La cucaracha

The last two nights I have had encounters with bugs, BIG BUGS, in the bathroom at the house. It's not that I'm surprised, living in a jungle environment, there are lizards, bugs, etc all over the place. They get in the house. It's a part of life. The lizards are cute, I don't mind them at all. They actually eat the bugs so that's cool. I guess it's just the size of the bugs that freaked me out. And has me scared to use my bathroom.

Sunday night, I'm going to brush my teeth, turn on the light and see something scamper under the garbage can. I call Cristian in, tell him I think there's a cockroach in there and he opens the door, grabs the broom, and sweeps the cockroach outside.

Last night, I'm using the bathroom and there is a HUGE spider watching me. He's just casually sitting there, not moving, maybe waiting for the right moment to attack, I don't know. It was good I was already on the toilet so I didn't wet my pants. I finish using the bathroom and run out of there to have Cristian come get rid of it. He opens the door, grabs the broom and sweeps the spider outside. Mind you, this might have been the faster spider I have ever seen. He told me last night that it was small compared to the ones he usually sees, they are on average, THE SIZE OF HIS THUMB. Then he told me a story about one time in Mexico City, his friend kicked this huge spider who happened to have all of it's babies on it's back and they went all over the house. Seriously. I have no words to describe how that makes me feel.

 

Cristian has this whole "live and let live" mentality with bugs and I have to tell you, that attitude is out the window if I see a giant bug when he's not here. This is the Third world, it's kill or be killed, and I'm not going to casually sweep some freaking giant bug out the door just so he can show up later to attack. Or maybe I'll just run screaming from the house.If the spider is the size of my thumb, how will I crush it?! I can't do it with my flip flops, I need cowboy boots or some of my dad's hunting boots.

 

Anyway, now every time I go to use the bathroom, I'm like a gunslinger, I swing around the corner, ready to kill anything that moves. There's a new sheriff in town!

Book suggestions por favor!

A rainy Wednesday in Playa del Carmen, which allows me to spend a day inside, rest my skin from the sun, read my book, clean the house, and work on some Spanish lessons via Rosetta Stone. The former all things I would rather do than the latter, for some reason I just cannot force myself to sit down and practice Spanish on the computer. It's more fun to just try to practice with someone in person. I'm reading El Principito, aloud, every night to work on my pronunciation. Estoy loca, I thought I'd have this language mastered in like a month (that might be the impatience that I inherited from my dad coming through).

I'm incredibly thankful for my Kindle and being able to check books out from the Urbandale Library from another country. I need book suggestions though so that's what this post is about. Send me any titles of great books you've read, much appreciated!!

Shark bait ooo ahh ahh!!

Wednesday I crossed "scuba diving with sharks" off my bucket list. One of the most amazing things I've ever experienced. The sharks we saw were bull sharks. Here are some bull shark fun facts.

1. They can survive in fresh water. But only for a couple of days. So sometimes they travel up rivers, like the Mississippi.

2.  Bull sharks get a bad rap for "attacking" people in murky waters. As the dive master explained to us, bull sharks in murky waters (like rivers, the Pacific, etc) use their mouths to figure out what something is, since they don't have hands to reach out and touch it. So they take a little taste of you and then spit you out when they determine you aren't a fish. But again, this is in murky waters where they can't see what they're putting in their mouth. Diving in the Caribbean on a clear day, you can see as far as 200 yards away. As the dive master put it, it's kind of like a baby, putting things in their mouth to figure out what it is.

3. The movie Jaws was based on a bull shark attack, not a great white attack. EEK!! Here's a fun article to read.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0802_020802_shark.html

**Note: all of the research I did about bull sharks was after my dive :)

Anyway, putting all the scary stories aside, I have never seen a more timid ocean creature. Even with the dive master pulling out fish pieces, the sharks were incredibly shy and afraid of us. We saw probably 6-8 sharks and I think I only saw one take a fish from Marcos. We performed the dive at around 80 feet, at a SHIPWRECK, which was freaking awesome and another dive that's on my bucket list. We didn't really get to explore the wreck, it's a fishing boat that has been down there for about 15 years. We started the dive on the upper deck of the boat, on our knees, with Marcos (dive master dressed in a chain link dive suit) about 10 yards away from us trying to get the sharks to come up. When that didn't work, he went down to the ocean floor and we moved down a deck, it was almost like watching a show in a theater. Amazing dive that I would love to do again. At no point did I feel afraid or nervous, there were 4 instructors diving with us that kept watch all the time but really, you were so busy watching these beautiful creatures, the dive seemed to only last 5 minutes.

