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Vacations officially started one week ago today. For the past week I honestly haven’t done anything except stay at my friends house. Last saturday (16th of April) my friend and I went to a friends birthday party-man, it seems like everyone had their birthday last week- it was really fun, and a great way to practice my Spanish (apart from the whole livng in a Spanish speaking country). Alex (birthday boy) had a few friends at his party, but most of the people there were his cousins, and there was also some aunts/uncles and his parents.I talked to his cousins (in Spanish of course) through most of the night. It was pretty funny- and just another example of how different people are here in comparison to those in Canada-every time one of the guys would say a bad word in front of me, one of the other guys would say to the one who swore “woah, woah, don’t say that” at which point I would say, “no, it’s ok.”- because I have heard swearing before- but they insisted on not swearing in front of me because I was a girl and I guess they didn’t want to give me a bad impression. The night was half over when everyone began to gather inside around the dining table. Standing there was his mom and dad with Alexs’ birthday cakes, yes cakes, there were two, who preceded to sing Happy Birthday as everyone joined in as well. Having still not learned the Spanish version of Happy Birthday (I should probably get on that) I just moved my mouth, pretending to know the lyrics. Moments after the song came to an end, I found out why there were two cakes on the table; his cousins and friends shoved Alex’s face into one of the cakes- one of his friends actually got a great picture of it which is now up on facebook haha.Alex’s mom brought out a giant bucket of ice cream and again, his head was shoved into that too. Disgustingly enough, one of the guys began cutting up the cake that just had Alex’s face shoved into it. Even worse, a few of the guys actually ate it! Boys are gross. Needless to say I did not have either the cake or the ice cream. That night slowly came to an end, Charly and I went back to her house and slept =)
Wednesday April 20th
Wednesday was another bright and early morning. Charly, Martha’s brother, cousin and I were going to Selva Magica. It is kind of like Callaway but a little cooler. We bought our tickets and headed in to get on the rides. We went on a few rides and then went to the haunted house. This was not your usual haunted house where you walk around and craooy mechanical objects pop out at you while bad scary music plays in the background. No, nothing like that.This haunted houe was the kind that was literally pitch black inside, and there is a guy dressed in all black- even the face is covered- so you really can’t see him so when he comes over and is merely inches away from your face and starts talking in his scary voice, you jump ten feet in the air... okay, so maybe the jumping part is an exaggeration, but still, it’s extremely creepy. At the beginning, the creepy cloaked guy makes everyone get into a line, so that you’re holding onto the waist or shoulders of the person in front of you. The whole time i had absolutely no idea what the guy was saying. i was holding onto the person in front of me and when they would walk, I would walk. I had two girls-teenagers- literally clinging onto my back and shirt. Towards the end of the house, the two girls behind me-no joke- had my shirt wrapped up so much in their hands that it was basically at my bra line. Needless to say, once they found the exit and could leave, they left running, and left me with a wrinkly shirt. We went on some more rides and at 3:30pm we made our way to the Dolphin show. They had four dolphins and 1 seal. When they had the seal out doing it’s part in the show, they began taking about getting someone up on stage to get a kiss from the seal. Unfortunately they began describing me!!!! Reluctently I walked up on stage and after exchange some words in Spanish with the trainers, the seal gave me a kiss on each cheek. Now that I was successfully grossed out by the smell of fish, and had taken in a bit of sun, it was time to call it a day and go home.
