Puerto Escondido!

Puerto Escondido is basically the love of my LIFE. I couldn't really tell you exactly what has happened every day, as they all kindof run together now, but this is the basis of my week: laying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, eating quesadillas, drinking on the beach, sunbathing, eating quesadillas, making new friends. Its absolutely beautiful all the time, our hotel is right on the beach and I can see the ocean from where I'm sitting right now... This beach has the 3rd best surf in the world, there are surf competitions here but unfortunately for the single girls of the group, not right now. And though the days do seem to run together, here are a few memories that stick out in my mind:

1. Our bus ride was 9.5 hours; we left at 11 pm and rode all night. I tried to sleep, but the road was so curvy that my head kept wipping around all the time and waking me up, so basically NO SLEEP for an entire night. we got into Puerto Escondido around 8:30, took a taxi to our hotel, dropped our stuff off and went to find some breakfast at one of the many thatched-roof huts on the side of the beach.

2. A guy walks up to us at sunset one evening and asks us if we would like to go on a boat tour the next morning, and we say our favorite catch phrase here, "Why not?" So the next morning we wake up with the sun and ride in the back of a truck to this beach, where we meet Jesus and Julio, our guides for the next few hours as we ride around on the ocean in a boat, looking at dolphins, sea turtles, and stingrays. Then the drop us off at a beautiful beach, where we get to chill for a few hours and of course drink margaritas and eat quesadillas. They came to pick us up a few hours later.

3. We have decided that the cheese here has some sort of crack in it, as the only thing we all CRAVE are quesadillas. There hasn't been one day where I haven't had them!

4. One restaurant gave us chips and salsa for an appetizer, and we all gasped when the waitress up them on the table in front of us... since we've been in Mexico, no one has served us chips and salsa. This basically made our entire day.

5. Sitting on the beach with everyone, holding a beer, and staring up at the stars, realizing that I haven't seen the southern half of the sky before. The big dipper was upside down and the North Star was almost on the horizon. It really makes me realize how far away I actually am from home.

6. Beau making fun of Abby and I, because we were talking about our Senior Projects. "I baked a cake!" Abby said. "I made a quilt!" I added. "Wow, nice to meet you Betsy and Marge." Beau snorted.

7. It is not possible for 8 girls to live together and spend almost every moment together and for there to not be girl drama. Impossible. ANNOYING.

8. Our many friends we've made: The surfer boys we met on the first day who asked us to hold their stuff while the surfed... "Hi, I'm Golden." You suuuure are buddy. "More like crispy burnt." Linnaea said when they walked away. The Guys Downstairs, who lived below us for the first part of the week and who we liked to go hang out with. Jesus and Julio, our boat guides, who invited us to a bar on monday night. We continue to see Julio everywhere, which is becoming a bit awkward as we tried to set up Linnaea with him and they didn't really work out (She decided that he probably dates all the tourist girls and likes to keep a tally of them). Tom the New Zealander, who likes to hit on me and Olivia, especially Olivia, because I've made it clear about the whole, "I have an American boyfriend" thing. He definitely gave Olivia a kiss or two on her hand, and likes to make jokes that you usually make with people you know better and not girls you just met. Eric and friends, boys from New York who didn't think they'd get burnt from the sun because they went tanning before they came. Riiiiight, nice try boys. The best part about these boys though was the fact that we got to give them advice about Mexico, as if we were locals! We recommended places to go, what bus to take, told them that yeah don't drink the water but you can probably still brush your teeth with it, and gave them the best news they had ever heard, "The peso is 13 to a dollar, not 7, morons."

8. Tonight a little boy came up to us and tried to sell us muffins, and because he was so adorable, we bought some. "You look like movie stars," he said later, coming back to our table. "Awwww!" we exclaim. "Want a muffin?" Erm. No. We already hopped on that boat and we're not falling for your cuteness again. "No, but you have really good english!" We tell him, hoping that'll console him.

