Ruin Photos

Here are some photos from the ruins we have visited so far. The top two are from Teotihuacan-- first a photo of the ancient city followed by some detail from a pyramid. The big pyramid there is one of the largest in the world! Pretty cool.... The bottom three are from Monte Alban: 1)cityscape 2) me on pyramid steps 3) ancient "ball court"-- they used to have to move the ball around by hitting it with their hips and such....

Random Thoughts: "Work" life, and life in general

So... who knew? Teaching English turns out to be a job we both have quite an affinity for! Honestly, it is really fun, and neither of us feel like it fits the definition of "work" at all (except for the fact that we get paid--not much--but we are paid nonetheless). We are both working a whopping 17.5 hours a week, usually in the evenings. So, our days pretty much go like this:
Wake up around 10 am, hang out, do yoga, eat, hang out, watch some TV, read, play the guitar (Billy), play Cribbage, read, hang out, eat, read over lesson plans, walk to work, "work", walk home, hang out, eat, watch movies, eat popcorn with chile, and eventually sleep. Start over. It`s a good life. However, we may have lung cancer by the time we get back. Thanks to our route along a freeway entrance, our walk to work is nicely accented by copious car emmissions. Lots and lots and lots of car emissions. We could probably etch our names on each other every day by scraping through what feels like inches of black film on our skin.
Since the lung cancer seems inevitable, I am trying to evade skin cancer during our walks by donning a super-sexy sombrero-ish hat I got from WalMart. I shall enlighten and delight you with a photo later. Try to contain yourselves. I am especially attractive upon arrival to work due to the fact that the hat, though it shields my skin from the sun it so very hates, it also retains heat. It just so happens that Queretaro is a lot hotter than we expected it to be, so my face and hair are usually sweat-laden upon our arrival.

Random Thoughts: Food in Mexico

Well, as we mentioned before, Billy is more than excited about the cuisine here. I do use the term "cuisine" loosely, but the food really IS good, and I´m becoming more and more of a fan myself. However, the eats here are also amusing and they do take some getting used to. For example....

*Eggs in the grocery stores are NOT refrigerated. Granted people do tend to refrigerate them once they have been purchased, but until then, theyjust hang out by the dozen with the room temperature produce.

*Billy has suddenly become a sweets fan, mostly thanks to the pan dulce here (aka pastries). The pan dulce is sold everywhere, and in the grocery stores they have shelves and shelves of pan dulce varieties sitting out in the open (likely to tempt passers-by via scent and close encounter). Rather than protect the sweet goodness with the obvious protection of glass or plastic enclosure, most places instead strategically place fly traps in and around the area. Fly carcass + home-made dingdong? How could one possibly resist?

*Although many things here are significantly less expensive, some of our favorites are decidedly more costly. For example, Ben and Jerry`s ice cream in the states is appx $3. Here? Oh, at least twice that-- hence, we are not going to have many movie nights accompanied by Chunky Monkey. But, you know, my birthday is coming, so...

*While in an Oaxacan restaraunt, we were delivered our food bill on a sticky note! Despite the seeming novelty of the situation, we have observed that sticky notes are quite the popular vehicle of record-keeping here. The clerk at the gift shop in Teotihuacan took inventory of our sale on a notepad, as have many other store keepers. In fact, a few stores/restaurants haven`t even bothered with the formality of a pen and paper- they have just come to the table and announced the amount we owe :)

*We did mention that we ate cooked grasshoppers, right?

*ORANGE JUICE! Ok....this is why I`m in love with Mexico. So I`m easy to please, so what? Anyway, seriously-- the orange juice here is ridiculous. We can buy a litre of fresh-squeezed OJ in the grocery store or at a restaurant for appx US$1.00 - $1.70. That, and the pan dulce, and the tacos al pastor, and the produce, and the 17-hour work week might just keep me here (just kidding, Mom).

*Speaking of produce...aahhh...try super fresh and juicy and not-dry-like-American-fruit deliciousness. Especially the Mexican papaya, cantalope, mangos, oranges, grapefruits, avocados, etc. etc. etc.

*Chili/chile. Most things have it. Even ice cream. We got a vanilla/chocolate cone in el centro (which was delicious, by the way), and they both tasted distinctly like chile.

*Popcorn with chile sauce and mango with chile sauce. Need we say more?

*Avocado and banana smoothie. Don`t freak out, just try it. One avocado, two bananas, a little sugar, and enough milk to make it however thick or thin you want. Everyday, at least once a day.

*Meat just hanging out--without refrigeration--in the markets, everywhere.

*Remember my tale of the fatty fatty lamb-fat taco breakfast? It comes accompanied with lamb fat soup.

*Comida Corrida: (translates more or less literally into "running food", but what it really means is "four course meal"). These are popular during lunch time (akin to American happy hour) for a measly US $3.50.

The Story of Gino(a)

Well, we were parents!....for about 5 or 6 days. It went like this:

On the day we were moving out of the empty mattress-on-the-floor house, we looked out the window and saw a baby bird hopping around in a futile effort to fly. He had something stuck to his foot and was obviously trying to escape it. Anyway, we caught him and helped untangle the string, etc from his foot. Then we tried to find where he had come from: Billy was climbing up on the roof looking for nearby nests and such. We couldn´t find any nests in the back, but we had previously recognized a nest in the front. We had seen the parents of that empty nest hanging around, so we decided to put our little orphan up there to see if he would be adopted. Well, not so much. The parents of that nest apparently didn´t appreciate the newcomer and basically attacked him. So....after feeling quite bad about putting our refugee into a deathtrap, WE decided to adopt him! We put him in a bucket nest and packed him along with the rest of our stuff to our new apartment.

Since we weren´t sure what adoptive human parents are supposed to feed a wild baby bird, we decided to try milk and baby veggie lasagna via syringe. The little guy definitely seemed hungry and was pecking excitedly for food. He suffered a few shots of milk to the face due to our lack of syringe-food-giving experience, but hey, we tried! After researching on the internet a bit, we found out we shouldn´t be giving him liquids, so we stuck to giving him veggie lasagna via spoon. Since the little guy/girl really seemed to like lasagna (as opposed to the higher-protein options we tried), we decided to give him the italian name of Gino(Gina if it was a girl).

Gino(a) was so freakin cute!! The little guy just could not be contained. It didn´t take him long to figure out how to escape his bucket-- the first time he did so he came hopping from our bedroom into the living room where we were hanging out. He obviously had decided to adopt us as parents, cuz he came right up to us and would hop into our hands, etc. In the mornings he would hop out of his bucket and jump around, chirping, to get us to wake up and feed him. One morning he jumped onto the bed and hopped right up into the nape of my neck. Ahhh... to be trusted and loved by a wild animal: not the worst feeling in the world!

Gino(a) also may have been a bit vain cuz he really liked to be clean and pretty. He would preen his feathers and even took a couple baths! We would put a little water on a plate and he would birdie-roll around in it. Honestly, one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

Now to the sad end: About 5 days after taking him home, we had to go to a training at work. When we got home several hours later, our birdie had flown :( ! The window in our bedroom was open, and although we thought it impossible for him to fly so early, apparently he suddenly developed the insight, or he climbed up the curtains and then jumped out the window. He left us a birdie poop by the window seal as a clue/goodbye. Gino(a) was tiny so we hope the best for his welfare! It appears the little guy/girl was just too much of an adventurer to be restrained--neither by his natural birdie nest nor our huge aparment human nest! We miss him, but are also proud of his spirit and boldness. And that, my friends, is the story of Gino(a).