Saturday April 23rd
Yet again, another early morning-ok, it’s vacations, why am I always waking up so early??? Anyways, the night before my friend and I had packed our bags so that all we had to do was get up, go to my house, and go. Slowly but surely we got ready for the day ahead. It didn’t take too long to get ready and then we were off to my house to pick up some last minute necesities. Making a mad dash for my house, I ran inside and grabbed a handful of stuff I figured would be useful on our trip. After the quick stop at my house, we were on our way to the bus station. Tickets here are extremely cheapfor taking the bus to and from places- mind you, not a lot of people like to...it’s a social status thing. We boarded the bus, sat down in two empty seats, put our bag on the floor, put in our headphones and waited for the bus to leave. The trip to Chapala seemed to go by fairly quickly. It’s only approximately 45 minutes away from Guadalajara, but I would think that by bus it would seem to take forever. After what seemed like a very short time on the bus, we arrived in Chapala, and now all we had to do was wait for Alex and his dad to pick us up. No more than five minutes later, Alex and his dad arrived at the bus station, we loaded into his dads’ truck and left to go to a museum. It was actually pretty cool, it took you through the history of the building and in a few of the rooms it had a bunch of really old artifacts. Apparently the building was the original bus station, until they refurninshed it and built the new bus station in a different part of Chapala. Once we were done checking out the museum we made our way to Alex’s house/cabin. His cabin in Chapala is in the middle of a little town and from the look of the surrounding area, I was not expecting what I saw next. Lush green grass, lined with gorgeous flowers in full bloom along side huge trees, some with fruit growing from the branches. The truck was put in park and we stepped into the blazing sun-it was such a gorgeous day out. Taking our bag from the back of the truck, we walked to the first major building on the property. It was a decent sized house that was equipped with a kitchen and plenty of rooms filled with beds for everyone to sleep in, and obviously there were bathrooms in the house as well. Alex introduced Charly and I to a few of his cousins that were on the porch playing xbox 360. Next we made our way to another part of the property where there was another building. This structure wasn’t anything too fancy, it had one wall that had a lot of shelves for holding various objects. Attatched was another small house that had a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. As well, there was a shed a few feet away from the small house. The building that everything was attatched to was open on one side so you could overlook the giant lawn and lake. Under the roof of the structure was 6 or 7 giant tables-the kinds that they have at camps (long rectangle) where they ate most of their meals. Sitting at the tables were a bunch of Alex’s aunts and uncles, all of whom we were introduced to- and now most of whom I cannot remember their names. We said hi to some more of Alex’s cousins, most of whom we had met at Alex’s birthday party last week. Walking around the property some more and getting introduced to even more of his family,we decided what we should do first. Hearing out our options, we decided to go kayaking. Since there were only two kayaks, Alex said me and Charly could each have a kayak and he would go swimming. Before we went kayaking, Charly and I went into the main house and changed into our bathing suits. Kayaking was so much fun, even though we didn’t go too far, it was still a ton of fun. We went for a quick swim and did some suntanning and then headed back to shore. Up next on our agenda was biking. Alex and his cousin Ricky found a bike for me and Charly- and being that Ricky loves mountain biking, finding some extras for us to use was no problem. They wanted to take us to this giant tree that was a little ways away from the house. Charly and I were happy to be out and about so we excitedly and nervously got on our bikes and we were off! About 20 bumpy minutes later we arrived to the tree-this thing was huge!!!!!! Alex talked about the tree for minute or two, then we all got the bright idea to try and climb it. First we had to figure out which side would be best, after we did that we all attempted to climb it. Of course Charly and I couldn’t make it up the tree. It especially didn’t help that we were wearing flip flops.... A few failed attempts later, and Alex was the first one up the tree, took a picture, and then it was Ricky’s turn to go up. This time he actually got up haha, took another picture and then he came down and we all headed back to the house. By the time we got back to the house Alex’s family was preparing Birria (veal in sauce, rice, beans and tortillas) The set up time took a few minutes, then everyone sat down to eat. The food was so good that I went back for seconds, which I would later regret because I would be so full. It was still a gorgeous day out so me and some of Alex’s cousins began playing volleyball. We had probably played for two hours when everyone