9. The decisions we have to make here are SO difficult... What dress should I buy? Which drink should I get? Should I get crepes or an omelet for breakfast? Should we go to this beach or that one? Should I tan or go swimming? Do I want to sit in a hammock or a chair? Do I want dessert? Our arguments are as equally hard... I think that tequila goes better with mango. Well I think RUM goes better, etc. We've got some life-changing decisions to make here, as well as monumental arguments to discuss. It feels great not to think about anything other than food, drinks, and beaches. I know that that can't last FOREVER, but for now it's perfect.

Seriously this is probably one of the best vacation I've ever been on, its so different with girlfriends than with your family. I'm definitely coming back here someday and would recommend it to ANYONE. Its absolutely my favorite part of Mexico so far, and we are all dreading returning to Oaxaca, where we actually have to go to school and do homework and listen to lectures and speak spanish all the time and THINK. Not saying that this won't be, you know, beneficial to our education... but this right now is the perfect break from everything.

Fish Soup

Exactly 6 hours until our bus leaves for Puerto Escondido... we had to book our tickets for 11:00 pm tonight, because they didn't have any buses leaving tomorrow. I think the busride is about 7ish hours, so we'll be there sometime tomorrow morning...? I have no idea what we'll do before we check in to our hotel, perhaps drag our luggage to the beach and stay there and people-watch and maybe get a margarita until our check-in time! We are all extremely excited because today we finally got done with all the stuff we had to do; classes 2 days this week, then a festival for the other 2 days. We had 2 exams last week and that 5-page paper, which I believe all turned out alright! My debit card arrived on tuesday, and now my faith in the Mexican postal service has been renewed.

Yesterday we left for San Miguel Tequixtepec, an extremely small town somewhere north of Oaxaca City. We arrive by bus and there is absolutely NO ONE in the city square, which we think is extremely weird for a pueblo in Mexico... eventually we make it to a house thing that's shaped like a C, with a kitchen on one side, a church altar in the middle part of the C, and a place to sit and eat on the other side. In the middle open area is a band, who play basically throughout the ENTIRE fiesta. All we can see are men; apparently all the women are cooking outside, away from everything else. The ground is LITTERED with beer bottle caps! We sit down and wait for our comida... we're all starving from the trip and from walking around aimlessly all morning. First, they give us some fish soup in a styrofoam cup. I am a little unsure about this at first, but I see Abby put saltine crackers in hers, and so I do the same, and it actually turns out alright... By the end though I don't really want any more of the fishyness so I put the wrapper on top of the leftovers and hope that it wouldn't be noticed.

The next part of the meal is the soup. They bring it to me, and I simply stare at it for about 10 minutes before doing anything else. It's a sea-food soup. It's a redish-orange color, with some black things floating on the top. Firstly, there is a chunk of fish with the skin still on it... Okay I might be able to handle that. Then I see shrimp. I don't really like shrimp, but I decide to stir it and see maybe if I could eat it. BAD IDEA. I discover that there are infact 2 huge shrimp in my soup, with their HEADS still on, eyeballs, whiskers and all, staring up at me. Oh, except for one is missing one of it's eyeballs, but DONT WORRY, I find it floating among the black stuff on top. I also dig up some backbones of fish, among other iffy-looking pieces of stuff at the bottom. No. I'm sorry. But this is not Fear Factor and I cannot eat this. My profesora leans over to me, "Stop making faces, it's rude!" Aww crap. So I take a couple sips of the broth, which isn't THAT bad but still is too fishy for me. All I can do is hope that the next part of the meal will be better.

