My time in Mexico has officially drawn to a close. Tomorrow morning I am waking up at 4 o'clock to get to the airport for my day full of seemingly endless flights and layovers. I leave out of Merida at 650, get to Mexico City at 830 and have a 5 hour layover there. I then arrive in Atlanta after a 5 hour flight and have a 3 hour layover there before finally getting to Dallas at 11 tomorrow night. But that isn't the hardest reality that I am going to have to face in the next 24 hours. I already said goodbye to most of my Mexican friends last night, but the family that I have been a member of is having their Posada celebration today, where they will dress up and act out the part of the Christmas story where Joseph and Mary are searching for a room in an inn. I have been asked to play the role of Joseph so that, and I translate and quote, "the pictures come out very handsome." This will be fun but the goodbye process will be brutal. The 20 family members that have taken care of me and literally been my family for four months will all be there with gifts and cards to give to me hugs and send me off. Family is a huge huge deal in this culture so we had family gatherings quite often and this last one will be very tiring emotionally knowing that I will probably never see most of them again. Granted, I get to see my family and girlfriend tomorrow night in the states which obviously makes this whole situation much easier on me. But I will have so many restless hours of sitting in airports tomorrow to think about what I am leaving behind.

I remember before I came abroad and people would ask me why in the world I wanted to study abroad in Mexico. I have come to the conclusion that if you want to study Spanish abroad, you really should not go anywhere else. First of all, name 5 cultural elements from any other Latin American country than Mexico. Can't do it easily can you? But let's brain storm here...sombreros, tacos, Pancho Villa, piñatas, tamales, hammocks. Mexico easily has the richest culture in Latin America (bold and slightly biased statement, I know). As far as Spain goes, great place, but living in Texas with a degree in Spanish I really need the vernacular and accent of a Latin American. Seriously, have you ever heard a Spanish speaker in Texas using the lisp they use in Spain? And specifically this part of Mexico...the culture here in Yucatan is even more rich than the rest of the country. I live within 3 hours of 500 Mayan ruin sites and within 8 hours of over 1400. I live less than a 30 minute drive to the nearest beach. A 15 minute bus ride to the oldest Cathedral on the Continent. I can walk to the nearest Cantina. And I haven't been cold since getting here. Not to mention Merida being one of the safest cities in the world and Yucatecans being as hospitable and helpful as your average small town Texan.

I guess I just say all that because this has been a really good semester full of tons of memories. But to be honest, my time has come to an end here and it is time to go home. I can't wait to be close to my friends, family and Ashley. I can't wait to go to Crossroads on Sunday. I can't wait to eat Tex-Mex, i really miss it. And I can't wait to sleep in my own bed. So until we meet on the other side of the border...

Hasta luego México. Te he disfrutado más que podrías creer.

Today my beautiful little sister, who is on her way to becoming a beautiful young woman, turns 11. I hope that your day is amazing, Dana. You are a giant blessing to me and I look forward to being able to see you grow in who you are as a person, but most importantly in who you are as a follower of Christ. I love you sis!


So here was the problem. 3 days in the 2nd largest city in the world really doesn't give you enough time to do much of anything. But, with the help of an eight hour tour bus ride I got to see a good portion of the center and south of the city. I would say that everyone needs to see the Center of the town where the Cathedral is located at least once in their life. It is built on top of the Aztec city of Technochtitlan and the ruins are visible in the square AND all of the building from the 1500s onward that were built by the Spaniards are sinking because they were constructed on top of old Aztec pyramids. It's way cool.
I also got to celebrate the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the home of a Chilango family. Chilango is a word people in Mexico use to describe those from Mexico City. It was really neat, mainly because they gave me enchiladas verdes. Side note, in Mexico City all types of non carbonated beverages are called "agua". So with my enchiladas I had agua de manzana which was more or less homemade apple juice. The tour bus took us by some really cool places, most notably the house of Frida Kahlo, the infamous artista. The following day I went to the ruins at Tlateloco and the 3 cultures plaza where the Mexican government opened fire on 14000 students during a protest in 1968 and killed about 2000. After that venture we went to the Basilica where 8 million people had been the day before and saw the original cloak with the Virgin's imprint. Then we trekked it out to Teotihuacan to see the ancient city there and saw the 3rd most massive pyramid in the world. That was a very quick overview, but here are some pictures to help fill in the gaps. I'll be home in 5 days so I can show you all of my pictures then.