kinda just decided to stop. I went up to hang out with Alex’s other cousins who were on the lawn trying to juggle with croquet balls-they were actually good, even though one of them dropped a ball on his foot. A few minutes later, one thing lead to another and we had begun a huge water fight which sucked because I had just changed into dry clothes which also just so happened to be my only other change of clothes. I didn’t get as much water dumped on me as some of the other guys, thankfully, but it was still a lot of fun. We were supposed to go sleep at Tere’s house in Chapala that night but we were having so much fun that we didn’t want to leave. Alex’s cousin said we should just stay at their house for the night, and since neither of us wanted to leave, we got on the phone with our host parents and asked to stay the night. After getting the go ahead to stay, we all excitedly gave each other high fives and then went to get our tent and sleeping bags. Alex had also gotten us blankets and two foam mattresses. The two foam mattresses didn’t fit side by in the tent so we had to put them into a cross shape. After the tent was set up, me and two of Alex’s cousins were heading back to where the adults were gathered in a circle singing songs and talking. First though, they went behind the shed and told me to stay where I was. At first I had no idea what they were doing. It was a little sketchy; it was dark out and they were behind the shed by themselves... However, when they came out with a wheelbarrow full of chopped wood, I was a little relieved lol. Charly joined us down by the lawn where the just had dumped the wood. Charly and I were so excited to have a fire, since we hadn’t had one in a bery long time. The boys made a joke about us making the fire and without hesitation, we accepted the challenge. They didn’t think that we were serious until we started making the fire. We successfully made the fire without any help from the guys. Even after the fire was going a bunch of Alex’s cousins didn’t believe that we had been the ones to make it-apparently girls here in Mexico don’t do that sort of thing. We hung around the fire for a little bit until Alex’s mom called everyone up and said there was going to be food, a bunch of us went up to grab some tacos before we headed back to the fire. A little while later Alex’s dad came down to tell us that it was time to go to bed. Everyone collected their chairs, put out the fire, and headed to bed. Charly and I said our goodnights and headed to our tent. It didn’t take me long to fall asleep but for some reason I could not stay asleep.
Sunday April 24th
By the sevent time I woke up I decided to get up and get ready, and start to clean the place up. Dishes and cups were strewn everywhere, it looked like a tornado flew through tthe property. I began cleaning up what I could and I saw Alex’s grandma up and cleaning as well so me and her cleaned and talked while slowly more of the adults woke up. Coffee was brewing, a nice cool breeze was blowing, and we were all talking. It reminded me so much of being at the cabin in BC. Chapala is amazing and Alex’s family is so nice, loving and welcoming. I don’t remember what time it was (it was early though) but Charly and I were one of the few teenagers awake. Alex’s grandma had the great idea of me and her going up to the boys’ room with pot lids and wake them up. So up we went with pot lids in hand, open the door nice and quiet and then begin banging the lids together. I’m pretty sure that out of all the boys in the room, only one jumped, most of them made some groaning sound, and showed some sign of movement, one actually got out of bed, and one just barely opened his eyes and then went back to sleep-didn’t even move. We went back downstairs to sit with the adults and a couple of the cousins until the others got up. Finally once everyone was up, we all began to pack things up because we were all heading back in a little bit. In the midst of everyone packing, Alex’s mom made breakfast for whoever wanted some. Alex, Charly, Alex’s brother and I sat down to eat pancakes, the ones we make at home are better, but these were still pretty good. After we finished eating I took all the dirty dishes and went into the kitchen to wash them, after washing the dishes I saw that there were more so I decided to wash those one too because it seemed like a nice thing to do after all that they had done for me. I guess that they had noticed I had been away from the table and saw that I was in the kitchen washing dishes so Alex yells at me not to, and then a few minutes later he gets his cousin Ricky to come into the kitchen and push me out. It’s a fight between me and Ricky; he’s pushing me with his side and I’m pushing right back. For being skinny, the kid is strong lol. Ricky grabs the dish out of my hand and then out of now where Alex comes in and takes the scrubbie pad out of my hand. I was defeated, it was all in good fun, but nonetheless I lost this battle. Raising my hands, I back out of the kitchen. Back at Charly’s house we unpacked, showered, and rested. We spent some time packing Charly’s bag and then went to my house because I still needed to pack for our trip to Puerto Vallarta early the next morning.
