It's been a while. I haven't had Internet accces since we moved into our new pad. It has been a pretty exciting few weeks. I don't have much time right now so I will keep it short or try to.
I had my first and only class two mondays ago (it's just on Mondays and last Monday was a holiday "el dia de Virgin Guadalupe," a very religious day) the class was great. there was about 25 people, mostly kids ranging from 5-18 and a couple adults. It was in a poor part of town at a church and was very rewarding.
Before class started a guy came up to me because he anted to practice his english. So I meet up with him one day, I went out with him on his job. He is in charge of a number of small stores in the area and travels around town. It was cool and it was very cool to have a friend that knows the area. He is about 30 with a wife and two kids who my sister and I have been hanging out with.
They took us all over Mexico city and today I went with Fernando (mi amigo) to Valle de Bravo, it's a beautiful city way up in the mountains where a river was damned and formed a lake. Karin may have more info on out site seeing on her site (see below), but I don't know I haven't checked it yet.
Last Wed. we drove North to a city called Queretaro. It was about a 2 hr drive. It was cool. Just seeing a different city and driving the country side (I am unoficially Karin's Driver). We meet up with another one of her friends that was in Mexico for business. This a really beautiful clean city with a lot of history. We had dinner and hung out for a couple hours then drove home. On the way there we took a toll road which was noce because it was during the day, smooth, straight, and you could go very fast. the road we tok back was a fre road which was shorter but it was rough, curvy, you had to go slow because it was two lanes with a million semi's that were literally going 10 mi per hour, I had white nuckles the whole time. But... I did see wo Meteors fall to the earth, no kidding, bonefide balls of fire plummiting to the earth and burning out before they hit the ground. I don't think they were very big and they seemed close. Of course I got us home safe and sound beause of my superior driving skills.
We have visited several mercados and have found several cheap stuff like cloths and bootleg DVD's. We haven't bought much yet but I will be getting a bunch of stuff this weekend.
My spanish is vastly improving but still in need of a lot of work. Well that will be it for now but I hope to have easy access to the web soon.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Friday, December 02, 2005
Drive to Mexico City
I have been driving all over Toluca and I think I got a pretty good handle on it. It is extremely different. Usually I always tried to be a defencive driver, but here you have to be super offencive. But I like it and its fun to cut people off, whip around turns, and run red lights (everybody does it). Mexico City is 10 times worse with 100 times the people.
The real test was comming up. I was going to drive to the airport in Mexico City to Pick up Pat (Karins Boyfriend). I was excited because I like the way they drive here, but the traffic I was not looking forward too. The traffic is rediculusly stupid in the worlds largest city. Bumper to bumper, inch by inch throught the whole city. We finally made it safe and sound, we stayed on our route and it was easy exept for the traffic.
So we picked him up, now was the trip home. It´s not exactly like you are going to go the same way you came from because every road is a one way and they all go every which way and the signes are often confusing. Karin was trying to navigate but she was too excited about Pat being there that she didn´t tell me when I needed to turn, so I missed it. So...now the fun part, try to get back to where we know where we were at. We ended up turning around and then we thought that it was safest to go all the way back to the airport and start over again. This time around Karin was more attentive and I relied a little more on my natural ability to navigate and we got to where we needed to go.
It was a very exciting experience. It can very closely be compared to a video game. Going fast, dodging crazy Taxi drivers, the lanes I swear are thinner than the car is wide, huge busses going like a million miles an hour, un marked speed bumps in the most suprising locations, people selling just about anything at every stoplight, watching street performers spreading out broken glass on the ground, laying on it and tossing up a huge rock and catching it several times (seriously), and almost missing a turn and flying across three lanes to get there. You seroiusly get the rush of a video game.
We got home safely due to the heroic efforts of myself to void out the distractions and concentrate on the road. That was fun.
The real test was comming up. I was going to drive to the airport in Mexico City to Pick up Pat (Karins Boyfriend). I was excited because I like the way they drive here, but the traffic I was not looking forward too. The traffic is rediculusly stupid in the worlds largest city. Bumper to bumper, inch by inch throught the whole city. We finally made it safe and sound, we stayed on our route and it was easy exept for the traffic.
So we picked him up, now was the trip home. It´s not exactly like you are going to go the same way you came from because every road is a one way and they all go every which way and the signes are often confusing. Karin was trying to navigate but she was too excited about Pat being there that she didn´t tell me when I needed to turn, so I missed it. So...now the fun part, try to get back to where we know where we were at. We ended up turning around and then we thought that it was safest to go all the way back to the airport and start over again. This time around Karin was more attentive and I relied a little more on my natural ability to navigate and we got to where we needed to go.
It was a very exciting experience. It can very closely be compared to a video game. Going fast, dodging crazy Taxi drivers, the lanes I swear are thinner than the car is wide, huge busses going like a million miles an hour, un marked speed bumps in the most suprising locations, people selling just about anything at every stoplight, watching street performers spreading out broken glass on the ground, laying on it and tossing up a huge rock and catching it several times (seriously), and almost missing a turn and flying across three lanes to get there. You seroiusly get the rush of a video game.