I also experienced my first bout with fire coral on this dive. It was growing on the railing of the shipwreck and I brushed my wrist up against. It's really itchy.

Fire coral, looks pretty huh?

 

Day 1

 

Day 4

 

 

 

Day 9

Lavanderia

The best thing about living in Mexico - the climate. It's freaking gorgeous every day. But with no AC, that means I sweat like a pig. All the time. I sweat from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. I have a fan that is about 2 feet from me when I sleep. I take a shower and then I have to sit in front of the fan. I brought a blow dryer down here, I think if I actually attempted to dry my hair, I'd have to get back into the shower. Because I am so sweaty, I go through about 2 shirts a day. After 10 days here I already needed to take clothes to the laundry.

I didn't mind doing laundry at home, not a huge fan of folding clothes and putting them away but it wasn't that bad. What's better than doing your own laundry? Paying someone a very small amount of money to do it for you.

We take our clothes to the Lavanderia just up the street, they weigh your clothes, give you a little receipt, you come back at the end of the day, everything is clean and folded. All for about 60 pesos (a little more than 5 bucks). Of course this cost will vary based on how much you bring in but still, worth every penny.

I've had the opportunity to scuba dive three times this week, today saw a beautiful sea turtle and a HUGE barracuda, some lobsters, eels, and my new favorite - the parrot fish.

Tomorrow - if all goes as planned - I will be diving with bull sharks. I am not freaking out (yet) but I am also not planning on spending any time looking at shark and shark attacks online tonight.

MEGA!

My first week in Playa del Carmen, living as a local, is in the books.

Three big accomplishments this week.

1. I have successfully memorized my address. In espanol. Which has enabled me to take two taxi rides on my own and almost hold a conversation with the taxi drive. I'm so incredibly focused on remembering the address and properly delivering it that once that happens, my brain is basically fried. After that it's just a lot of me saying "que?" and pointing to the proper turns. Remember in the movie Zoolander when they're trying to get the files out of the computer and they bang on it and make a lot of monkey sounds? That's what I look like when trying to have a conversation with someone who speaks minimal English. Like a big dumb animal. I'll get there though. Hopefully.

2. I bought a sweet bike.


3. I have only gotten lost on said bike once. And I really wasn't lost, I just got turned around and went around the block by Mega about 4 times.


Mega is the grocery store in Playa. It's actually right next door to Wal-Mart, it's cheaper and the place that my family goes when we buy groceries on vacation. It's also the place where most of the locals go.  Since I don't have a job (yet - I promise I'm working on it Mom and Dad) I have spent the first week going back and forth to Mega to get things for the house. Being a grocery store in a third world country, there are some rules that we have in the US that don't apply to Mega.

For example - they have all of their seafood, meat, etc, just kind of hanging out, it does not appear (based on the smell in that area) to be properly refridgerated. So the entire place smells kind of fishy. We got some shrimp last night and the guy grabbed it for us barehanded. I washed it when I got home, of course. With water that you can't drink so I don't know if that really made it any better.  Also, they don't believe in the "wet floor" signs (piso mojado).  Lyndsy and Brad can attest to this as well, last February I slipped and fell. Thankfully I used the cart to catch myself, which led to me wondering the next day why my ribs hurt. The margaritas/beers at La Pesca had nothing to do with the fall, believe me.

ANYWAY . . .  The best part about Mega? The pastries. You get a little tray and a pair of tongs and you can just go nuts with all the fresh bread, muffins, cookies, etc. When you're done, you take your tray up, they weigh it and usually you pay like 75 cents or something ridiculous for a huge bag of goodies. We made the mistake of hitting up the pastry aisle last night when we were hungry.