Monday April 25th
Yet again we were up early, we got everything into the truck and set off for Puerto Vallarta. Luckily we got out of the house before the real heat started. It seemed to take forever, but once we were there I was so excited to see everything. We checked in and got everything ready, then we headed down to one of the restaurants and ate brunch. After eating we walked around some more and then went to our room. Our room was gorgeous, the bed was huge and so comfy, there was a lottle patio type thing that had a big jacuzzi on it. It was pretty cool. We didn’t do a whole lot, just walked around the resort, and beach and before we knew it the day was over! We went back to the room to get ready for supper. 4 girls (Tere, Me, Charly, Mari) sharing one room was definitely uncomfortable for me personally but we all made it through the trip. We all managed to get ready in decent time and headed down to have dinner. The restaurant we went to was a buffet, and had a variety of foods to eat. Later that night in the lobby they had a dj and a space reserved for dancing. All of us girls had a lot of fun that night dancing and laughing. We got back to the room around 1am and fell asleep in our beds.
Tuesday April 26th
That morning, Teresa woke us up at 10am and all of us were still basically sleeping. After Tere and Mari got ready I went into the bathroom. I looked into the mirror and my hair was so curly! Think of Monica’s hair in that episode of friends when they went to Barbados, only difference was that my hair actually looked really nice. Thanks to my hair being amazing, I didn’t have to do much to get ready. We went down to have breakfast and then headed to where the pool was. We wanted to play beach volleyball so we headed to rent one and found an empty net. We tried playing but the sand was so hot! It was burning our feet. Still wanting to play, we asked one of the staff members if they could help us put water over the area of sand we would be playing in. Less than 20 minutes later, the sand was watered down and we could start playing again.It didn’t last long, but sure did feel good on the feet while it lasted. Once again the sand was burning hot, and not wanting to burn our feet even more, we decided to wait until later to play again. Us girls went over to the ping pong tables to play for a little bit before Zumba started. I was the only one who went, but it was fun and my exercise for the day (besides playing volleyball). The girls left to go eat, so when the zumba class was over, I went by the pool and hung out until it was time to get ready for supper. That night we dressed all fancy and went to the mexican restaurant that was on the resort. The food was good, I had the chile soup with the seafood stuffed chile. After going to the room for a quick rest, us girls headed back down to the lobby for some more dancing. That night we got back to the room around 12am, but we were still dead tired.
Wednesday April 27th
Another 10am morning for us, we had gotten into the same routine- get up, get ready, have breakfast, go outside and get some sun. However, I couldn’t imagine just how bad that day was going to get. That day I didn’t do a whole lot except for lay in the sun. About 4:30pm I decided I had gotten enough sun and decided to head to the room to relax for a little bit. As soon as I got to the room I noticed myself in the mirror and boy was I red! It was starting to sink in what just happened and all I could think of oh boy am I an idiot. Things went downhill fast. By the time Teresa came up to the room I had on my lululemon pants and was under like three blankets. She helped me put on Aloe Vera gel because I could barely move, and then told me it would be best not to have any blankets on so my skin could breathe. Needless to say, I was shivering and my teeth were chattering like a damn fool. To make matters worse Mari thought it would be funny to do a dog pile on me. Oh my god, I wanted to punch her square in the face! That night was the worst sleep ever, I couldn’t get comfy, I was in pain, and I was freezing, but couldn’t have piles of blankets on me.
Thursday April 28th
While everyone got ready to go get breakfast and go begin their day, I was putting on more lotion, Aloe gel, and taking more aspirin. That day I literally did nothing, I was frustrated because I was supposed to go with Charly to a waterpark with Alex and his cousins but since I could barely walk, I wasn’t going. All I could do was lay on my stomach, take aspirin, drink water, and watch tv. I was still feeling terrible that night so while everyone went out I out on the gel that Teresa bought for me- it had lydocane(sp?) in it so that sort of numbed the pain so I could get up and somewhat walk. While I was relatively pain free, I took everything I had put in the drawers and closet and packed, that way, when I got up the next morning I wouldn’t have to do much.