Cathedral in the center square

One of Diego Rivera's paintings criticizing the Spanish rule

The Old Basilica

Teotihuacan

More Teotihuacan

Alright, I have no more options. Today I have GOT to finish my papers. I have been procrastinating enough with things like checking my Facebook profile 2954 times a day and trying to find the Mayweather-Hatton boxing match from Saturday online somewhere. But seeing as both of my two remaining papers have to be turned in tomorrow before I hop my flight to spend a few days in Mexico City, I really have no more time. But for one last activity of procrastination I decided to blog today...

Tomorrow I'll be going to Mexico D.F. (That's the real name for Mexico City folks) to witness one of the biggest celebrations in Mexico. The celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe. We have all heard the story in elementary school about the Mexican Catholics belief of the virgin Mary appearing in Mexico. The story goes as follows, Copied from Wikipedia:
According to Catholic accounts of the Guadalupan apparition, during a walk from his village to the city on December 9, 1531, Juan Diego saw a vision of a Virgin at the Hill of Tepeyac. Speaking in Nahuatl, Our Lady of Guadalupe said to build an abbey on the site, but when Juan Diego spoke to the Spanish bishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, the prelate asked for a miraculous sign. So the Virgin told Juan Diego to gather flowers from the hill, even though it was winter, when normally nothing bloomed. He found Spanish roses, gathered them on his tilma, and presented these to the bishop. According to tradition, when the roses fell from it the icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared imprinted on the cloth.

So I'm going to the Basilica in Mexico City to see this image along with 8 million other people who have traveled world wide to do so. I'll also be going to see the ancient site of Teotihuacan which had it's peak as a civilization between 150 and 400 AD. Most ancient tribes in Mexico claim their ancestry back to this city. It is quite significant and should be a very fun trip. Well, I'm off to what should be my last bit of school work this semester.

Nos vemos pronto

Is it really two weeks to the day that I come home? That is really bizarre to me. But contrary to popular belief I actually HAVE been busy writing papers recently and still have plenty more to do before this coming weekend is over.

This past weekend I hopped on what turned into a 15 hour bus ride to the southern mountains of Mexico close to the Guatemala border. It was beautiful. I stayed in a little city from the colonial era and every building had those awesome red brick roofs. The city is named San Cristobal de las Casas, and it is pretty much THE place in Mexico to buy very quality artisan goods for a very low price. These people are all very talented in their trade, whether it be jewelry making or knitting..., but they have no means to come down out of the mountains and sell their products so the prices are naturally lower. Saturday morning my friends and I woke up and took a boat tour through this beautiful canyon that was an average of 1 km over our heads most of the time. I wonder how it compares to the Grand Canyon...it can't be far off. The Grand Canyon is probably a little bigger but you don't get to see crocodiles and Spider monkeys there. Sunday however, was the coolest day of all. I went and saw three breath-taking waterfalls on my way to the Mayan site of Palenque. I'd argue that Palenque is the most impressive Mayan city of them all just for the fact that it sits at the base of a giant mountain chain. Well, that is really all I can do to explain this past weekend. It's unbelievable how hard it is to try and portray this stuff in writing...

Pretty Church in San Cristobal...there are many more, but I liked that this one was yellow...

The beautiful streets of San Cristobal

Entrance to Sumidero Canyon

Waterfall at Misolha

Behind same waterfall

Waterfall at Agua Azul...yes the water really was that blue. More actually

Palenque

I fear it is very obvious that I haven't been putting much effort into my blogs recently. Last night I threw a couple of poorly written sentences in with a few cool pictures in hopes to appease those who might get on my case for not blogging, and for that I was wrong. But today!, I'm having one of those mornings that starts slowly and continues slowly until all of the sudden it is now afternoon. It is one of those mornings where I have time to lay in my hammock, have a cup of joe and ponder about things, such as where in the world did the phrase "cup of joe" come from? Yes, today is starting off well. Just a few moments ago I took a stroll down to pick up my laundry from the lavandería and enjoyed the 82 degree morning air and the sunshine that most people can't on November 29th. It's a lazy day and I'm going to enjoy it because when I get back from my trip on Monday I will have so many papers to write that I won't notice anything having to do with the climate. Actually that probably won't start until Tuesday because I kind of want to go to the beach on Monday...But after Monday it's all business here.