As week two begins, I'm cleaning the house, working on my Spanish and looking online for jobs. I'm hoping to start my advanced open water diving certification this week at Dive Balam, there's a chance I can help them out in the dive shop in exchange for getting certified.

 

 

The Alley (gulp)

In order to take a hot shower or use the hot plate, I have to venture between our house and another building and turn on the gas. If its for the shower, I have to light the water heater. Not a big deal, pretty easy to do. Not something I've ever done before but this trip is about new experiences right?! Easy peasy.

Except . . . In this small alley lives a not so small possum. I hate possums, with that rat tail and those beady eyes and the way they hiss at you. Disgusting. Problem solved, I will not go in the alley when it's dark, even if it means taking a cold shower. And if I must go back there to get the gas turned on for the hot plate, it's one of those deals where I look back in the alley, listen for that nasty possum, turn on the gas, open the line and then Usain Bolt my ass back to the house.

¡Guácala!

Cruising the beach on my bicicleta nueva!!

Lunes was a big day. Minus my stuff being missing from my suitcase and my mom having to spend the entire day trying to figure out how to file a claim, it was a good day.

I got a bike finally, check it out!! Big difference between this bike and what I rode at home - no gears and old school brakes, like when you were a kid. Plus, a freaking sweet basket. Also, we got the Internet last night which makes me feel not as isolated from the world.

Damn you American Airlines!!

So got my bag on Sunday, turns out when TSA searches your bag and you're not there to watch, they take whatever they want. I have a list of things that are missing, the majority of them are things that I got for Christmas, still with the tags on. Boooooooo.

My raincoat, a bra, a couple of shirts, some bracelets, a bag of headbands and hair things, make up face wipes, chargers for my cameras.

The more I remember what I had in there, the more pissed I get. A bracelet my mom brought me from Scotland and one I bought at a boutique in Chicago that was my favorite. Ughhhh. It's those things that bother me the most, the irreplaceable things.

It makes me want to yell curse words.

Mi casa

Bienvenidos!

For the first time in 10 years of traveling to Mexico, one of my suitcases did not make the trip. After waiting for 45 minutes, watching the carousel slowly empty and getting more anxious and sweaty, I made my way to the baggage claim area where they had me on the list, my suitcase would arrive the following day from Chicago. I was given 30 USD to spend on toiletries and i tried to finagle my way to the front of the customs line but it was a no go.

Aside from the suitcase situation, it was a really easy trip. Made it through immigration and got my visa stamped for a 6 month stay. Any longer and i have to go to the immigration office in town to ask for more time. Interesting thing when I was waiting in line for customs, Reggie Bush (NFL player, USC Heisman trophy winner, who relinquished his trophy because he's a cheater) was ahead of me in line with his very pregnant wife. He let her push the cart full of luggage while he ate Pringles. Who says chivalry is dead?!

It's a balmy 80 degrees here, I am always sweating. On Saturday we went to Walmart and bought a couple things for the house, something to store my bathroom stuff in, some groceries. I still need to find a dresser for my clothes and a bike. C is busy teaching me my way around, the street we live on, the neighborhood, trying to make it so I don't get lost.

And - big milestone today - I shut off my cell phone. It was a pretty liberating feeling. That being said, I have one of em's old flip phones that I'm going to get a card for, so I can use it here.

Ciao for now!

Adios!!

Sitting at the airport, always early because it makes me incredibly anxious to not have a ton of extra time to sit around and wait. I've already checked my bag three times to ensure my passport is exactly where I put it. My biggest accomplishment - 2 suitcases, 6 months worth of clothes and toiletries - total weight 100.5 lbs. I pack like a champion.

Said goodbye to Bishop and Jess with an amazing burger at ZB and a lot of peer pressure for them to take a spring vacation to Playa. Went home to watch some football with KG, Ben, and Brain. I have been really lucky to become a member of their group of friends, three truly fantastic and fun people who have never made me feel stupid around them, even though the three of them are hands down the smartest people I've met. I have them beat when it comes to useless movie trivia though. And maybe sports knowledge.

Mom, dad and Harley saw me off and in about 8 hours the temperature is going to change by 60+ degrees. It would be an understatement to say I'm excited. More to come as my adventure begins.

Salud!!