Friday April 29th
Our week had come to an end all too soon. I was still in a fair amount of pain so I could only imagine the drive home... I took some more aspirin and felt somewhat ok to go down and have breakfast with everyone. It hurt so bad when I tried to sit down, it was ridiculous, and it didn’t help that everytime I went to move or get up I was sticking to the chair which only pulled on my extremely burnt and tender skin. I was definitely happy once we were done and could go get everything packed in the car. One of the staff members brought our bags down to the car and helped us pack them into/ on top of the car. After everything was packed away and set to go, I got in; suprisingly I wasn’t in too much pain, I just couldn’t sit properly- had to sit on an angle with my feet resting on the seat in front of me. The ride back to Guadalajara seemed to go by way faster than the ride to Puerto Vallarta-thank god. As soon as we got home we unpacked the car, and I robot walked my way to my room. I couldn’t imagine the horror that awaited me. The moment I stepped into my room I could tell something was off. Having been in the car for 5 hours I really had to go pee, so naturally, I went into the bathroom and that’s when everything went to shit. I lifted the toilet seat and it was obvious that someone had gotten sick. From which end I didn’t know, nor did I care at that point- they had made a disgusting mess and didn’t have the manners to flush the damn toilet! There were balloons in my shower, as well as both of the shower doors were broken. Too frustrated, tired, and in pain to deal with any of the huge mess that someone made in my room (thanks to Germans birthday party), I packed a bag and headed to Charly’s house. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do so we watched a couple movies, tried to go for a walk, and then by the time we got back I showered, and laid down on my stomach in hopes of getting some sleep. Before getting completely settled, Charly put on this powder stuff on my legs that Martha’s dad had given her when she was really burnt. Turns out the powdered stuff was cornstarch! I have no idea why but it worked like a miracle worker and took away all the pain throughout the whole night!! Note to self: next time I get sunburnned (which, for me, is inevitable) use cornstarch!!
Saturday April 30th and Sunday May 1st
Saturday and Sunday was a whole lot of nothing, besides walking around Charly’s neighborhood, piling lotion on my legs and sleeping. It was the last day of freedom before school started again.
Monday May 2nd
It was a regular day at school, everyone said their hello’s after a long time of not seeing each other, and then things went back to normal. After school I went to my english class, and even though I hadn’t really noticed at the time, I really missed teaching the little kids english over the holidays. After teaching english I had my spanish class until 8pm. When I got back to Charly’s house, we had something to eat and then went to my house
Big announcement
After giving it a lot of thought and consideration, and planning, I have to decided to come back to Mexico hopefully this September and stay for a year, if not longer. I have been looking into apartments and houses to rentm and looking into everything I will need to come back to Mexico.
Tuesday May 3rd
After school got out, Charly came over and we looked into more apartments and visas and possible job opportunities. Tere made chicken so we ate chicken and salad just before we left for our interview. Teresa had talked to her nephew the day before and they talked about Charly and I coming in a couple days a week to work. I was excited and nervous at the same time. Interviews are scary enough without the bonus of having them in another language! It went pretty good though, we just talked about expectations, and how it’s a learning experience, etc, etc. Having talked for about 45 minutes, we figured out that we would come in Tuesday’s and Thursday’s from 5 until whatever time they needed us, and as we gained experience we could work more days if we wanted. I went to bed that night super excited- that’s probably why I couldn’t sleep.
Wednesday May 4th
We were supposed to have a spanish class but instead we were celebrating Día del Niño- even though it was on April 31st. Arriving at the club at 4, the fun would soon begin. The moment the water balloons were filled up, I passed them out to the kids who then began crazily throwing them at each other. The maestra was on the second floor looking over the railing with a hose in one hand and some water balloons in the other, waiting for the perfect moment to drench the kids that were running around below her. Once the water balloons had run out, the water fight slowly came to a slow hault. It was unfortunate that the fun was over so soon but one by one the shivering children came into the main classroom to grab their towels and dry clothes so they could go change. Chagned and dry again, everyone came into the main classroom awaiting what kind of fun would be had next. Out came the chocolate candies and refresco and the faces of the children lit up like Christmas lights. However, there was a catch in order to get candy. They needed to answer questions in english, and the people learning spanish, in spanish. Charly and I had to leave at 6 was supposed to be at Charly’s house soon. 6:20pm Christian rang the doorbell and we all braced ourselves for the worst. Suprisingly it didn’t take long at all- Charly’s talk to the longest because she was actually having problems, but mine, Martha’s, and Martha’s moms’ talk with Christian took probably 10-15 minutes max. Later that evening we went back to my house ate supper, looked into more houses for rent and fell asleep around 1-2am.