Well I'm off to San Cristobal this evening. I'll be on a bus for 15 hours tonight but will wake up in the mountains wondering why it has to be so cold there. So until Monday, or maybe Tuesday...

Se vayan bien

This past two weeks have been crazy busy but so much fun. First, my girlfriend came the weekend of the 16th and then my parents came the following weekend. I can't possibly retell those entire adventures but I wanted to post some pictures that may be able to help you see what we did. I'm in the process of finishing up my classes. I'm completely finished with 2 of my 5 classes, and all I lack for the remaining 3 are 3 papers (10 pages each) and 2 tests. It'll be an interesting couple of weeks. Tomorrow I'm off for a weekend in San Cristobal de las Casas in the state of Chiapas. This state, run mostly by the socialist group of the Zapatistas, has some of the most secluded Mayan peoples and beautiful scenery. It's located in the Mountains of southern Mexico close to the Guatemala border and should be in the 30's (Fahrenheit). I'm a little nervous because I don't have clothes here for that kind of weather seeing as it is almost in the 90's everyday here in Yucatan...but I'll make the best out of it. Pictures from the past weekends....

Last night while I was walking home from a restaurant with some friends I saw a few houses with their Christmas lights up. Naturally two thoughts popped in my head: 1) isn't it a little early for that 2) It's like 80 degrees at 8:30 at night? How can it be Christmas time? Traditionally my family, and many other families I know around the Flowerplex area, use the Thanksgiving holiday, starting of course the weekend AFTER Thanksgiving, to begin the process of Christmas decoration. We get out the tree, untangle the lights, dust off the giant Santa collection, and assemble the Christmas village complete with ice-skater on pond. My brother's and I liked hanging the lights on the house, but we used to hide so that we wouldn't have to clean out the gutters on the roof. That never worked. But I think the reason that this process started a week early here is because this past weekend was their holiday weekend. Mexico celebrated (if they can have a party for it...they will) its second revolution this weekend and most people had Monday off so they naturally used that time as we do in the good'ol U.S of A to get a hop on the tree lighting. Being from Texas I'm not really used to the whole White Christmas thing anyway, but here it seems extremely warm to be thinking about anyone dressing up in a big red suit and granting Christmas wishes without finding themselves on the floor, medics on call to bring an I.V due to Kringle's heat exhaustion. It's less than a month till I come home an I think getting in the Christmas mood will be much easier once I hit that cold (55 degree) Dallas air on the 20th.

Not too long ago I was sitting on a gorgeous, white-sand beach on the Caribbean at midnight listening to the waves rock the fishing boats that were tied up for the night nearby and watching the reflection of the moon on the water. For some reason I thought back to that night when I woke up this morning. I really need to go do that again before I leave Mexico in a month.

I'll be catching a bus at 5:30 tomorrow morning to take me to Cancun to pick up Ashley and her friend Caitlin from the airport and then hopping back on the bus back to Merida. I have a lot of bus riding to do this weekend (16 hours to be exact as I will be making the trip to and from Cancun twice) but I'm so excited. The pain will be well worth it. Who knows what could be in store for the weekend...

My time here in Merida is drawing to a close. Granted, I don't technically get back home until late on Dec. 20th, but classes are ending and I can see the sign in the distance that reads "Dallas 953 miles". There is the part of me that is sad to see my time abroad coming to a close. It's the adventuresome side of me that realizes every morning in Mexico that I have no idea what I am going to be doing today. Will the bus come? Will my professors show up for class?(not as uncommon as you might think) Will I decide to skip everything I have to do and go to the beach? It's kinda nice living this way for a while. But there is also the side of me that has been secretly waiting for the day that I fly into DFW, partly because it will be nice to see friends and family again. It will be nice to sit in front of my TV and watch football. And it will definitely be nice living in the Flowerplex for a semester working to pay off debt, save a little money, and be close to my girlfriend and flomo network of people for once. There is something about having a rigid, definite schedule that helps me stay disciplined and on task in other aspects of life, and I look forward to having one. Needless to say the 35 remaining days I have in Mexico are packed with excitement and fun. My oh so cute girlfriend is coming to visit in 3 days and then a week later may parents are coming to visit. After these two weeks I'm off to Mexico City for a week and then back to Merida to pack up my things. It's the home stretch and I don't know how to feel.