Which of course isn't the case. Next, we get served octopus with the suckers still on it. It's even a nice purpleish color. I try it, because I really can't believe that this meal is going the way that it's going... I have to FORCE it down my throat, it's extremely chewy and has a chicken/fishy taste... Abby tells me later that she spit hers out into a napkin. Smart. So for lunch I eat rice and tortillas. After lunch they have a small mass, at which about 5 of us are holding beer bottles still because these guys just LOVE giving us beer, even if we say, "No gracias!" They still pop it open and shove it into our hands. So guiltily we are holding our Sols, not hearing a word the priest says, and suddenly everyone is walking out and giving us these flower arrangements to hold, and everyone starts walking down the street, through out the town. The procession starts with the women holding about 25 of these flower arrangments (including Beau and Gordon), and then the men walking with candles, and the band playing at the back. We walk all the way to the church, gently place the flowers inside, and then sit and listen to Mass, which is basically like Mass in english back at home; stand up, sit down, cross yourself, stand up, say words in unison, sing, cross yourself again, sit down, say, "paz" (peace be with you) and shake everyones hands around you, smile at the cute kid sitting infront of you who is definitely NOT listening to the sermon but giggling with her sisters and looking at you, stand up, say a prayer, kneel, sit down, etc. The major difference is that the church is EXTREMELY elaborate and decorated, I couldn't understand half of what the priest said, and I didn't have to sit in the pews while everyone else gets up and takes the bread and wine, declaring to all that I'm a sinner who hasn't been baptised. That step was skipped all together in this Mass. When we leave, there's the band! Right outside of the church... how dutiful. They shoot off a couple of the noise fireworks and send us on our way to dinner.

While at dinner, we get served another soup, which I can't finish because they gave me a TON of it, and are also given beer and 2 shots of tequila throughout the night. The band is OF COURSE outside again, playing away, and the women are nowhere to be seen. Our profesora leans over after the meal and says to us girls, "It would be NICE if you danced with them," aka DANCE WITH THEM or I'll be mad. Soooo reluctantly, we all stand up and immediatly are jumped on and asked to dance, which basically consists of a guy holding you extremly close to him and bouncing around, or in Charlottes case, running around in circles with the guy leading her; I could NOT stop laughing watching it! She was simply OUT OF CONTROL and the guy was most likely drunk and didn't realize how crazily he was spinning her. At one point I look up and the guy playing the tuba was also holding up his phone and either texting or taking pictures, I couldn't tell. We try leaving after 2 dances, but NO we can NOT, the guys are DRAGGING us back out on the dance floor against our will, and so we all get roped into dancing one more time. After that song we hurriedly say goodbye, I give my partner a kiss on the cheek, and we SCRAMBLE out of there.

For our sleeping arrangements, we have 3 bunk beds in our room, but they are so unsteady that we are afraid for our lives of sleeping on them, so we drag the 3 top beds onto the floor and Charlotte, Alli and Olivia sleep on them while the rest of us take the bottom bunks. There are no pillows, so I attempt to use my bag, which basically is me sleeping on a piece of cloth for a pillow. I usually don't sleep with blankets over my head but tonight is an exception, because it's FREEZING. We're all sleeping in basically what we wore that day. In the morning at about 4, they set off another round of fireworks, and I feel like we're being attacked during a war. At exactly 6, the band starts playing again for about 15 minutes. "Mexico is never on time, but for THESE occasions, they're RIGHT ON THE BUTTON." Ally says. Then again at about 7:30, they start up the music again, and we're finally get out of bed and are DONE with this hostel. We shove the mattresses back up on the beds and go back to the C place for breakfast (which by this point I'm just AFRAID of), which is a loaf of bread and lamb soup. We then go to a museum and listen to the guy talk for about 2 hours straight, and finally get to get back on the bus and leave.

And NOW I'm gonna start packing! Yay for spring break!

El cajero

Yesterday we canceled our intercambios because we have a 5 page paper due tomorrow along with two exams the day after tomorrow, so we figured this would be beneficial for our studying. Also, Livey decides that it's a good day for a walk, and that we should start walking every day! So we leave at the usual time we leave for intercambios and decide to walk to the Zocalo to find the elusive market where Marina found a foot scrubber, and also Livey needs to see if these pharmacys down here have some medicine she needs, and I need to withdraw more money, as at the moment I only have 11 pesos to my name. So we begin our usual walk to the Zocalo, trying to practice our spanish, and arrive at a pharmacy, where LUCKY US! there's a cajero (ATM) right there inside! Two birds with one stone. Excellent.