Thursday- Cinco de Mayo!!!!
I was so excited to hear that we didn’t have classes. Funny, because even though we didn’t have class, I still worked on my social from back home. Around 3pm Charly and I got ready- tonight was our first day of work at Olio Bistro. 4pm we had something to eat and at 4:45 Teresa drove us over to the mall where the restaurant was. Being that it was our first day, we asked Teresa to come in with us, as neither of us knew what to say. When Diego (Alvaro’s(owner) brother) met us at the front, Teresa left and we were on our own. He took us downstairs where the big kitchen was-there was one on the upper level too but it was more for simple things. Diego introduced us to the head chef, and got us an apron (the kind that goes around your waist) and left us in the hands of the head chef. Not going to lie, the head chef looked scary- like if you breathed at the wrong time you were fired. The head chef introduced us to what I assumed was his sus chef and told her to get us to help with whatever she needed help with. The first thing she had us do was cut cherry tomatoes and cucumbers. I finished cutting the cherry tomatoes in half fairly quickly so next she had me cut the crust off a large baguette type bread. This proved to be very difficult as it was pretty hard. Once the crust was cut off, I had to cut it all into small cubes, and after I finished that I melted down butter with oil and garlic. Soon as it started to boil I took it off of the burner and brought it to where the cubes of bread were. Sprinkling on some salt and pepper on the bread and taking a paintbrush, I slowly poured some of the butter mixture and began to ‘paint’ the cubes so that it all got covered. Spreading the soaked cubes-soon-to-be-croutons on a cooking sheet, I put them into the oven and moved onto the next thing. The head chef had me make a big vat of blue cheese dressing, first I had to squeeze fresh lemon juice- then he put in a bunch of ingredients which I don’t remember (next time I’ll make sure to take a bunch of mental pictures and notes haha) The next ingredient was blue cheese, lots, and lots, and lots of blue cheese. I had to crumble all of it by hand into a giant mixing bowl where the other ingredients were- it was a couple pounds of blue cheese alone. Even though I’m not a huge fan of blue cheese, it did look and smell good once it was all mixed. Next, Kenya had me chop parsely, I got nice green fingernails and knuckles from that. Scrubbing to get it off without any success, I moved on to the next job-cheesecake. Charly got the pan and crust ready while I did the filling. It was just a regular cheesecake but had the zest of orange in it. At the time Charly was grating cheese so I had to wait to use the grater. Beginning to grate (or ‘zest’ if you will) the orange peel I was very careful as to not lose grip of the grater (it was basically the same long skinny one we have at home in Canada) or the orange. Avoiding grating my fingers-mmm that would have been a lovely suprise for the customers lol- I finished the job. Of course not before I dropped the stupid orange into the batter -__- Smart as that was, the only thing I could do was fish it out and wipe it off, and move on. We were beginning to wrap up the night so a lot of the jobs were just preparing now. We were wrapping carpacio (the meat was from Canada) in plastic wrap and then in tin foil. Suprisngly took us a long time to get it all wrapped, well it felt like a long time, and there was a lot to wrap! The next few jobs were simple preparing jobs; take the rice from the pan and put it into a bucket, peel the roasted garlic, and lastly, mix flour and yeast together. Throughout the night while we were working, my fears of the head chef disappeared. He was always joking around with the staff, at one point he turned on the tv to a soccer game and everyone was watching while working and cheering, later he went to get me and charly water bottles, and grabbed a beer for himself. Here’s a little bit of background of the restaurant; the restaurant is owned by Teresa’s nephew, and decorated by Teresa’s sister in law-she has impecible taste by the way. All of his ingredients are fresh-in fact, a lot of the vegetables German papa grows on his ranch goes to Olio Bistro, Alvaro(owner) travels all over the world for ingredients and business- a few days before we started working there he travelled to Canada to get salmon to put on his menu. The menu changes everyday! Even though the prices are on the