivities but we wanted to scope things out and see where the best places to see everything would be. It was raining when we got downtown and just getting dark so some of the pictures didn’t come out very well. But, you can see the buildings around the square all decorated.

There were kiosks to buy all of your Viva Mexico gear everywhere. Seems like everyone had a horn, a noise maker, face paint, AND a flag. We got a flag to wave around and it is now hanging on our wall.

From about 8pm on there was a big stage set up and a band playing. They were really good. Once the crowd got so big you couldn’t get close to the stage, you could still hear the music from the whole square because they had speakers everywhere. There were tons of people by about 10:30 so many you couldn’t walk around at all. At 11:00 or so the secretary came out and read the Declaration of Independence and then governor came out to give the greeting, which consisted of a call and response: secretary, Viva Mexico! crowd, Viva Mexico! secretary, Viva Hidalgo! crowd, Viva Hidalgo! you get the picture. It was pretty cool. Everyone was all excited and waving their flags.

Then they rang the bell. The bell ringing was kind of funny because when he rang the bell these pigeons started flying around, it seems they usually sleep on the bell. So the pigeons were totally put out for the night! I’m sure they are glad the festivities are over.

So really Fiestas Patrias is Saturday the 16th but the festivities started more or less last night around midnight (well a little earlier, but you get the picture). Saturday morning there was a parade downtown. We didn’t go to the parade but we did watch some of the parade in Mexico City on TV.

Can't get the photos to post right now, so I'll try again soon!

That’s all for now. We took a walk to a part of our neighborhood we hadn’t seen and came upon these two roaming dogs. One was a shih-tzu-mutt-mix and the other was a pure bred-looking Chihuahua (the mostly black with a little tan kind). They looked like they were super good friends and really cute. Do you know how hard it was not to bring them home? Paul had to pull me across the street… *sigh!*