Yesterday I played in a basketball tournament at my university here in Merida. I arrived at about 9:30 because I was told everything started at 10 and I wanted to shoot around a bit beforehand. I have no idea what I was thinking because a 10 o'clock start time in Mexico means 11, and a 10 o'clock start time in Mexico at an event run by college students means 12. Well sure enough, I played my first round at 12:30. We won the game, in fact we won all of our games and my team won a 500 peso grand prize. Which is really only about $10 a person when it is divided among 5 people. But hey free money is free money. But what I found most amusing yesterday was that in the final game of the tournament, my team played the school's team. By that I mean the team that represents the Anthropology campus in competition within the entire University, and they lost to us. They lost to 5 guys (of whom all but one were shorter than 5'7) who hadn't really ever played organized basketball before. They were all about 6' or taller too...it was kind of interesting.

This morning I woke up and met some Mexican friends for church. It was a Presbyterian church about a 40 minute bus ride from my house, one of the only protestant churches I've run into down here. I really enjoyed both the service and the college group class afterward. It was a really refreshing experience and I made some great new Christian friends. I'm looking forward to grabbing some coffee with one of them this week. Good Christian fellowship can be hard to come by down here.

I've started to notice that I am beginning to make fewer and fewer grammatical errors while writing in Spanish, but my errors in my English writings have increased from zero to many. I only write in English when I'm writing emails and blogs etc..but if I don't proof read first then my English writings are full of scattered spanish words and weird phrases like "i played in a tournament of basketball" due to the positioning of the adjective after the noun in Spanish.

O well...lo que sea

A couple unrelated things:

Finals are starting to hit for me. But there usually are not final exams here in Mexico, just final papers. Unfortunately I have a final paper for all of my classes, which means that I have five 10 page papers in Spanish over the next couple of weeks. Two of which of due this Wednesday...

Last night I bought the official jersey of the Mexican national soccer team. It is AWESOME!

At the mall where I purchased said jersey, some friends and I went to see the movie Lions for Lambs. The important part of this story is not how the movie was. It was the theater. We were in the VIP theater. What is that, you might ask. Well I shall tell you. In said theater you sit in your own personal reclining lazy boy style leather chair. Oh yeah, there are also waiters that come around taking your order. They offer all the normal movie stuff as well as mixed drinks, full course meals...etc. It was the nicest movie theater I've ever been to. Definitely VIP...

I am playing in a basketball tournament at the university today. I'm really excited because for once I may actually be one of the taller players. 6'2'' is pretty tall here. I'm not particularly skilled at this sport, but what I lack in talent I will make up for in enthusiasm and height. Wish me luck, I gotta go inflate the tongue on my Reebok's...

I face the harsh reality that no one who reads this blog will ever understand want I have seen in the last 5 days unless they too have been. I have now visited about a dozen ancient Mayan cities, some of them dating back to 1800 BC and each one amazes me a little more than the previous. Part of it may be that I am also taking classes about the Mayan culture that help me understand how truly advanced this civilization was, but my pictures just never do any justice to the remarkable architecture of the buildings and the beautiful art that decorates them. I left last Wednesday for a 4 day trip through part of the Mayan world in the Southeast of the Yucatan Peninsula. I saw the ancient cities of Cobá, Muyil, Xelha, Tulum, and Ek Balam. I also swam in the sacred cenotes that were the source of water or these cities as well as a common place of sacrifice. My favorite by far was the city of Ek Balam. The way that most of these cities are arranged is very symbolic of where the power in the city would lie. For example there is often a giant pyramid (usually decorated with the heads of a certain god), and then an alter close by to show that the gods had a very large role. Then there are government buildings and official's palaces facing the courtyard in front of the pyramid. And as the buildings get further away from the center of the city their importances lessens. This is why common people usually lived a pretty good distance away from the center of the city. But the part that strikes me the most is the preservation of decorations and hieroglyphics that are still readable today. In Ek Balam there is part of the facade of the King's Palace (the most beautiful building I've ever seen by the way) that was perfectly retained because a giant tree formed an air bubble around it. This air bubble kept the original stucco in place. You will be able to see it in the pictures below, but just try and imagine that every building that you see in the pictures used to have stucco on it like the first picture with engravings and statues, and the entire building would have been painted with very bright colors. This is how the entire empire would have appeared. Unbelievable! Here are a few pictures that can try and portray what I just experienced.

Can you imagine from these first two pictures what it would have been like to see all of the buildings with their original stucco and bright colors? This is amazing!