So I put my card in, put in my pin number, and tell them I want 1500 pesos (100 US dollars). "Do you want a reciept?" It asks me. Why yes I do. I press the button, and suddenly it goes back to the main screen, "Please insert your card." I was distracted at first and didn't notice what had happened. "Did you get your card back?" Livey asks me. I stare at the machine. No. No I did not. And no money came out either. I look around me, then look back at the machine. Then I look at Livey, and then back at the machine. What? I bang a little bit on the machine. Nothing. Confused, I walk up to the person behind the counter. "Mi tarjeta esta a dentro de la caja." (My card is inside the box) I'm not sure if she understood me, because who even knows if that's correct spanish, so she turns around to leave and then about 10 seconds later I see her taking inventory of a little fridge filled with soda. Ummm... okay.... I walk over to her again, feeling stupid. "Umm, tengo un problema." She looks up. "Digame." (Tell me) I again tried to explain to her my problem, and finally she gets it. She walks over to the machine, inspects it for a bit, says some spanish words to us in which we understood that we had to call the bank to find out what to do. Frustrated, I take the paper and me and Livey head off to find a public telephone. I'm saying small cuss words at this moment, like "damnit, I just want my stupid card back. Just open the dang ATM and get it back to me. Ugh. ITS IN THERE, I KNOW IT IS." and others among those lines.

We finally find a phone and I call the number, trying to understand all the options for all the numbers, which I pretty much fail at, so I just start pressing random numbers and hoping it'll get me to an operator. No such luck. So Livey tries, and she succeeds in getting a ring tone, and hands the phone to me. A lady answers and say some stuff in spanish, and when I think it's my turn to talk, I say, "Hola, soy Ashley, y tengo un problema... mi tarjeta esta a dentro de un cajero." And then she says something very quickly in spanish, and I say, "Otra vez?" (Again?) and she says it again, and I make confused noises, and then the line goes silent, and then dead. Wonderful, she hung up on me. Livey gets back on the line, and I look desperately around for someone to help. There's a guy standing in a store doorway about 20 feet away, thank God for mexican store workers who like to stand in doorways and help shoppers as soon as they even glance at the entryway...

"Senor? Puede ayudarme?" (Can you help me?) He nods and while we're walking the couple steps back to the phone, I explain to him my problem. Livey gives him the phone, which is apparently on hold, and then he totally takes over. He explains everything, says, "ah-huh, ah-huh, si..." several times, talks a little more, asks us where we're from, then suddenly looks at me and says, "la tarjeta esta destruida," and it's then that I start crying uncontrollably while trying to hold it in, which doesn't work very well at all. My card is DESTROYED? WHAT?!? I have no money! I'm in Mexico and I have no money! I didn't even bring my credit card because WHO KNEW something like this would happen?! I HAVE 11 PESOS. THATS LIKE LESS THAN 50 CENTS. I'm stranded. It'll take months to get me a new card. WHAT THE HELL?? Why would the stupid machine destroy my card?! "WHAT the F***" I say out loud (Sorry Mom), and the guy on the phone for us looks at me kinda nervously, and then continues his conversation with the lady on the phone. Livey is trying to calm me down, which isn't working very well. Finally the guy gets off the phone, talks to us for a bit and tells us that we need to call Visa and they can get me a temporary card, but I can't withdraw money from it, and I should call my bank at home and do something... We thank him profusely and start walking home, letting out a string of cuss words, and for once I'm glad that most of the people here don't understand english.

