well, here i go again

so hey, i went to isla mujeres this island off of the coast of cancun last weekend because my grandparents have a time share there and i was basically a beach bum for three days straight. they couldnt put me in thier time share so they got me my own hotel room. it was the first time i had air conditioning in 5 months. i didnt even use it though because it wasnt that hot there. i got to snorkel a bunch too but the fish were attacking me. now i am getting ready to go to belize for another month. i am never going to get to leave. it is strange, i want to come back to the us but i also want to stay and have more adventures. i like it a lot here. it has grown on me. but i had to pack all the stuff i wont be using in belize and drop it off at my directors office. i am leaving on sunday for belize to spend time for a week doing who knows what before my program starts. i am so lazy now, but whatev, its not that bad. so i dont think im going to have good internet or phone connection for about a month so if i dont get back to you fast thats why. im going to be in the jungle...but ill be back soon enough and it will be great to finally come back. ok bye

oh yeah, i have a blog

Well hey there, i havent seen you in a while. I have really sucked with this but whatev, im updating it now. So i just got back from my vacations which were amazing and unforgettable in both good and bad ways. My break started on april 6th and will end the 26th. I know, awesome break. I hung out in merida for the first week or so and got a bunch of my finals staff done so i dont have to do it in my final weeks here. So then me and 4 other people from my group left on wednesday the 12th to go to Oaxaca, another state in Mexico. We went by bus and it took just over 20 hours to get there. I know, that is really sucky. We had a 3 hour lay over in Villahermosa, one of the suckiest cities ever, there is nothing to do. One thing that made the ride just the best thing ever was that there was a girl barfing for about 2 hours and making just the most disgusting noises ever, that was a little hard to handle. So we got into Oaxaca City in the morning the next day and went to some museums and walked around the city. It is a cool place, reminds me a lot of Chiapas but a lot more dry. There are a lot of pedestrian walkways that are nice for a stroll. Then we went to el tule which is supposedly the widest tree in the world. It was pretty impressive but also just a tree. We stayed in this pretty cool hostel that was also an apartment building. It was kinda weird. The next day we went to monte alban which is a zapotec ruin. Another awesome occurrence was that this bus was in a really sketch part of town and when we got on that bus it had barf all over the back floor, I just had a really bad run in with barf on this trip. But whatev, the ruins were cool cause they were in the mountains and all dry and stuff. Then the next day we took another bus to Puerto Escondido which is a surf town on the Oaxacan coast. It is now one of my favorite places ever. That bus ride took another 10 hours, just so you know. I spent so much of my vacation in a bus and that sucked. But Puerto Escondido was amazing. The beach was awesome and the food was amazing. We found this great Japanese restaurant that had real Japanese working at it and I found my love for Japanese curry, it was awesome. And im starting to really like sushi, its weird that im starting to love Japanese food in mexico. But the best food we found was this little burger stand on the side of the road called “the spot” and I ate the best cheeseburgers of my life. We actually watched every move the cook made so we could memorize how she did it so we could try and reproduce it. I think I ate at least one burger every night I was in Puerto Escondido which was 5 nights. Most of the time I ate 2 though. I didn’t get too burnt but I actually got a tan, I have tan lines, I can barely believe it myself. Its pretty sweet. Part way through our stay at the beach, 2 of the girls left to go back to merida and so it left me, one other guy and one other girl. We found a different hotel that actually was better than the first and spent more time at the beach. Then we up and decided to move ourselves to a different beach for just one day before we went back to Oaxaca city. We ended up taking a bus to Bahias de Huatulco. We found a hotel which ended up being really sketch and then headed off to the beach. We got this guy to take us out in his boat to a beach to snorkel at. It was amazing, my first time. I got to see some really incredible fish, but also was stung by a little jellyfish. It hurt like a bee sting. Staying in the hotel that night was almost terrible, it was sooooo hot and there was just this really weak fan in our room. All of the beach towns we went to were really hot, it is just really hot everywhere now. Then we headed back to Oaxaca city because we had to take our bus out of there to return to merida. But we found out that we weren’t going to get to leave when we wanted to which was in the morning and then get to merida the next morning. Instead we had to leave at night and get to Villahermosa and wait there for 17 hours for our next bus to merida. We wanted to kill ourselves when we found that out but decided we would just find a mall and go on a movie marathon. We got into Villahermosa at 5 in the morning and then found out we could find empty space on an early bus. After some hecticness we actually got on an earlier bus which was a miracle and then I got into merida at like 5 instead of the next morning. All really confusing stuff with times and days but I spent about a week and a half in Oaxaca and it was great, despite the bad stuff. Now im back and finals are coming up and I gotta figure out my belize program stuff. Ok laterz.