expensive side for a restaurant in Mexico, the food looks and smells delicious. At the end of our shift they offered us dinner, I was really hungry and I’m sure it would have been good, but I felt a little awkward so we politely declined. Our shift ended at 8:30pm, and Teresa was coming for us at 9pm so we still had half an hour to burn. We walked around the mall until Teresa called to say that she was there. Thankfully Soriana (like Safeway) is open 24 hours because it was almost 10 by the time we got there- Charly had wanted to to buy some things to make a birthday cake for our friends birthday party tomorrow night. The icing is in the same isle as the bread and condiments for bread. What happened next was the best discovery ever!---- they have Smuckers jam !!!!! This may seem like a simple discovery when, in fact, it was not. The jam Tere and her family use in the house- for lack of better words- absolutely disgusting. I don’t know what it is, it’s strawberry and has sugar, so I don’t understand why it’s so gross, but it is. With our cake and decoration ingredients in hand along with 2 jars of strawberry jam and peanut butter, we paid for our stuff and went home. The first thing we did as soon as we got home was make a PB&J sandwhich will a tall glass of milk. The milk I have at my house is in a carton (and it’s the kind that doesn’t need to be refrigerated) so I was a little scared to try it, but I found that the lalalight brand is not half bad when it’s cold. Showered, relaxed, and tummy full of PB&J, yes, today was definitely a good day.
Friday May 6th
First day in a long while that I have been not only allowed to sleep in, but I have ! It was heaven =) Even though i woke up at 9:30am I would still consider it sleeping in. I got to take my sweet time waking up and getting ready. Charly had already showered and was having breakfast in the kitchen. What’s for breakfast? PB&J and milk with some fruit, great start to a great day. A little before noon we got dressed and got our bags ready and walked to shcool. Arriving to school a few seconds after the bell had rung for class to start we climbed up the stairs to the sixth semester classroom and hung out with the kids in Charly’s class. The last bell rang, and we were once again free. In the front of the school gathered the kids from Charly’s class and where I usually go after school to talk to them. There we waited for Martha’s dad to come pick us up. Waiting for almost an hour, her dad finally got to the school and we headed back to Martha’s s house. Charly unpacked her bag and grabbed some clean clothes and other things she needed and we made our way back to my house. It was around 3:30pm by the time we got to my house, and we had six hours to get everything ready before we were supposed to leave for the party. First things first: bake the cake and let it cool. I don’t know what it is about the ovens here but it takes forever to cook things that shouldn’t take forever. The cake usually only takes 30 minutes to cook but it took just over an hour. Pulling the finally cooked cakes out of the oven and putting them on the counter to cool, we changed and went to the mall to find an outfit for Charly to wear. One hour, and a shirt and dress later and we were ready to head home. We only had two hours to get ready. Thankfully I had showered that morning so all I had to do was curl my hair and get dressed. First, I had to figure out what I was going to wear. Deciding on skinny jeans, white with silver sequin shirt, and heels (courtesy of Tere) I changed back into my ‘home wear’ and helped decorate the cake. This is when disaster struck. We got the first layer down onto the plate, iced it and then sprinkled m&m’s on top where the other layer would go. We got the second layer on top and had a little difficulty icing it, but with a little patience we got it done. All of a sudden, the top layer split in half! We were kind of screwed at that point. After a few minutes of freaking out, we decided to just make a clean cut off the top layer so now it resembled stairs-sort of. We re-iced the cake and then put ‘Feliz Cumple Ricardo’ using candies. In the process of all of this, there was cake and icing all over ourselves, counters and floor. All in all in was a fun time even though the cake wasn’t exactly how we wanted it to be. Time to wash up and get ready! I curled my hair, put on some mascara, brushed my teeth and then got dressed. We had like 5 minutes before Martha’s mom was supposed to pick us up.Rushing to do last minute things we headed out the door and got into the car. All the parents (Tere’s & Martha’s) were outside of the house so they all stood around at talked for half an hour!!! Geez people, c’mon!! you can talk some other time when we DON’T have to be some where to be. After a little difficulty finding the house we were at the party. It didn’t take long to find Ricardo to give him his cake. We took a few pictures and then we parted ways. The night was filled with loud music, crazy dancing, and lots of talking. 3 and a half hours later Martha’s parents were there to pick us up at take us home. I didn’t get any sleep that night