We got home safely due to the heroic efforts of myself to void out the distractions and concentrate on the road. That was fun.
Move In Day
My sister´s boyfriend (Pat) and I moved all her stuff in... well the movers did. We just sat there drinking beer and telling them where all the stuff went. There was a huge truck with about 7 guys showed up about 10:30 and they took all the boxes and stuff in. There were done at about 1pm. I went out and bought a bunch of water and beer, suprisingly they did not drink any of the beer even though I offered.
Right when the movers got there and were setting up, a lady from the office came up and was whipping off questions like I knew what she was saying, I tried to keep up but it was beyond me. We ended up getting a translator on the phone, turns out she was just telling me that we were supposed to tell them ahead of time when the movers were comming and we were supposed to go over some rules and regulations (were are renting in a gated complex and went over several things with the owners of the unit, kind of like a condo, but not the owners of the complex). She was nice and said that there were no problems.
Then Pat and I were supposed to wait around for a bed that my sister bought to be delivered but they never gave us a time. So we waited and waited, unpacked the kitchen (we didn´t really want to because we knew that Karin would just move everything later), sat around untill about 6:30 and said ¨screw it we waited long enough¨ and took off. I wouldn´t have been that bad but there was nothing to do, we were just sitting on a bunch of boxes. So we went back to the hotel where we were staying to wait for Karin when she got home from work.
Well... she just came up to me needing the car keys because her bed is waiting at the new place. OOPS!
Right when the movers got there and were setting up, a lady from the office came up and was whipping off questions like I knew what she was saying, I tried to keep up but it was beyond me. We ended up getting a translator on the phone, turns out she was just telling me that we were supposed to tell them ahead of time when the movers were comming and we were supposed to go over some rules and regulations (were are renting in a gated complex and went over several things with the owners of the unit, kind of like a condo, but not the owners of the complex). She was nice and said that there were no problems.
Then Pat and I were supposed to wait around for a bed that my sister bought to be delivered but they never gave us a time. So we waited and waited, unpacked the kitchen (we didn´t really want to because we knew that Karin would just move everything later), sat around untill about 6:30 and said ¨screw it we waited long enough¨ and took off. I wouldn´t have been that bad but there was nothing to do, we were just sitting on a bunch of boxes. So we went back to the hotel where we were staying to wait for Karin when she got home from work.
Well... she just came up to me needing the car keys because her bed is waiting at the new place. OOPS!
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Plans For A Book
I have always wanted to write a book about my life, starting from the very beginning untill now... but I never really thought it through. I think I might take the free time I have now to start. I plan to leave nothing out. Maybe this book can be just for myself but who knows, it could be kick ass and possibly get published some day.
I got the idea from an US ARMY commercial, it said ¨If your life was a book, would somebody read it.¨ It made me think a little. I have had a great life with ups, downs, excitement, bordom; stories about family, friends, school and work; different stages in my life that have come and gone; several thoughts and ideas about my purpose in life; philosophies and thoeries about religion, roles of sex and gender, attachment, among many more; and the people and relationships from my past, present and future (some in all three tenses) that have made me who I am today and have formed the foundation for my future. I have always kept a lot of thoughts and feelings inside and I really want to let everything out.
I think that people would want to read it. So let me know what you think.
I got the idea from an US ARMY commercial, it said ¨If your life was a book, would somebody read it.¨ It made me think a little. I have had a great life with ups, downs, excitement, bordom; stories about family, friends, school and work; different stages in my life that have come and gone; several thoughts and ideas about my purpose in life; philosophies and thoeries about religion, roles of sex and gender, attachment, among many more; and the people and relationships from my past, present and future (some in all three tenses) that have made me who I am today and have formed the foundation for my future. I have always kept a lot of thoughts and feelings inside and I really want to let everything out.
I think that people would want to read it. So let me know what you think.
A Productive Day
We had a good day today and got some important things done. Karin took the day off from work and we went out with her relocation consultant. We signed the contract for our new apartment, looked at cars, bought cell phones for local calls, and Karin opened a bank account. Well, I should say that Karin had a productive day and I just tagged along.
Her boyfriend is flying in from Chicago tonite, we are going to drive into Mexico City to pick him up. He will be here untill Monday, just in time to move into our new place. Our stuff will come tomarro so we will be busy this weekend getting everything situated. Once we move in I will have full acces to a computer with all the pictures and stuff that I need so I will snazz things up a little next week.
Her boyfriend is flying in from Chicago tonite, we are going to drive into Mexico City to pick him up. He will be here untill Monday, just in time to move into our new place. Our stuff will come tomarro so we will be busy this weekend getting everything situated. Once we move in I will have full acces to a computer with all the pictures and stuff that I need so I will snazz things up a little next week.
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