We get back to my house, explain to my mom, and call my profesora. "You need to go down to the bank and demand that they open the ATM and GIVE you at least the pieces of the card that are left, so we KNOW it's destroyed and your bank can send you another one. Go talk to them, you should even SCREAM, DEMAND that you get that card back. You're American, they can't touch you!" I decide that I'm not really comfortable with this, so we decide to meet her at the bank that owns the ATM machine in 15 minutes. When we arrive, the bank has already closed, and my profesora has to yell through two glass doors to be able to talk to the security guy who's on the other side... Eventually we find another public phone and she calls the bank and talks to them for about 10 minutes, in which we figure out that if a card isn't returned from a machine, the bank automatically closes the account. So our profesora hangs up, gives me a calling card, and I call my parents so that they can call my bank and have them close the account and send me a new card, which SHOULD get here within a week, and in the meantime I'll just have to borrown money from Olivia. So today Livey got her walk that she wanted plus some, and we spent 3 hours running around Oaxaca figuring this out rather than writing our 5 page paper and studying. Great.

But of course, whenever something bad happens, something good always seems to follow, no matter how small the good. I came home and finally started working on my paper, and then Constanza, the 6 year old, came into my room and started talking to me. The kids are staying here for the week while their mom is on vacation... The dad also comes over for lunch and dinner and before bed, so that he can say goodnight to the kids and eat the food that my host mom cooks. It's like, when a mom leaves, another mom has to come and take care of the family, because the dad obviously can't cook or take care of the children like a mom can. Anyways, Constanza is SUPER outgoing and energetic, and honestly I feel much more comfortable talking to her than to an adult.
"I have to do homework!" I say, exasperated. In spanish of course.
"Me too! I have 20 math problems and I've only done 1!" She replies, throwing her arms in the air.
"Oh no! That sucks!"
"Yeahhhh!!"
"I have to write a 5 page paper!"
"OOOH NOOOO!!!!"
And so she sits there and watches me write my paper, and I ask her, "Bloquear? Es una palabra, si?" (Thats a word, right?)
"SIIII!!!"
"Y saliera?"
"Pues... SII!! ES UNA PALABRA!" And so on.

Also, we finally succeeded in booking a hotel for Spring Break, at a beach town that's a 6 hour bus ride away, Puerto Escondido. Its right on the beach, has 4 beds so we all get our own, and I looked at the pictures and it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL. We are SO excited to get a week off just to lay around on the beach, eat whatever we want, go to bars, go swimming, go adventuring... My host brother-in-law reccommended the place to me yesterday; when he heard that we were going to Puerto Escondid, he wipped out his cell phone and called a friend for a recommendation of a good hotel. Then when he got one, we looked it up online and he actually CALLED the place and got prices for us, which I thought was just extremely nice and generous of him! So tonight when he came over I told him that that was the hotel we wanted, and he again got out his cell phone and called the place and made the reservations for us, which was amazing because I was going to have pay for the call either to my host mom, because it's expensive to call long distance, or buy a calling card to use on a public phone. I would also have had to talk to the people in spanish, which I'm always a little nervous about over the phone because it's just more difficult than in person. So despite the fact that I still haven't finished that paper, the day had a weird mix of horrible and exciting... adventures don't really have rules.

Fiestas and Clowns

I finally had a breakdown on Thursday... It just all hit me the moment I turned in this spanish quiz and KNEW I had failed it. On top of feeling extremely and utterly stupid, we had just had a TON of homework assigned for the next week. I had also been feeling trapped in my house since the moment we got here with all the homework we had to do, and I wanted to go out and do something fun, but I didn't know where or how to do it! So I had a freak out to Tyler online, who tried to help me calm down but you know how unreasonable girls can be when they're freaking out... I just didn't want to be stuck here on my bed forever doing homework when all I really wanted to do was to be out and DOING stuff and LIVING in the culture rather than reading about it in a book! Eventually I talked to Livey and she suggested having a date that night, out to dinner and dessert. The moment she said it I immediately calmed down, wiped the makeup stains off of my face, and went and ate food, of course. :)