Saturday May 7th
Around 9:30am Charly woke up and we headed downstairs to have breakfast. We headed to my house about 2pm and I was so ready to crash. Charly had the brilliant idea to make mashed potatoes, so out came the potatoes, peeler, and a big pot of boiling water. The butter they have here tastes kind of funny, and -no offense- ruins the taste of mashed potatoes. We raided the fridge for something that would give the mashed potatoes a delicious flavor they desperately needed. We found a brilliant solution- Ranch dressing; it’s creamy, and adds a great flavor. I will definitely be doing this even when I get back to Canada =) It was so nice to have mashed potatoes again haha. Now that our stomachs were full and we were still dead tired, we went to bed. I got 4 hours of sleep: when I woke up I saw the time- 9pm- and thought it was 9am Monday! Had an ‘o crap’ moment and scrambled to get out of bed, then I realized it was still Saturday. I got out of bed and went into the kitchen where Charly and Teresa were, and stayed up talking to them for a few hours. Going back to my room because I was dead tired, I stayed up writing this journal until I fell asleep around 1 am
Sunday-May 8th
Another lazy day of catching up on sleep, writing, and working on my social. Around 5 pm I finally came out of my room lol. Teresa, German papa, Aldo, Tere, and Charly were there cooking supper. German papa had cooked an italian meal- pasta, chicken in a delicious sauce with squash, and cauliflower with cheese. The food was amazing as always when German papa cooks. Aldo offered to take us girls to Andares for ice cream, so we piled into his car and left. Tere wanted to go to Dairy Queen, but in Andares there isn’t one so we just went to a Ben&Jerry’s stand. Tere and Aldo had an ice cream brownie sundae, and me and Charly had a small ice cream-coconut seven layer &chocolate chip cookie dough. Thank goodness it was small, it was amazing but so rich! At around 9pm Charly and I walked to Oxxo to buy gatorade and nuts. When we got back, Charly and I checked out more apartments/houses for sale- slowly falling asleep around 1:30am.
Monday-May 9th
Monday morning I spent with the sixth semester in their classes. The last two classes of the day I went to the library to work on my social, and get caught up on my writing. Since it was monday, after school I went to Martha’s house, and just before 4 I walked to the language club and taught English. It was another good class of teaching, this class we played a game, it was kind of like bingo. 5:30 I got back to Charly’s house and relaxed for about an hour-I was so tired and had a really bad headache starting. We got to my house just past 7 and got ready to go to the gym. At 8pm was Abs&Waist and at 9 was yoga. Abs&Waist was a nice workout and yoga was relaxing and stretched out the muscles I had just used. Not even going to lie, I almost fell asleep during yoga. 10pm we got to the house and decided to make a salad for supper. I chopped the lettuce and onions while Charly chopped the tomatoes and cucumbers. Grabbing the dressing and panela(type of cheese) out of the fridge, we sat down to have a nice meal after a great workout 😊 For dessert we shared a banana and had some frozen strawberries with peanut butter...it was pretty amazing; on another note, I think I might be addicted to peanut butter hahaha. i still didn’t fall asleep until 1:30am... tomorrow’s going to be fun.
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Grama Lemuel
non-member comment
see you soon
sounds like you are having a great time. it will be good to see you when you get home. i know how you feel about mexico . i had the same feelings after a year in barbados. but i was glad to be back with family . the only thin that could have been better would have been barbados with my family there. see you when you get home love you lots grama