This is the ball court at Cobá

cool skeleton carving in the ball court

Coba pyramid

Temple of the goddess of fertility. It has an astronomical observatory on top (the round thing)

This is an artificial canal the Mayans made through the laguna to the ocean for a trade route. To this day they have no idea how they were capable of it.

Can you see the soldier hidden in the stone on the corner?

Oh yeah, and we slept in cabins on this beach...

Hola a todos!

I wanted to share some pictures with you from my latest weekend adventure to Punta Allen, Mexico. Punta Allen is a tiny tiny fishing village of about 400 people on the Caribbean sea about 2 hours away from any other population. Now this was one of the towns that was devastated by Hurricane Dean, so parts of the peninsula were still in complete disarray. For example we went snorkeling one afternoon and discovered that the hurricane had killed most of the reef, kinda sad. But the area is still beautiful. On the east side of the town are the beaches of the Caribbean and on the west side is a giant Laguna. The whole town is the point of a long and skinny peninsula, a 5 minute walk to completely walk from water to water. As you can imagine the town is nothing but white sand, palapa houses on the beach, palm trees, and hammocks. But that is exactly what we wanted this weekend. We saw a few small Mayan ruins, but the majority of out time was spent enjoying the slow life of the Caribbean. Tomorrow at 9 I leave for a 5 day trek through the jungles of the Yucatan to scuba in some of the most exotic cenotes and explore some of the least known Mayan pyramids and cities. I'll be sleeping in a hammock on the beach at the Mayan city of Tulum (see post Oct 11 for Tulum). I'll have unbelievable pictures in about 5 days. But here are a few pictures my friends took this past weekend as I forgot my camera.

Looks like a Corona commercial

Beach that had hurricane "residue" from Dean

Sunset over the Laguna

Me on the beach. Lucky picture...accidental combination of 2 flashes.

Ha llegado el "norte"

I woke up this morning freezing. Last night a huge northern cold front hit us in the Yucatan. When I say cold front I mean weather in the 70s...but cold nonetheless. People here say, "ha llegado el norte", or quite literally, "the north has arrived". Which I think is funny. But the cold front comes each year and stays for about 3 days, so we should all still be a go for my trip back to the Caribbean this weekend.

Exactly a week from today I will be leaving on my excursion through the Inner Mayan World. I'll be sleeping in a hammock on the seashores of Old Mexico by night, and treking through the jungle to see rarely visited Mayan cities. I'll be seeing some of the tallest Mayan pyramids and scuba diving in their ancient cenotes (see post from Sept 22 to learn about centoes), I can't wait to post pictures.

I'm going to take the lack of comments on the last blog as a "you've said it so well that we have nothing to add" rather than a "no one reads this dumb thing..." But all of that aside. Do you remember when you were between the ages of like 12 and 14? Every time that I would walk into a store the employees would stop and stare to make sure that I wasn't stealing anything. Well sometimes I feel the exact same way here. Maybe they stare because I'm clearly a foreigner, but there are times when I know it is because they don't trust me. For example, tonight I was walking back from the bus stop on the sidewalk as a guy was getting out of his car. He walked up to the front door of his house and just stopped to make sure I walked all the by and didn't stop at his car. I don't know what he thought I was going to do, or if they have a lot of American thievery in Mexico... Whatever it is I thought it was really humorous, because that is a stereotype that I wasn't aware of.

This weekend! I forgot I haven't written about it yet. I went scuba diving in the Caribbean. The water was the most turquoise water I've ever seen. We saw barracuda, a sting ray, and tons of colorful fish. I didn't have the ability to take any pictures while I was down there, but it looked a lot like this...but it was a much bigger reef.

Why hello friends and family. It is such a beautiful day here in the Yucatan that I would really just prefer to hop a bus to the beach (only a 20 minute ride) and waste the day in a hammock with a non-school related book and a margarita. But seeing as I had class that technically started an hour ago and 2 more that I actually will be attending today, I can't go sit on the white sands of Mexico and watch the guy in his motor operated parachute that keeps him flying above the reef for hours at a time. (side note, I really need to become friends with that guy...) This is my first time in like a month that I have had more than 10 minutes to blog. It feels kinda nice to be able to write about what is going on without being rushed, and while recounting my weekend tales is fun and I'm sure you appreciate them, I think it's more fair to people like my parents and grandmothers who read this to know that I'm doing well. Saturday I have scuba practice again, but this time we are taking 2 Caribbean dives so I'll be heading over to Cancun at like 4 in the morning on Saturday in order to be ready for the dive by 9. It is funny the way that studying abroad effects your mentality. I find it almost impossible to be motivated to do school work, which is hard enough when you live in a town like Lubbock but when you live in Mexico near the Caribbean... Especially because all of my credits transfer as pass/fail. All I have to do is get a D and I get the exact same credit as I would if were to get an A...it's a dangerous system. Well, a few hellos to some people I've been thinking about recently..