Our date starts out with us walking to this restaurant Liveys sister recommended to us, which ended up being perfect! We get quesadillas and soup, and order some margaritas, which turned out to be rather strong, so by the end of the meal I was feeling pretty good! The ceiling was open so we could see the moon and the stars and there was a band playing and I was just WAITING for people to get up and dance! But they didnt... sad. Next we walk to the Zocalo, and decide to do a lap, which basically means walking around the outside of it and try not to notice all the stares, continually having to say, "No gracias" to all the people walking around trying to sell us stuff, and watching all the kids run around with balloons and light-up toys. We get to this group gathered around one of those human statue things, and suddenly I feel someone squeeze my sides and go, "Boo!" I simply look around. Olivia screams. We both turn and what do we see behind us? A clown. With bright orange hair, a painted face, and huge shoes. But he is a very friendly clown, as clowns should be, and we start laughing and then talking to him. We soon find out that he is a clown learning english, so we get to hear him practice. "Hallo! I practice thee eenglish, whar you from?" and so we begin a long conversation that ends up with these words, "You want to learn salsa? I teach you." And suddenly the clown is grabbing my hand and teaching me how to dance, right there in the middle of the Zocalo. Livey shrinks away, embarassed. People are staring, as they usually are, so I think, what the hell, they're gonna stare even if I DON'T dance and humor the clown. So I'm laughing and the clown is leading me and I'm afraid his huge feet are gonna step on mine, but surprisingly they don't. And I can see some mexican boys looking at us, smirking... I'm sure they were thinking, "Oh jeez, look at that gringa dancing with the clown. Typical. Why does the clown get all the action?" Or something along those lines. "Livey!" I call. She looks at me. "Why don't you come dance with us?" I say, smiling. She shoots me a straignt, "No." and shakes her head. Somehow I get the clown to let me go, and we start talking some more.
"You 'ave boyfriends?" the clown asks.
"Yes." We both say, though in actuality, Livey is lying.
"Wall, eet es hokay, because here in Mexico, cheating is okay! Hey you, woman (he grabs this womans arm thats walking past), It's okay to cheat? (In spanish)" The woman just waves her hand at him. "Yoo see? Es okay!"
"Noooo..." We both say, laughing.
"Wall, I marry yoo. Yoo be my wife." He says to me, chuckling. "I lofe you." Eventually we persuade our new friend to let us get on with our night, and he pulls us close and kisses us on the cheek, and we spend the next half an hour trying to get the makeup off of our faces. We go find a place to eat dessert, then walk back to our houses and go to bed.

The next day we meet at the school at 7 because we have an excursion to a town in the north, where we will be watching a local fiesta. After a 4 hour car ride, we end up in a very small town that has vendors on all the streets, a place where there were mini-carnival rides for the kids, and a church adorned with colorful decorations. We walk into this store, which through a door actually becomes a house, and sit down at a table, waiting to find out what we were doing next. Suddenly a short, friendly woman comes out, jabbering away in spanish, with a 5 gallon gasoline tank in her hand. And she starts filling up cups with the gasoline. Soon we find out it's NOT actually gasoline, but an alcoholic drink. "It will cure anything!" She says as she hands out the cups to us all. We look nervously at the liquid... this is from a gasoline tank. We could die. But not wanting to be disrespectful we reluctantly raise the drink to our mouths and taste it, and surprisingly it's not that bad! Not hint of gasoline! Next we are shown to our rooms... Alli, Charlotte, Olivia and I are sharing a room with two queen beds. Two queen beds that are about 2 inches apart from each other, we soon find out. Nice...

Next we go out and walk around the town, which probably consists of 5 streets. There were people selling things everywhere. This festival has been planned a year in advance. One of the wealthier families of the town volunteer to be the Mayordomo, and throughout the year, the Mayordomo is in charge of cleaning the church, making offerings, and planning for this fiesta. This fiesta celebrates "El Senor de Perdon." In other words, Jesus Christ. Pilgrims come from all over the state to attend. ALL DAY there are fireworks going off, but only the kind that make super loud noises; we were all randomly jumping because of them throughout the entire day, making us look even cooler than we alread did.