our last excursion and other stuff i need to catch up on

so i have some good stories to catch up on. last weekend my friend had a birthday party at the beach and she invited us from the program and the people she is friends with from her gay and lesbian support group. it was a very very interesting party. we got a safe sex demonstration and i got to see how someone would put on a condom using their mouth. just imagine me in that situation. imagine my face. cause what your thinking is probably what i was doing. it was very strange. we decided after that that we didnt want to spend the night at the house with these friends which i found out later was a good idea. then i did my last big assignment of the semester so really i think all i have left is finals, which are going to be a joke like the rest of the classes here. so then we had our last excursion this weekend and it was awesome. we went first to a place called punta laguna and basically its a hike through the jungle to see animals. we say howler monkeys and snakes, lizards, bugs, and really pregnant dogs, the dogs werent really a part of the jungle. i got to see a snake eat a lizard that was still alive while it was being swallowed. then we went to playa del carmen and went to the beach for the rest of the day. at night we hung out with some mexicans and played chak-mol. then two friends and i went on a photo taking frenzy while walking around the city. they got in a fake fight in the middle of the road and the police stopped to ask if there was a problem going on. then we danced on the beach and they sway in the ocean and got in a random persons empty boat. the next day we went to tulum, a mayan ruin that is on the beach, i know, awesome. we swam in the water right under the ruins and it was beautiful. then we went to coba, another mayan ruin, and we rode bikes around to each part of the ruins. it was really fun cause i havent ridden a bike in many a year. no i look like a tomatoe but not too bad. it doesnt hurt too much. and now another week of school. but not really cause we have tuesday off of school and then my parents are coming on thursday, hopefully. ok later

carnaval, but not really

so i didnt stay in merida for the intense carnival that they have. i went to chiapas instead. its another state in mexico. so i took a bus with 4 other people thursday night and it took 12 hours. we got to san cristobal de las casas in the morning on friday and the city is awesome. its pretty much a hippy town with really great organic food. so the first day we just walked around and got to know the city. we met some cool guys from manchester at our hostel which was called magic hostel. the costantly blasted really loud crappy music. the next day we went to this littly pueblo outside the city and they were doing this strange ritual where they were running around their plaza dressed up and with a bunch of smoking herbs and blowing horns. it was strange but definitely an experience. we went in their church which was strange because we were watching them like they were in a zoo. not cool. but they were putting out offerings of coca cola and fanta. coke is soooooooo incredibly popular here. so much more than in the us. we ate at this restaurant and this american man came and played the guitar for the whole restaurant. the custom is to tip a person that performs even if you didnt ask for it. but thats if you like the music. we didnt like the music so we didnt tip him and neither did anyone else. the guy got pissed at us, the americans, and no one else. he started yelling at us and talking to us as if we didnt know anything about the customs in mexico. then he said stuff to su in spanish about the rich becoming poor and the poor taking over power. he thought we couldnt understand spanish at all and basically he just made a big fool of himself. then we went on a tour of this big canyon about an hour and a half outside of the city and it was awesome. we saw birds, monkeys and aligators. it was pretty much amazing. it was in a boat because the bottom of the canyon is a river. then we went to a waterfall near palenque which was amazing. the book told us that it was where they filmed predator, the movie. that was pretty cool that i could share that moment with arnold. we got to climb around on the rocks. there are pictures of all this in my facebook album. then the bus ride back which was another 9 or so hours over night to get back to merida at 6 in the morning on tuesday. it was awesome and im pretty sure i want to go back. not much else except my family is going to try and come the end of march to visit which is good. i freakin love it here. thats all,
what what

