surfing is rad

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it appears to be time for another recap. this last week has been pretty laid back with a lot of plaza visits, pools, and movies...just the way i like it.
Last Sunday (way back in october) me Emmy Antonio Lucy and Nina met in the Plaza for dinner. We tried the Mediterrarean restaurant and it was super good. afterwards we went to the cathedral for the requime of mozart....it was awesome. There was litterally an orchestra and choir inside the cathedral and the lights were on all cool and they sounded so amazingly good. i felt like i was in a dream....except they shut the fans off so you could hear it better and the place was packed and i couldn´t even breath. so we ended up outside watching most of it on the big screen they had set up. it was really nice to just chill out and listen to some music...it was like classical slash opera and i was surprised at how much i liked it. I forgot my camera though so unfortunately i have no pics of it.
On MOnday I bought my host family a huge cake from Panama. It was really good. I gave it to them and said thank you for everything and they were so happy it was cute. my host brother ate basically half of it in one night. Me Emmy and Jason met at Rico´s cafe to work on our project and then ended up moving to Jason´s house to finish it. It was entertaining because we just all laid on his bed and got distracted and started talking about the most random things. it was a good time cause we were all in stupid giggly moods.
On Tuesday I went to bongos which was great AGAIN. we learned some african stuff which was really cool. Then I went home and packed up all my stuff and got ready to move to the golden zone. it was sad. me carlos heather and ashley met in the plaza for my last night living in old mazatlan. we had a few drinks and then headed home. On Wednesday after class Carlos helped me move and we drove and got all my stuff and took it to my new place in the golden zone called teh raquet club. it was really sad to say bye to my host mom but i will be visiting her for sure so its ok. me and CLuadia got all our stuff settled and then we had to go back to Old Town to the Plaza where a bunch of classes were meeting at 7 for the day of the dea celebration. Day of the Dead was actually on THursday, but on Wednesday night when we met there was a huge parade where we all walked around Old Mazatlan for about 2 hours. The parade was to symbolize the long journey that all the spirits of the dead were making in order to make it to their family and friends for the day for the day of the dead which was the next day.
There were so many people in the parade march thinger it was amazing. lots of them were tourists and i could tell they had no idea what was going on so that was a little annoying but it was still a really cool experiecne. There was a band playing Mexican music and a bunch of guys dressed up in the funniest most elaborate costumes ever. There was also 2 donkeys...and each of them pulled a wooden cart holding 2 kegs. Police officers were on the carts pumping the kegs and handing out cups of beer to everyone in the parade. It was so random. They would stop the donkey ever 10 minutes or so and give out about 20 cups of beer and then go again. I found my host brother Memo drunk and basically glued to the back of the cart getting all the free beer he could.....so funny, especially considering hes only 15. what a guy. After the parade me and Jason stopped at a cafe and had some food and then headed back to the golden zone. its so awesome now cause we live in the same apartments so we can be travelling buddies. anyways, so we were on the bus home and were like...hey lets just ride the bus all the way to the end untilit turns around. we were being really random and thought it was a good idea at the time. us and a family at the front were the only ones on the bus and we just kept riding it and laughing at stupid things. then the lady at the front was like "where are you guys going" and jason told her back that way....we sounded like idiots. when we asked her where she was going she was like I´m with him and pointed to the bus driver. So ya they were basically waiting for us to get off the entire time so they could go home. we felt like assholes but at the same time it was really funny. the bus driver turned around and took us back....we definately didn´t realize it was his last route of the night....oops. after apologizing about 50 times we got off. That was probably our dumbest idea yet.
On Thursday for Day of Dead I skipped my class and helped Heather make her altar for her brother who passed away 2 years ago. There were lots of altars made at school because a few of the exchange student classes had that as a project. So i helped heather with hers and we put on candles, pictures, food that he liked, flowers, and some other stuff that she had. Afterwards me and Jason and Carlos went and played basketball for about 2 hours. me and carlos were talking smack to each other and it was entertaining. That night because it was day of the dead me and heather and ashley (whose from hawaii) did this traditional thing they do in hawaii where they throw flowers in the ocean to honor the dead or the let things go and really whatever you want to do it for. So we did that and then me and heather and jason went to the plaza....again....for supper. We ate the foods that her brother and mom really liked. i had lasagna and cheesecake and it was glorious. We reminisced about them and it was just an all around good night. afterwards we walked around old town and took tons of pictures of the cathedral all lit up at night which is relaly beautiful.
On Friday after spanish me nina emmy lucy and munroe went out for chinese food which was so cheap and good it was amazing. then me carlos and heather had a few drinks, ate some guacamole which jason is a machine at making and then went to bora bora. we danced up a storm but left early and carlos ended up puking at the drive thru of Burger King. it was funny becuase he NEVER pukes and hes so proud of it. we all made fun of him.
Saturday I went to MEGA with jason and got a bunch of groceries seeing as I have to cook for myself now. then me and heather went to walmart and LEY and got a bunch of pictures developed. We made Carlos a really coold collage type thing out of all of them becuase he is leaving sometime this week. he really liked it and it was fun to make so everything worked out. We cut out a bunch of pictures and i didn´t realize it but as we were doing it heather was randomly putting pictures all over my apartment in the most random places. i found most of them the next morning and laughed.
Yesterday morning me nina and jason went for a SURF LESSON. it was SO fun. i even stood up and rode the wave into the shore....only once, but i still did it. nina and jason were amazgin and stood up basically every time...i was jealous. I think i´m gonna rent a board for a month if its not too expensive and keep working on it. I am pretty sore today...especially my arms but it was just so fun its worth it. our instructor was really funny too and everytime i took off he´d be like "you need stand up sarah......si si" it was funny.
afterwards we went and watched aa movie at jasons cause we were so wiped.
TOday i need to head down to centro again because me and 2 other girls need to interview this tourism council thing for class. this week sucks cause i have quite a bit of work to do and another spanish exam on wednesday.
Its jason´s birthday on thursday and theres supposed to be a miniature running of the bulls or something like that on a street in old town or somthing like that. i had it explained to me in spanish so i didn´t relaly understand it all...but it will be interesting none the less. carlos should be leaving sometime this week so that will be sad but he might be back for Xmas so i will be here if he is.
TIme is going by so fast it is not cool. In less than 3 weeks i will be done classes and everyone will be leaving. it will be so weird to be in mazatlan without the other excahgne students.
adios
sarah

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