Oh Salad, You Evil Temptation.

Did I eat a salad at a restaurant yesterday?  Yes.  Did I know better?  Yes.  I'm I paying for my insolence now? Absolutely, yes.  Ugh.  This is definitely the sickest I've been since I arrived, and it's been awful.  I just want my mommy :( and for this to be over!  I hope I feel better soon!!!

Exploration

So, a little bit sad to say, up until this point I'd really only explored the city south of my house, but yesterday Louise and I went north.  It was super cool.  We ended up maybe a fifteen or twenty minutes walk from the house in this very traditional commercial area, where all the stores are jam-packed with all kinds of random things.  It was really fun to see the traditional side, when really all I'd explored before had been the very modern version of Mexico.  And I think it's kind of interesting how these two very different versions can both thrive with less than ten blocks between them.  Culture continues to surprise me.

Two Things for Today

Number One:  The bead store was amazing.  I bought 11 full strands of semi-precious stones and one half strand all for under 700 pesos, which works out to under 56 USDs, which when divided, is less than $4.60 a strand.  That is absolutely unheard of in the states!  I'm so excited to come home and make tons of awesome jewelry with my super cute/beautiful/dirt cheap beads!!!!!!!!  Hooray for that which is Mexico and it's low low LOW prices :) 


Number Two:  Never felt like a complete idiot foreigner until today on the bus.  It was just me and my friend Megan and then a bunch of young men behind us.  The just kept speaking in English to us, saying things like "Hey baby." And "Do you like Mexico?" This was all intermixed with Spanish and laughing, so you know we were the brunt of a bunch of most likely not-so-nice jokes.  And now that I see it typed out it doesn't seem so bad, but it was just the way they were saying it that made it so uncomfortable.  So we ignored it was best we could, but it went on for like five or ten minutes and then finally we came to our stop.  When we got up to get off, the whole back half of the bus was calling out to us and asking us things.  It was so weird.  I don't know, I mean I understand that it's cultural differences and everything, but still.  It was almost unbearable.  So anyway, that was that. 

*** Just so were clear, as uncomfortable as experience number two was, it wasn't not enough to kick me off my bead-purchasing high.  I'm still having a great day :)

Guacala!!

Today I successfully battled my first (and I pray to God last) cucaracha! (cockroach).  Guacala!  (Gross!)  And I may be embellishing a bit when I say "I" and "battled".  The real story is I was sitting on my bed and noticed a half-dead roach on it's back by my bathroom door.  I mustered up the courage to go find Anita, one of my abuela's assistants.  She was really nice about it.  She came in and was like, "Oooo, it's a big one!"  lol.  The she stepped on it and swept it out the door.  Anita my hero!!! What great courage she has!!!  But not me.  Nope.  Lol, I'm just grateful she was around to save me :)

Museum, Magazine, and Tres Leches

It's been a relatively relaxed Sunday.  I went to one of the museums in town today with my house mate Louise, but it really wasn't all that great.  Actually, it was really disorganized and random, but it did have some good stuff for me to read, plus it was free, so no regrets there.  Then we just kind of walked around down town and window shopped.  I found a bead store.  Ugh, I think it will be the end of me and my budget.  :(  I was able to hold back this time--I didn't buy a thing.  But I did buy a Harper's Baazar in Spanish, so I'm pretty excited about that.  The whole afternoon was all really fun.  Actually, it's kind of creepy to have so much in common (and thus fun) with a woman nearly fifty years older than me, but she is super legit.  Like seriously, we like the same clothes, lol.  Anyway, then we hit up the pastelaría close to our house.  Thus the delicious encounter with the tres leches :) Yum!!  Then we came home, I did my homework, and I think now I'm gonna get back to my rocking Harry Potter.  (I'm in the middle of Ch. 2!! Eek!! I'm still super excited!!)

Harry Potter!!!!

Last night I finished the first chapter :)  It was also the first real chapter I've ever finished of a real book in Spanish.  I'm pretty excited/proud/and now anxious to finish the whole darn thing!  Off to read!

Just a Normal Saturday in the City

No really.  I didn't do anything special, but to me, that's what made it special.  I basically sat around all morning and read, and even studied here and there.  Then this afternoon I went with my new house mate, Louise (59, if your curious) to the Cento Magno so I could register my new Mexican cell phone, but they told me I have to go to a different store in a different mall a lot further away.  So I decided to wait until sometime this week to make the trek.  But then we decided to walk a ways to a nice book store, where I may or may not have gone crazy.  Okay, so I went crazy, lol.  I bought four books: the 7th Harry Potter, a synonym/antonym book (of Spanish words of course), a book of collected short storied by Gabriel Garcia Márquez (which I didn't realize was in English until I got home, but I'm going to keep it anway), and an Agatha Christie book.  (I thought it was just two of her books together, but turned out to be a book about her, with samples of two of her unfinished works, lol.  Whoops!  I can't help but think if it had been in English, I would have caught on.)  So, I'm going to try to return that one.  It really doesn't interest me anymore, lol.  After that small (and might I mention, expensive adventure), we stopped at my favorite coffee shop for some refreshments.  It was a very satisfying day.