Since we are currently on the road at the moment we have created a new blog about the journey and that is where I will be most days pondering travel, life and, as usual, the all encompassing "what am I doing with my life?". I will continue to post here but definitely less often while we are on the road.
You can find me at Joydrive.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
life's unfair
How do Mexicans work all day, party until 2am and still looked refreshed and ready for work the next day? While I look ragged and puffy eyed after only 2 days of late nights...oh yeah and I am not even working. BAH!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Spanglish
My brain is on overdrive at the moment...I am thinking half in Spanish and half in English which is affecting my ability to put together full sentences in either language. But I am happy to report that Spanish immersion was pretty good and finally somethings are starting to click. We still need to (and plan to) study more but it was a great introduction. At the moment we are in Mexico City and I am enjoying being back in a big city...in fact we have only been here 6 hours and I am already thinking we should stay here longer.....
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
outside comfort zone
I have just registered us in a two week Spanish immersion course. This entails 5 hours a days of full-on Spanish, optional afternoon activities (in Spanish of course) and staying with a host family which is..yup...only in Spanish.
Are we terrified? Absolutely but in a very good way.
Are we terrified? Absolutely but in a very good way.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Broken wrists and small towns
Mazatlan was a real treat...good weather, friendly people and a whole lot cheaper than the Baja.
We did a little surfing though the locals are pretty territorial and since I am still new to it I would rather not deal with cocky guys who are going to take every wave anyway. We ate delicious food everywhere...including my new favourite drink "limonada con pepino" which is lemonade with cucumber. So amazingly good I think I drank about 5 in four days...hmmmmm! And the highlight of craziness was fishing with Jim, the owner of our bed and breakfast.
We rolled out of the dock at about 7:15am in one teeny boat and proceeded to fish for bait fish, in which yours truly caught a few, and then we headed out for his first marker in search of dorado. I am all for fishing but this guy was seriously SERIOUS about fishing. Once T hooked a fish it was all on...T's pulling the fish in, Jim is screaming at him not to let go and to take his time and I am thinking that I might get rocked of the boat. T did pull in a big dorado and then Jim hooked it through the head with the gaff....this is exactly why if I had to catch, kill and clean my own meat products I would so be a vegetarian. Anyway I was game to try so I too ended up hooking a 12 pound dorado and dang! those things are so strong. I was sure I was going to get sent over the side of the boat, it actually felt like my wrists could have snapped off. T decided it would be funny to tape so we had a small movie of my trying to pull the fish up while singing out a stream of expletives. Charming. I will be dubbing over them. Anyway T helped me out and laughing at me and we managed to get it into the cooler. It was pretty fun but five hours later I was wondering if I would actually have to pee off the side of the boat or in the bucket Jim nicely told me about. Fortunately we headed back and since I had purposely not had much water I made it to shore! YAY! No peeing off the boat for me.
So we left Mazatlan after eating our dorado with mango salsa and now we are currently hanging out in a great little town called Sayulita which is a thirty minute drive north of Puerto Vallarta. We ended up here based on a conversation we had the night before we left Mazatlan and we thought we should check it out. It is awesome! Good waves for beginners, good waves for real surfers and a really great town. It might be on the first places we have been in Mexico where the gringos and the Mexicans have a really great relationship. Apparently it was founded by both Mexicans and foreigners so perhaps that is why everyone gets along so well. Either way it is always a pleasure to be in a place where everyone will smile and wave hello to you.
We did a little surfing though the locals are pretty territorial and since I am still new to it I would rather not deal with cocky guys who are going to take every wave anyway. We ate delicious food everywhere...including my new favourite drink "limonada con pepino" which is lemonade with cucumber. So amazingly good I think I drank about 5 in four days...hmmmmm! And the highlight of craziness was fishing with Jim, the owner of our bed and breakfast.
We rolled out of the dock at about 7:15am in one teeny boat and proceeded to fish for bait fish, in which yours truly caught a few, and then we headed out for his first marker in search of dorado. I am all for fishing but this guy was seriously SERIOUS about fishing. Once T hooked a fish it was all on...T's pulling the fish in, Jim is screaming at him not to let go and to take his time and I am thinking that I might get rocked of the boat. T did pull in a big dorado and then Jim hooked it through the head with the gaff....this is exactly why if I had to catch, kill and clean my own meat products I would so be a vegetarian. Anyway I was game to try so I too ended up hooking a 12 pound dorado and dang! those things are so strong. I was sure I was going to get sent over the side of the boat, it actually felt like my wrists could have snapped off. T decided it would be funny to tape so we had a small movie of my trying to pull the fish up while singing out a stream of expletives. Charming. I will be dubbing over them. Anyway T helped me out and laughing at me and we managed to get it into the cooler. It was pretty fun but five hours later I was wondering if I would actually have to pee off the side of the boat or in the bucket Jim nicely told me about. Fortunately we headed back and since I had purposely not had much water I made it to shore! YAY! No peeing off the boat for me.
So we left Mazatlan after eating our dorado with mango salsa and now we are currently hanging out in a great little town called Sayulita which is a thirty minute drive north of Puerto Vallarta. We ended up here based on a conversation we had the night before we left Mazatlan and we thought we should check it out. It is awesome! Good waves for beginners, good waves for real surfers and a really great town. It might be on the first places we have been in Mexico where the gringos and the Mexicans have a really great relationship. Apparently it was founded by both Mexicans and foreigners so perhaps that is why everyone gets along so well. Either way it is always a pleasure to be in a place where everyone will smile and wave hello to you.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
So here we are...