boooo

so my family was supposed to come this weekend but i guess there flight kept getting pushed back because of weather and thus they didnt come. that sucked. so i didnt really do much this weekend. i volunteered at the english school on friday and we taught a bunch of little kids the english words for the different rooms of a house. usually people just help out the teachers that are already there but one of the teachers hasnt been showing up so we have taken over for her. i thought it was going to be scary and hard but its not. because the kids have no clue whats going on either. one kid tried to tell me that ´sink´is not the right word for a sink. i told him that i was pretty sure i was right that sink meant sink. silly mexican kids who think they know a different word for sink when the right one is sink. then i went and saw memoirs of a geisha which was good. then i spent pretty much the rest of the weekend working on homework cause i had a paper and a presentation due monday, today. my host family thinks im a hard studier because it looks like im always studying but really it is the opposite, i just suck and it takes me a long time to do anything. i have to remind them that sometimes. so this morning i was supposed to give my speach but we ran out of time. one of the students spoke for a really long time. the professor fell asleep in class again. this is the third time. and its not like he is being discrete. his desk is in the front of the class. but this time was the best so far because the presenter asked him a question and he had been sleeping and he jumped up and there was some drool on his chin that he had to wipe off before he started talking. it was really funny. i think he knows that all of us laugh at him. we also talked about, in the same class, the problems that beans cause for people who dont normally eat them. we talked about farts and indigestion in my history of new spain class. what wierdos. not much going on this week but im going to chiapas this weekend during my break from school for carnaval. im kind of sad that im going to miss 6 days of parades and drinking in the streets but not really. i would much rather travel, because i would have been bored after one day of carnaval. but people are going to take pictures of it for me so i can pretend that i did it. so nos vemos and i will update when i get back from my vacation.

2nd excursion weekend

so we went on another excursion this weekend to campeche, another state in mexico to the south and west and it was very fun. its always a good time when we are all together. and plus everything is planned out for us and thus i dont have to think, just do what my program director tells me which is lazy but good. we first went to edzna, another ruin. they really do look alike and so it wasnt that special except that it was really hot and i was sweating. my favorite thing to do at the ruins is climb up to the top and look out over the forests and stuff. its really cool. then we went to this fortress outside of the city of campeche and it was fun. there were some guards at the fortress that were really funny. when they saw a bunch of americans, especially american girls, coming towards them, they started tucking in their shirts, fixing their hair, and one guy even pulled out a razor from i dont know where and started shaving. that is pretty much an example of how it always is when american women go somewhere. it was funny. then we went to the downtown of campeche and it was a pretty city but there was nothing to do. we went on a walking tour and the guy was in love with one of the ladies that helps out with our excursions. he only looked and talked to her the whole time. and then when we would arrive to a street he would stop and say, this is an old street, and then we would keep walking. at the end we asked him where some good food was and he told us the subway around the corner. that was pretty much the cherry on the top of this awful tour. my program director was furious. afterwards we just walked around and i bought some juice and they put it in a plastic bag and tied the top and put a straw in it. it was the best way to drink juice ever. just another thing that is so clearly mexican. went to our hotel after that and since there was really no where to go we just hung out at the hotel the whole night. then the next day we went to celestun, a city on the beach and we went on a flamingo tour which was cool. and we went into a mangrove forest and saw an underground river. the nature is cool here. on sunday it was freezing and so is today. im wearing the only sweater i brought here. but by freezing i mean around 60 or so. everyone is wearing scarves and big coats. i have another boring week of class before my parents come this weekend, and my brother. they are going to meet my mexican family and im going to have to translate the whole thing. it should be interesting but fun. we are going to go to chichen itza which i havent seen yet. ok, more for later, bye