-family: Mom, Dad, Adam, Brian, Dana & Grandmothers
-Ashley, Scott, and Mrs Seal
-CBC buddies (can't be individual, i don't have 3 hours but it's all love here)
-Tech Navs
-Cactus Shooters!!!
-Jeff, Julie, David, & Rebekah
-Tech Goin' Band
-Nurgypoo & D-Steve
-Kamp bros

Well, I need to get out of my hammock and get to school, but it feels like its going to be a good weekend. Hope it is for you too!

Today is this woman's 21st birthday. (I know what you're thinking, but standing next to her, everyone looks this bad...)

For whatever reason, she has allowed me to be in her life for a year and two months. But today isn't about how lucky I am, which I am. It is about how wonderful Ashley Nicole Seal is, and about how amazing I want her day to be. So, to once again steal the style from dear old Brent..

in honor of Ashley's 21st birthday today I will be...
-singing Broadway musicals at the top of my lungs
-being the sweetest/most genuine person anyone has ever met
-laughing at stupid jokes told by significant others
-text messaging all 24 hours of the day
-finding out how God has gifted me and using that to the best of my ability
-wearing a Kappa Kappa Gamma party t-shirt
-crushing on Zac Efron (won't really be doing this)
-having a great attitude about everything
-being the most lovable person in the WORLD!

Sorry fellas, she's kinda taken.
Happy Birthday Ash!

I woke up bright and early yesterday morning to meet my group for scuba practice. Right as I was walking out the door my scuba teacher called me and told me that he wasn't going to be able to make it early this morning because he had been robbed the night before. While he was in a restaurant someone broke into his van and stole his computer, which contained all of his work information, and thousands of dollars worth of scuba gear. So Memo, the scuba guy, worked all morning to get the window of his van fixed as well as find us the proper equipment so we could still have scuba practice...after being robbed. That is the most selfless thing that I have seen in a long time. And scuba ended up being really cool. I mean, we just practiced in a pool, but it was fun nonetheless. Pretty soon I'll be at the bottom of the Caribbean swimming with the dolphins and looking at the coral reefs. Wish you could all be there with me.

In honor of the Texas Tech vs A&M game today I will be...
...dressing like a pirate
...throwing tortillas at kickoff
...poking fun at those who have practiced yelling
...and just all around getting my guns up as high as possible

Go Tech!

I promise the days are going by too quickly. I really meant to blog on Tuesday, but the next thing I knew it was Thursday afternoon and I was leaving my last class for the week....it is the weekend again already. (At least for me because I don't have Friday classes) But this past weekend was unbelievable. For those of you who are not aware, my beautiful girlfriend Ashley and her friend Caitlin came down for a little visit to Mexico. They were unable to fly into Merida, so I met them in Cancun and we hopped a bus to Playa del Carmen for the weekend. Beautiful beaches, Mayan ruins, ridiculous condos...you couldn't ask for anything more. The first day we all just kinda hung out at the beach and met some of my friends from my program at their condo they were staying at. We're talking like a $2.5 million condo. Ridiculous! So beautiful, overlooking the beach with an infinity pool. Then Saturday, us three woke up bright and early and went to Tulum, a beautiful ancient Mayan city right on the beach (See pictures below). THE MOST beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life. I don't really want to continue this story because it gets sad...Ashley had to leave the next day. But I hope you enjoy the pictures below of our weekend.
Tomorrow I have my first SCUBA practice in a pool. Just a couple more weeks till I'll be scuba diving in the Caribbean. I know my posts recently have kinda just been about my weekends, but my weeks are very normal. I wake up and go to school, come home, do homework and start it all over again. Except for last night when I went to a place called Mambo cafe. It is a salsa club here in Merida with live Music. The band members are some of the most talented musicians that I've ever seen. They are all Cuban and play every instrument, sing, and dance very well. I didn't try, but there is no way that I could ever dance like that...Mom and Dad, when ya'll come to visit my host parents are going salsa dancing with us. Get excited. Anyways....pictures!