We go and see the place where the women are making the food for the celebration... These women have been working for a month before this festival to make the food, and a WEEK before, the start cooking 24/7. But not the kind of cooking we have in the US, obviously. They use these HUGE ceramic pots over fires to make the food... there were about 8 of them in the cooking area, and 40 women working on this project. We walk in and start chatting with the Mayordomos wife, who talks to us about the process of cooking all the food. As we're standing there, the smoke from the fire really starts getting to my eyes; they're watering and I'm continually blinking to stop the pain. Suddenly I look up and there are these two indigenous women sitting next to a pot, watching me, and giggling to themselves. I see them and start laughing too, apologetically, and they just giggle a bit more and make sympathetic gestures my way. I missed most of the Wife's talk, because of this particular distraction.

After this, it's time for Mass, which is held outside of the church. Its hot and we're all sweating, but we have to stand and listen, respectfully. The priest is going on in spanish about Jesus and his importance, and people would randomly say things in unison, which is usual in a catholic mass. I'm just distracted by all the decorations that are hanging in the trees and on the church. I look over at the group, and Charlotte is saying that she feels dizzy, so her and Alli start walking away when suddenly Charlotte is falling, and Alli quickly reaches out to catch her. There was some confusion just then when we realized that Charlotte had fainted. This man gets up and gives her his chair, and this woman starts fanning her off, and our teachers are asking her whats wrong, and Alli is getting her water. After about 10 minutes of this, she says that she feels better and they send her off to rest. Later she says that she didn't remember anything after she said she was dizzy. We were all a little unsettled, and our profesora rushes us off to the shade and to eat, before another one of us drops.

We spend a little time watching the basketball game after lunch (one team totally dominated the other), and this guy came up and asked if he could get a picture with one of us. Abby said no. Alli said no. I said, well, what the hell. Why not. Thats a brave thing to ask of the white foreigners. So one of his little friends came over and took a picture of the two of us, which made me feel a little bit like a celebrity. After the game we went to rest in our rooms, and I could NOT SLEEP because there was a MASSIVE wasp in our room, flying around the window, right over where I was supposed to be sleeping! I usually don't get all that freaked out about bees in general, but seriously this was like 2 inches long. I opened the window and just kept PRAYING that it would fly through it, but NO, the wasp was stupid and kept flying away from it. Please please please stupid huge wasp thing, GO OUT THE WINDOW. I kept twitching every time it would fly, and I'm sure Livey was just SUPER annoyed with me because I kept moving the bed. Finally, after probably a half an hour of me being extremely paranoid, it flew out the window and I slammed it shut, unfortunately waking up the girls sleeping in the room.

After our nap we went and had interviews with some of the people who lived there, then went and watched the procession through the city, which was the most somber experience of the festival. It was getting dark, and we were waiting alongside one of the roads for the procession to pass. They came slowly, each representative of the surrounding towns holding a banner made of cloth, with an image of Jesus on it. The Priest was singing a really slow, almost creepy tune into a microphone, projecting it all up and down the street. There was a huge crowd walking with these banners and statues of Jesus, some of them were holding candles, and all of them were singing with the Priest. It was the most serious I'd seen these people all day. We quitely watched them slowly come, and then slowly continue down the road. We then walked off and had dinner basically in this womans house, there was just a big table in the first room we walked into. They brought us quesadillas and these thick tortillas with beans and cheese on them... they made them right outside of their house and they were really good! They also didn't accept any payment, as it was a festival and it was in the act of giving.

Later that night we were waiting for the fireworks to start, and these guys shoved beer into mine and Olivias hands... Livey was freaked out, but I thought it was great! Seriously all the people I've met here are generally friendly and nice people. Everyone then gathered in front of the church to watch the fireworks which were AMAZING. They started out by lighting them off right above our heads, which I didn't think was even ALLOWED in the world, but nothing caught on fire so maybe they have something right. Then they brought out this big wheel thing, hooked it up to this stand, and lit the fireworks. The fireworks were attached to the wheel, and they lit up an image; a horse, lilies, a dolphin, etc. Random images. Then the fireworks were positioned on the sides of the wheel so that it would spin in circles. So this went on for awhile, switching between exploding fire over our heads, to spinning fire on the ground, and then the FINALE started; a huge tower filled with these spinning image wheels. At the end, there was the biggest wheel of all, with an image of Jesus on it. Then at the very top of the tower, there was this image of what Abby and I thought was ice cream, which seemed very weird but not that crazy... It wiggled with the fireworks, and then suddenly BANG!! The ice cream image shot off of the top of the tower, made a huge arc, and then landed somewhere among the vendors. Everyone cheered. "OMG flying ice cream!!" Me and Abby shouted. "Guys. Thats supposed to be Communion." Alli said. Oh... Oops.

