January 17, 2009

“We should just not tell anyone. We can pretend we had dates that just stood us up…wait, that’s sad. …But at least we had dates in that one.” When your Saturday night companion says this to you, I’m pretty sure you know you’ve hit pretty low on the rock bottom scale. So here’s the story:

It’s about 9 o’clock. People have finally decided they want to go to Envy tonight, a dance club that no one really knows where it is but we want to go there at 10:15. As it turns out it’s on Avenida Colon, not too far from the casa. Cool. So after getting everything squared away, plans etc, I start getting ready. This generally involves washing the hair because it’s been in a pony tail for the day since we were cooking and getting dressed in something a little nicer, not really a problem. In fact, this would have been easily accomplished except that I was also trying to talk to my best friend online which didn’t allow for actually getting ready as it sucked me in rather quickly.

Not really that big of a deal. I get a call from Chelsea at 9:45, she’s headed over. Sweet, though I’m not ready. No make up, need to put shoes on, finish up the hair since it’s mostly dry now. And I’m supposed to meet her half way between our houses. I finish up the online conversations, and fly out of the house.

We call for a taxi at about 10:05. I’m pretty much ready to go, though we discover that Chelsea left her ID at home. No problem we’ll just have the taxi stop by there so she can run in and get it. We go and wait outside.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait, finally it’s 10:45. The taxi that was supposed to only take 20 minutes is a no show. We decide on calling the place back. They had our address wrong which is because I can’t actually speak Spanish and have really been faking all this time (no, not really, it had to do with the neighborhood and my inability to pronounce the last word Cucul).

So we tell them, yo, no problemo, meet us at this new address; we’ll walk over and get Chelsea’s ID since it’ll be another 20 minutes and that’ll save us a little dinero. So we go over there, get her ID. 11:30. Well. I’ve had about enough of this. Tonight is not going to happen.

That would’ve been where the night ended, only we were hungry. The only thing we know of that exists is a blockbuster between our houses. As it turns out, there’s also a 24 hour convenience store where Chelsea and I had caffeine free soda and microwave pepperoni pizza.

So yeah…that’s what my Saturday night looked like. It’s kind of ridiculously funny in this utterly pathetic way. That’s okay though. But lets back up ‘cause other stuff did actually happen today, I just thought that was how the entry for today needed to start.

Zzzrrrrrrrrrrrpp! (that’s the rewinding noise). Last night I slept terribly. This time it wasn’t due to nightmares, though, it was a combination of heat/cold/troubles in paradise haha. I also some how managed to forget (in my very scattered state last night as I wrote the blog) that I receive *beautiful* flowers last night when I got home. My parents sent them to me, they’re really pretty, I’ll try and take a picture and upload it. Right now I’m just deadbeat tired.

So anyway, got up this morning at 6, which was an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off and there was just going to be no more sleep happenin’. Today, as a part of the IFSA program we had an appointment at Los Dos which is a cooking school here in Merida. The outside of the building is really plain and then you walk inside and it’s gorgeous. I wish I had pictures to show you. In the dining room there was a beautiful, directionally accurate mural of el Centro, and there was a Terrace with this pool-pond. It was really magnificent in terms of beauty.

So we went there and learned how to cook. We were also taken on a tour of the Mercado which was ridiculously overwhelming. We walk in and it truly is like a labyrinth. There are tons of people you have to weave your way around. In the first section there was a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables along with something I would put into the category of riff-raff. As we moved a long, we saw adorable puppies, and SNES games which I would have loved to have browsed. There weren’t a whole lot of them but still, the idea of finding SNES games in person is almost a novelty in itself.

Then came the big part. The butchery part of the Mercado. There’s hanging meat in all these stands. And I’m pretty okay with that so long as it’s only on my right side and I’m walking on the way left side of the aisle. But no, couldn’t stay like that. We’re taken right down the middle of it. There’s a skinned cow’s head with the eyes still in it jutting out into the aisle, a piece of hanging meat falls onto a counter with a sickening flmmp. There are puddles of blood on the floor. I think I’m probably going to have tiny bruises on my sides from where I was gripping them so tightly as we walked through there (hey it’ll be just like home! I was starting to miss my random accumulation of bruises).

So yeah. That was pretty intense. I don’t think I’ll ever get the image of that cow head out of my head.

When we went back, we learned to make tamales, and a couple of other things the names to which have escaped me for the time being, but yeah. It was pretty neat. We tried this habanero pepper which used to be the hottest pepper in the world. I’d reckon it was mighty, mighty picante. I don’t have much desire to try that again.

After that Chelsea and I were picked up and I participated in some sobremesa with my family at lunch time. I had already eaten the stuff we had cooked but I sat at the table with them. I came back to my room around 3.

I’m not entirely sure what happened between 3-9. It’s kind of like I lost time somehow. For awhile I was talking with my parents. After that I went and got something to eat, so between 6 and 8 I’m not entirely sure what I was doing that took so long. It doesn’t seem like I got very much accomplished, but hey.

That pretty much brings us back to the beginning of the post and brings me to a very tired night. I hope you all have a lovely day, and I hope for me lots of sleep hehe =D

Cheers, <3 Kate