Finally after months of work we are on our way...
After we finished up work in Todos Santos, we headed to Cabo for a bit of relaxing and luxury. We also ran a few errands to finish up our work contract so that we didn't have anything else to worry about while on the road. After two hours at the Office Depot in Cabo and a trip to UPS we sent off the final design package and ready to chill out...but of course that is not always how things work out.
Turns out T's visa was coming close to expiring and we figured that it wouldn't be a hassle to extend it. Well, it wasn't. Basically they told T he either had to leave the country and come back in or he could apply for his FM3 which is sort of like an annual renewable permanent residency, they told us to get the papers and to come back the following day. So we printed bank statements, got a friend's Mexican address as well as borrowing a bill of theirs, had the lady at our B&B print us out a letter in Spanish and then returned to immigration only to get another officer who proceeded to yell at us about why we couldn't extend our visa. We told him we understood (although I was more than ready to yell back) and that we'd apply for the FM3. He sent us to the Banjercito (the government bank) to pay the fees. Once all paid up we were back at immigration (again!) Since I was feeling feisty we decided it was best if T went up to immigration alone and I sat quietly reading my book. Playing the docile wife role I waited and steamed in the back of immigration until I saw T motioning for me to come up. Apprehensively I wandered up concerned that they would want to see all my papers too. I was stunned to see the same immigration official smiling and telling T that "there is another way". He sent us back to the bank to chance our fee payment and then issued Tom another 180 day tourist permit. No FM3...no leaving the country and most importantly no bribe. It was weird. We have no clue why they chose to help us but we are so happy that they did.
Then to make our last week in the Baja even better the small B&B we stayed in lowered our nightly rate from $100 to $65. Again, we are not too sure why they chose to do so but we were super pleased with that little gift as well.
We caught the ferry from Pichilingue which is about 24km outside of La Paz two nights ago and this is where things became rather trying. For some crazy reason the ferry leaves at 2am but you need to be there about two hours before. So T and I get there, pass through customs and then wait. We waited so long we both fell asleep in the car. Then we loaded the car on board but it is not a ferry where you drive in and drive straight off, there is only one entrance. So every vehicle, including semis, have to drive in and then reverse into their spot. It was chaos...but we managed to get the car in just fine and then we happily made our way to the cabins only to find a 45 minute lineup full of people waiting to get to there cabins. We finally arrived at our cabin at about 3:45am and managed to sleep through the stupid kids next to us pounding on the walls. After hours of restless sleep and line-ups we were so happy to get off that boat.
So now we are exploring Mazatlan and melting all at the same time. It is so hot that you sweat the minute you step outside...but at least we are not on a ferry.
After we finished up work in Todos Santos, we headed to Cabo for a bit of relaxing and luxury. We also ran a few errands to finish up our work contract so that we didn't have anything else to worry about while on the road. After two hours at the Office Depot in Cabo and a trip to UPS we sent off the final design package and ready to chill out...but of course that is not always how things work out.
Turns out T's visa was coming close to expiring and we figured that it wouldn't be a hassle to extend it. Well, it wasn't. Basically they told T he either had to leave the country and come back in or he could apply for his FM3 which is sort of like an annual renewable permanent residency, they told us to get the papers and to come back the following day. So we printed bank statements, got a friend's Mexican address as well as borrowing a bill of theirs, had the lady at our B&B print us out a letter in Spanish and then returned to immigration only to get another officer who proceeded to yell at us about why we couldn't extend our visa. We told him we understood (although I was more than ready to yell back) and that we'd apply for the FM3. He sent us to the Banjercito (the government bank) to pay the fees. Once all paid up we were back at immigration (again!) Since I was feeling feisty we decided it was best if T went up to immigration alone and I sat quietly reading my book. Playing the docile wife role I waited and steamed in the back of immigration until I saw T motioning for me to come up. Apprehensively I wandered up concerned that they would want to see all my papers too. I was stunned to see the same immigration official smiling and telling T that "there is another way". He sent us back to the bank to chance our fee payment and then issued Tom another 180 day tourist permit. No FM3...no leaving the country and most importantly no bribe. It was weird. We have no clue why they chose to help us but we are so happy that they did.
Then to make our last week in the Baja even better the small B&B we stayed in lowered our nightly rate from $100 to $65. Again, we are not too sure why they chose to do so but we were super pleased with that little gift as well.
We caught the ferry from Pichilingue which is about 24km outside of La Paz two nights ago and this is where things became rather trying. For some crazy reason the ferry leaves at 2am but you need to be there about two hours before. So T and I get there, pass through customs and then wait. We waited so long we both fell asleep in the car. Then we loaded the car on board but it is not a ferry where you drive in and drive straight off, there is only one entrance. So every vehicle, including semis, have to drive in and then reverse into their spot. It was chaos...but we managed to get the car in just fine and then we happily made our way to the cabins only to find a 45 minute lineup full of people waiting to get to there cabins. We finally arrived at our cabin at about 3:45am and managed to sleep through the stupid kids next to us pounding on the walls. After hours of restless sleep and line-ups we were so happy to get off that boat.
So now we are exploring Mazatlan and melting all at the same time. It is so hot that you sweat the minute you step outside...but at least we are not on a ferry.
Friday, July 25, 2008
it is only proper
Don't you agree that if J. Crew has a dress that includes your name, for example "the Sarah dress", they should send you a free one just because said dress and you share a name?
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