I want to apologize to all of the faithful readership out there. This past week I have not blogged for no other reason than my terrible habit of procrastination. I'll admit it, and take full responsibility. So, it is time to play catch up. Here are some of my pictures from last weekend's trip to Uxmal. This ancient city has one of the coolest pyramids in the world. These pictures don't even close to do it justice, but I hope you enjoy!

This is just me in front of the pyramid.

side view...

This is one of the business squares in the city. The architecture is very ornate with Mayan gods sticking out the the walls and stuff. Very cool.

I think this was one of the government buildings.

Pyramid from far away.

The city is much bigger than you can tell from the pictures. It has a really cool ball court. The Mayan's sport was very similar to our present day basketball, but you had to get the ball into the ring without using your hands. And then the losers, and sometimes the winners as well, were sacrificed to the gods. The ring and ball court is the picture below.


Skip ahead 7 days. My wonderful girlfriend Ashley and her friend Caitlin came to visit me in Mexico this weekend. They were unable to fly into Merida, so I met them in Cancun (a 4 hour bus ride from here) and we spent the weekend in Playa del Carmen. The weekend was amazing, the Caribbean was beautiful, and we went to an ancient Mayan city called Tulum. Now, I didn't take my camera this weekend so I'll have to wait until they send me copies of theirs before I can post some of them. But I'll try my best to post about this weekend before the next one passes...haha. I hope everything is going well for everyone.

This past weekend I went to one of the most famous Mayan archaeological sites, saw one of the coolest pyramids in the world, and toured an ancient city. I have some really cool pictures that I'll post at a later date. But right now I have a funny story that literally just happened about 20 minutes ago. It all started this morning with my test in Cultural History of the Mayan Area. I had an 8 am exam in this class and apparently did not study as much as I should have, a crime I am often guilty of. After the exam I was talking with some other students in the class and they agreed that the test was very difficult. So difficult in fact that it required a word other than the normal word for difficult or hard. And the word seemed very harmless, especially since the only definition they gave me was that it means "really difficult". I'm sure you all know where this is going by now, but one last thing about this part of Mexico is that are a ton of Mayan words that are still common in the everyday language, so hearing words that I didn't know previously is not an uncommon experience, so...I thought nothing of it. Until....I came home for lunch and my host parents asked how the test went. I proudly replied with what I thought to be a demonstration of my expanded vocabulary, only to get a wide eyed look from my host mother, and a 2 minute long laughing episode from my host father. No real harm was done, but in essence, what I was saying was "the test was (insert expletive here) hard". Lesson learned, don't repeat words you do not know the meaning to. You'd think I would have learned that lesson back in high school after repeating that phrase in Dutch that Justin told me to say only to be slapped by his sister. I mean, the kid was a missionary kid for goodness sake. I'm way too trusting. Well, blog topics have to come from somewhere....

Last night I went with my host brother to the gym that he attends and bought a membership. And by the way, it only put me back $20 a month and that includes a personal trainer. I wasn't planning on getting a personal trainer, but I did because apparently everyone here does because it is so cheap. From what I can figure out, this guy's job is to just tell you what exercise and how many sets, and then he walks away and works out while you do your sets. This guy obviously works out all day every day seeing as he was only 5'5'' and outweighed me by a good 100 pounds of muscle. But back to the point of this blog. I've been working out for a good part of my life, not saying that I'm in great shape or anything, but I know what to expect when I go into a gym. Or so I thought. Well my PT, Orlando was his name, worked me for 2 hours of weight training, upper body only, and then told me that he'd see me tomorrow for legs. Well I can't move my arms. My elbows and shoulders are stuck in that painful soreness that you get after you've had surgery. It really feels like my elbows have been operated on and I'm terrified to go work out my legs, because those always hurt anyways, and with this guy I'll be paralyzed. Either I'm just a wuss, he's great at his job, or a combination of both...no answer needed.

On a side note, I've watched Dumb and Dumber and The Count of Monte Cristo over the past two days. Sometimes a good movie in English is all you need to make your day.

I woke up this morning with the strangest of realizations. I am used to living here. For the past month I have opened my eyes each day and been in someone else's home, and gone to someone else's University. But today I woke up in MY bed and took the bus on MY bus route and went to MY school. I guess it is the adjustment we all make in new situations. That's just how the cookie crumbles i guess.