so hey there i didnt see you

ok, i havent written on this thing in a really long time, but it is because the internet here is so freaking slow that it discourages my from doing anything that might take a while. but here i am. ok, last weekend. i went to this park in the downtown and listened to traditional yucatecan music. it is called trova and it is ok. the music from the yucatan is slow, and it has a lot of caribbean influence. trova is three guys singing and all three of them playing guitars. then there is also the traditional yucatecan dance called the jarana. it is really cool. they dress in traditional clothes and dance around in formations. there is also a part where they dance with trays of beer on their heads. it was pretty awesome but one of the women dropped hers off her head. then on friday i went to this awesome club called mambocafe. it is awesome. it is a salsa club and everyone there can dance really well, except for me and a lot of the people i was with. they have a live band that is from cuba and they sing well and also can dance really well. it ended up being more like a show than a club. i did get up and dance a few times but i was dancing with my friend summar and people pretty much stopped dancing to stare at us. i guess it is pretty uncommon here for a really tall white guy and a really tall black girl to be dancing together. then the other time we danced they were playing some tecno music and that was really funny because the people didnt really konw how to dance to it because it wasnt like salsa. and so it was easier to do just crazy dancing. i ordered a drink when i was there and i asked for a malibu and coke and the waiter guy came back with our drinks and i started to drink it and lo and behold, it was just pop. so i asked him what the deal was and he said that i ordered pepsi and that is what he brought me. i was like, no, clearly, malibu and coke doesnt sound anything like pepsi even with my sucky american accent. but he stuck to the fact that he thought i said pepsi so we didnt really tip him at all. saturday i watched munich and that was cool. movies here are only 4 dollars so we go a lot. and on wednesdays they are 2 dollars. a lot better than in the us. on sunday i did hw and then went to the 711 by my house for icecream. 711 has good icecream. its not really real but its cheap. school week, incredibly boring. i dont think im actually learning things. well thats not true. i really like my spanish and mayan classes, they are awesome. but my anthro class is absolutely stupid. my professor does not teach at all. he just makes us do speaches all the time. and he always directs his questions to the american students for our opinoin from a western point of view. now this is really stupid because my professor is from germany and that is a western country so he has just as much of an idea about what order and progress means in the west as i do. so this weekend was very welcomed. on friday i went to the downtown to look into volunteering at a local school that teaches english to people all ages. it should be fun and it isnt that big of a committment. friday night i found this really nice coffee shop in the downtown that has free wireless internet. all you have to do is bring your laptop and also buy a coffee. so its not really free but it feels like it. and you can stay as long as you want. then on saturday i hit up some free museums and galleries which was pretty fun and then we walked around. the weather was really nice this weekend. it was warm but with a breeze and then at night it gets cool. then at night we decided to go to the house of one of the girls on my program to watch a movie. we decided to walk because on the map it didnt seem that bad. so we met at 930 to go and we started walking. i had my map and it looked like we were going to go through some nice big neighborhoods but in reality, we were walking through dirt roads, no lights, no houses, in the middle of fields of tall grass, and stray dogs chasing us. one of the guys´leg started to bother him and he had to walk slow for a while and he picked up rocks to defind himself against the dogs. we were using our cell phones as light and after an hour of walking we finally made it to her house. it was an ordeal but worth it because the movie was really good. its called amar te duele and it is like a mexican version of remeo and julliett. on the way back we decided it would be ok to spend the extra money to get a cab and it was fine. then on sunday i went to a bar to watch the superbowl and it was really fun. the bartender was really amused with 6 americans in the middle of mexico watching the super bowl. she kept looking at us and shaking her head and laughing. thats the reaction we get a lot here. then on monday we had the day off from school for some mexican holiday, whatever, i didnt have to go to class. so i did some homework to make up for the not homework i did all weekend and then that night went and saw the johnny cash movie which was good. i have a speach on thursday that i havent really done anything for but whatev, no one really does work here anyways so yeah. so we are going on another excursion this weekend so i will have some good stories from that, ok bye