Cochinillas!

Okay. So today is definitely flashback to the United States day... This morning Olivia and Abby and I took a taxi to Office Depot, which although had many things from the US, still felt like Mexico because of the crazy things they like to put on the front of their notebooks here... I found notebooks with cartoons of cows, hippos, paintings, and other random things on their covers.

Then we walk across the street to Sears. As soon as we walk in, I feel like I'm back in Oregon, in a mall. It even SMELLS like a mall in the US, which is weird because most things here don't smell like they do at home; the air's different, the detergents for the clothes are different, the food is different... but SEARS is the exact same. It's probably because of this whole feeling-like-I'm-home syndrome that makes me forget about bathrooms in Mexico... I walk into the bathroom and spend about 10 minutes in confusion, because there usually isnt toilet paper in the stalls, you have to get it from the lady that's ALWAYS in the bathroom, or you have to get paper towels, and you have to throw your toilet paper away in a bin rather than flush it, and you have to tip the awkward bathroom lady... I really don't like mexican bathrooms.

When I get home my mom is sitting in her kitchen and Santiago, the grandson, is watching Spongebob while eating lunch... another flashback to Brayden watching Spongebob and my sisters singing the song. Spongebob calls Patrick PATRICIO, "Ayyy, Patricio!", which is what I always call MY friend Patrick... and ON TOP OF IT ALL it's CLOUDY right now. Just like Oregon.

Well, unlike in Oregon, last night we went to a bar! The group got together after our excursion (we were rather impressed with ourselves, as we all started out as tired, exhausted, and dirty from the long day we had climbing up mountains to look at caves and tasting mezcal and eating worms and looking at the most massive tree in the world... and we ended up looking pretty and dressed up and proud of our great attempts we made to hide how tired we were) and we went out to dinner. It was a place that was a bit more expensive than we thought it would be, but it didn't matter because they had a great band playing... well I can't really say band and have it have the same conotations that it does in the US, because it was a group of mexican men and one woman all dressed up and playing guitars and singing songs in Spanish. Then they came and surrounded our table, counted, "Uno, dos, tres!" and then they all cat-called at us, to which we just laughed, embarassed. Then they all played their guitars and sang a song about love (like always), and moved on to the next table.

The first bar we went to wasn't really what I would call exciting... it was more of a bar where you sit with sophistocated people and drink wine and talk about things such as politics or literature or the French... although there were some pretty funny attempts at drunken salsa dancing. Soon we moved on to a bar we had heard alot about, "El elefante", which was MUCH more of what I thought a bar here would be like! It had great music playing, and the atmosphere is more... young and hip, I guess you could say. It was also two drinks for one night... we bought 2 shots and 2 mai tais for 100 pesos, which is less than 10 dollars. We also danced. The mexican boys here are pretty great dancers, but being a bit intoxicated I couldn't really understand what my dance partner was saying to me over all the music and the language barrier problems... the only thing I understood was "me amas? me amas?" (do you love me?) Thank god for Beau, one of the guys in our group, who likes to cut in and dance with us when he thinks that we want a break, and then lead us off the dance floor.

Today is saturday, which means that we have the lunch with their daughter and her family... including Santiago! Today for our little adventure after lunch, Remigio, Santiago and I went looking for cochinillas (potato bugs) in the garden, so that Santiago could play with them. "Cochinillas! Cochinillas! Donde estan?" he kept saying, with his child accent that all children have, no matter what language they speak.

Already I'm starting to slightly miss living in a culture where I dont constantly have to THINK about the culture... Where I can just talk without having to think about every word I say and listen without making an effort, where I can eat whatever I want whenever I want however MUCH I want, where I can watch movies, understand the jokes, cuddle with my boyfriend, call and text with my phone, walk around town without being stared at, BELONG. Where I dont have to pay a lady in the bathroom to give me the damn toilet paper. But then I remember that I'm in MEXICO for only 3 months. And that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I can learn so much from! I really am truly happy to be here, its just so different, and a bit difficult to get used to. And I feel blessed to have one of my best friends, Olivia, here with me... it makes things so much easier, to know that I do have at least one of my loved ones here with me, and that we can go through this together. We both miss the same things and most of the same people, but we both know that this is a great time and that we'll enjoy it. Being a part of another culture and learning about it from WITHIN it is an amazing experience for me, no matter the tiny setbacks of comfort.