But moving on, my friends and I are making plans to spend a week in Mexico City in December during the week of the Virgen de Guadalupe. That'll be a very culturally rich experience, putting aside the fact that Mexico D.F. is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. (I probably shouldn't say things like that on a page that my parents, grandparents, and girlfriend all read) And on top of that we are in the process of figuring out the best way to get four Americans into Cuba. It turns out that it isn't as hard for Americans to get to Cuba as you would think. As long as you go through other countries (ie. Mexico) it is very possible. The only scare is that if you get caught getting off of a plane from Cuba by American officials you could get slapped with a $5000 fine, but the guides all say that this is a formality and doesn't really have to be paid..mainly because it isn't constitutional to tell an American citizen that they are unable to travel where they please. All of that to say that these upcoming months will be full of...well..let's just call them experiences. Until later.

As promised…here is what went down. I woke up bright and early at 6 am yesterday morning in order to be in the center of town by 8 because me and some friends were traveling to the nearby by town of Cuzamá. The guide book told us to catch a bus at a specific intersection downtown, but when we arrived there were no buses to be found. After asking around and getting 5 completely different sets of directions, we found out that we were about 10 blocks away from where our bus was going to be. So we walked…We finally found our bus and began our one hour bus ride to Cuzamá. None of us had any idea what to expect when we got there. When we pulled up to this small Mayan village, there were taxis waiting by the side of the road to take us to the Hacienda that we were going to visit. By taxi I mean there were children between 9 and 12 with bicycles that had a seat for two on the front…this is what they called taxis. Feeling very uncomfortable with having the child labor that should, without a doubt, be in school at that very moment bike us around in the 100 degree heat we asked the bus driver if he could take us 2 miles up the road to the Hacienda. He said he would, thankfully. We stepped out of the bus, paid our fare, and hopped into what they called a “horse drawn carriage” which was a little cart that rode on a miniature railroad and pulled by a horse. Really neat actually.

The house and business part of this Hacienda no longer exists but the main tourist attraction, as it turns out, are these three cenotes. Three of the most beautiful cenotes in the world. Now if you remember back to my post where I discussed what cenotes were, they are natural pools of water that the Mayans used for many purposes…everything from bathing to spiritual purposes, ie) sacrificing. These three cenotes were covered cenotes, meaning that they were inside of caves. We had to climb down into the cenotes and the water was (depending on which cenote) about 40-80 feet under the surface of the ground. I can’t even explain the beauty of the water in words, nor do the pictures I took with my camera do any justice, so here are a couple of pictures of these cenotes that I visited that someone else took as well as a couple that I took. The water is turquoise blue, and clearer than the water in a swimming pool. There were places in the cenote that were almost 100 feet deep and you could see the rocks at the bottom. UNBELIEVABLE!





That part of the trip was beautiful, fun, and unforgettable…but it doesn’t end there. Back to the bus ride that brought us 2 miles off of the normal route to a secluded Hacienda. The bus driver told us that he would meet us where he dropped us off at a certain time. So like anyone who wants to eventually get back from the middle of nowhere, we were where we were supposed to be when we were supposed to be there. And we waited. And we waited. And waited. It got to the point to where the “taxi” drivers/riders were telling us that he wasn’t coming. But we held out. Mainly because, like I said, we weren’t big fans of child labor. It became very clear that the bus wasn’t coming so we took matters into our own hands. A man and his family were getting into their truck and so I walked up to him and asked if he could drop us four off in the middle of town 2 miles down the road. He immediately said no, and rolled his window back up and started to drive off. Then he reversed back and said that they could, so we hopped into the back of his truck and were officially hitch-hiking in Mexico. When we got into town the man told us that he and his family were going to stay at a Hacienda close to Merida and that we could ride along if we wanted. So we naturally accepted his hour of free transportation, but we were unaware of how terrible with directions this man was. He took more wrong turns than I thought were possible, but we finally started going the right direction towards Merida. And then he started to turn the wrong way again, so we all started yelling from the back of the truck to turn right and he did. It struck me as odd that he would listen to directions from four hitch hikers in the back of his truck but we got to the right place. As we pulled up to the Hacienda 10 kilometers outside of Merida, a window rolled down and the man’s wife said, “Your ride ends here.” Weird way to put it, but we couldn’t complain so we hopped out of the truck, asked some locals how to get into the city, and took a bus on into Merida.