We go to bed and seriously the party doesn't stop until around 4 in the morning... the music is playing all night, and dogs decide it's fun to bark at it. We get up the next day and basicall put on the same clothes we were wearing the day before, we're all disgusting and dirty from everything, and all we want to do is get home, but no. We have to go look at a museum. Which was fine except for none of us were really listening because we were so tired and spanished-out. We drive home the 4 hours it takes to get there, and I walk into my house, take a shower, eat la comida, and then pass out for about 2 hours. Then we go out dancing, which is always an adventure in itself, meeting new people, the bartender giving me a free shot because he knows Beau, having the boys we're dancing with buy us beers... I always bum of the ones who get a little more hands-on than I'd prefer to my friends who DON'T have boyfriends waiting for them at home. It's weird dancing with people who aren't my boyfriend, and sometimes I feel bad about it, but Tyler says that I should have fun... just be careful. And I always AM. I choose the boys who dance NICE and fun, not the over-exhuberant ones, haha.

Tyler pointed out today that I seem very conflicted in my feelings about Oaxaca. Some days I'm just simply loving it and am excited to go out, others I'm stressed and having a bad day. I'm in a routine here, it's not like I'm on a vacation where I'm supposed to have fun all the time. It's hard work, but I'm living real life, not a tourist life. And real life always has the ups and downs, especially when you're separated from the ones you love.

"Zapatacion"

I feel like I need to add pictures of my school and my home.

My school, El Instituto Cultural Oaxaca... We like to sit under those palm trees right there and do homework in the afternoons! Its usually really warm and sunny, but the weather here likes to change alot this time of year... Like my host mom says, "Febrero es loco, y marzo otro poco." (February is crazy, and March a little less) There's alot of wind and sometimes it gets cloudy and down to 70 degrees during the day, and we have to wear jackets... We are extremely spoiled here!

This is my home from the front... it's surrounded by white concrete walls, and I have to open a gate every time I come home. It's small but very comfortable... oh and Nala, their dog, greets me whenever I walk up to the door. :)

This is the market that's on the way to the Zocalo that I LOVE... I have to refrain from entering it sometimes because if I do, I WILL buy something!

This is Mayra, my intercambio! She's 17 and super adorable, last week she brought me a chocolate-covered apple, and this week she brought me dried bananas with sugar on them from her parents! She goes to prepatory school right now and is thinking she might want to be a stewardess when she goes to University because she wants to travel. We take our intercambios to get ice cream every thursday... or whenever we want ice cream! One time we were talking with them about how, when we're learning spanish and we dont know a word, we just add an "0" to the end of the verb, like, "bago" or "signo". Olivias intercambio, Norma, told us that when learning english, they add "cion" to the end. If they don't know the word for shoe, they just say, "Zapatacion," which definitely made us laugh!

My dad Remigio... He's freaking hilarious. This was at the family dinner mine and Olivias families had this past Sunday. I asked how often he drank alcohol, and Liveys sister said, "De los siete dias de la semana, toma ocho." (Of the seven days of the week, he drinks eight) He loves to practice his english with us, like saying, "Wats up man." Whenever he sees Olivia, he says, "Oleeve oyl! Yess papi?"... Olive Oil and Popeye. Also he forgets my name alot, because unlike in the United States, where the name Ashley is so popular that I don't even look around if someone says it in a crowd, here it's extremely rare, only foreigners have the name. So I said he could call me Elena, as my middle name is Elaine, and it's much easier for him to remember that one.