IT'S NOVEMBER?! Seriously. How did that happen? Time is such a strange and unfamiliar sense here... Feeling the temps drop from warm to brisk, seeing the leaves turn orange, opting for boots and scarves and smelling that crisp autumn smell are all the ways most Americans internally know fall is coming...but not for us. I'm seriously stuck in Groundhog Day here and sometimes it's kinda a bummer. Everyday feels the same and I have to remind myself regularly that it's almost December. Not gonna lie... flip flops and tan lines are fun, but cozying up on the couch with my family and a fire on a frosty Sunday to watch football doesn't suck either.
The weather changes here are much more subtle. Suddenly you realize you feel just slightly more comfortable and less sweaty during the day, the mosquitoes gradually disappear and you're finally able to put makeup on your unsightly face without sweating it all off in the process. The last 4-5 nights I've actually gotten "chilly" (it's been low 70s in the early mornings) and I needed a light blanket instead of just a sheet. I guess these are the ways I'll now know that "winter" is coming. Weird.
Know what's even weirder? The American holidays are alive and well in Mexico! Which has been a big surprise to me... Any American could walk into Mega right now and feel like they were in any big store back home... American Christmas music playing over the speakers, mountains of glittery holiday decor for sale, fake Christmas trees decked out in lights and bows...not to mention tons of white people! It's like November 1st hit and all of the Snowbirds showed up at once. After barely surviving our first Mexican summer, we totally get why people go home July through September (and we have no intention of staying here next summer. Yuck.)
We even saw real (exported) Christmas trees at Home Depot yesterday. Um, what?! The biggest surprise... Mexico even has an equivalent to Black Friday which is called "Buen Fin" and it starts the third weekend of November. Aside from it being 85 and sunny everyday, it's like we never left the states... Just kidding.
Last night we had Thanksgiving dinner with some new friends who just docked in the La Cruz Marina last week. We (me) had originally thought it would be "fun" to try to recreate Thanksgiving dinner at home, but then the idea of having to go to several different stores looking for limited Gringo ingredients (along with every other American in the bay area), and then having to cook everything on our small stove all day in the heat...and then deal with the mess and clean up. I must be getting old because all of that just sounded like too much work for one nostalgic meal. It's even harder to get in the holiday mood when you're still sleeping with all of your windows open and ceiling fans on.
Instead, we booked a table at the La Cruz Inn around the corner from us because they advertised they'd be having a traditional turkey dinner. Perfecto! The company, conversation and food was all great...and for 250 pesos per person, it was a perfect evening!
The only downside to Thanksgiving this year, aside from being away from family, was not having any leftovers to gorge myself on late last night and again for breakfast this morning. And not having an entire pumpkin pie to eat in shame during the course of the weekend. Oops. On the other hand, this will be the first Thanksgiving weekend where neither one of us gains weight for being little piggies! Ha. All in all, we had a great holiday south of the border.
What else. My family was here visiting last week!!! I've known for months that my grandma and aunt and uncle were coming, but lo and behold when we picked them up from the airport they had a few stowaways with them... My parents! I've suffered a few bouts of homesickness over the last six months while trying to adapt to an entirely new life, language and cultural and it was refreshing to have a sense of home for a week. We went fishing, zip lining at our friend's family ranch, swimming, beach-ing, snorkeling, boating, shopping.....and we ate a LOT of good food. I had also intended to throw a mini Thanksgiving while they were here, but again, the heat and laziness won and we went out to a tasty restaurant last Thursday in Nuevo instead...
What else. Ty and I have been making more of an effort to get outta the house on the weekends (hence the lack of blog posts) and explore Mexico more rather than just stare at computer screens all weekend. It's led to some, let's call them "interesting," adventures.
I mentioned in my last post that we found some awesome hot springs about a scenic 90-minute drive from us and a couple of weeks ago we tried to find the "back way" there hoping it would be less of a drive. Picture a couple of gringo kids in a mini van with their pup asking at least a dozen non-English speakers, "Donde estan las aguas termales?" as we got lost in little villages and farm lands trying to remember where we had come from the previous trip... We asked an old man on horseback, a man working at some sort of power plant, women chilling in the shade on the side of the road... We understood almost none of what they told us, but hand gestures and waving and pointing are more useful than you realize until you move to a foreign country.
Amazingly, we found the hot springs...buuuuuuuutttt not before being stopped on a dirt road in the middle of the mountains by a caravan of AK-47-toting Federales. Watching a man with a gun strapped to his chest ask your husband to get out of the car while your dog is barking at the men in the back seat, makes you wanna crap your bikini bottoms, turns out. They didn't speak any English, but motioned for Ty to open up the trunk, which he did. We think they were looking for drug traffikers and we explained we were headed to the hot springs. The camo-clad military man in charge told us it was about 5 more kilometers and let us continue on.
Needless to say, I did a bit of freaking out the rest of the way to the springs. Luckily, they weren't there on our way back home which was a big relief... We're always reminded that the military are the "good guys" by both expats and locals, but DAMN, they're scary. I wish I had a picture for you, but I was too busy mentally planning my husband's inevitable funeral and trying to quiet our loudmouth pup to think of taking one. In hindsight, that probably wasn't a good story for my mothers to read today, but such is life in Mexico! Never a dull moment!
Happy Thanksgiving from your favorite kids (and pup) south of the border. Love and miss you all! (And GO DAWGS!)
The weather changes here are much more subtle. Suddenly you realize you feel just slightly more comfortable and less sweaty during the day, the mosquitoes gradually disappear and you're finally able to put makeup on your unsightly face without sweating it all off in the process. The last 4-5 nights I've actually gotten "chilly" (it's been low 70s in the early mornings) and I needed a light blanket instead of just a sheet. I guess these are the ways I'll now know that "winter" is coming. Weird.
Know what's even weirder? The American holidays are alive and well in Mexico! Which has been a big surprise to me... Any American could walk into Mega right now and feel like they were in any big store back home... American Christmas music playing over the speakers, mountains of glittery holiday decor for sale, fake Christmas trees decked out in lights and bows...not to mention tons of white people! It's like November 1st hit and all of the Snowbirds showed up at once. After barely surviving our first Mexican summer, we totally get why people go home July through September (and we have no intention of staying here next summer. Yuck.)
We even saw real (exported) Christmas trees at Home Depot yesterday. Um, what?! The biggest surprise... Mexico even has an equivalent to Black Friday which is called "Buen Fin" and it starts the third weekend of November. Aside from it being 85 and sunny everyday, it's like we never left the states... Just kidding.
Last night we had Thanksgiving dinner with some new friends who just docked in the La Cruz Marina last week. We (me) had originally thought it would be "fun" to try to recreate Thanksgiving dinner at home, but then the idea of having to go to several different stores looking for limited Gringo ingredients (along with every other American in the bay area), and then having to cook everything on our small stove all day in the heat...and then deal with the mess and clean up. I must be getting old because all of that just sounded like too much work for one nostalgic meal. It's even harder to get in the holiday mood when you're still sleeping with all of your windows open and ceiling fans on.
The only downside to Thanksgiving this year, aside from being away from family, was not having any leftovers to gorge myself on late last night and again for breakfast this morning. And not having an entire pumpkin pie to eat in shame during the course of the weekend. Oops. On the other hand, this will be the first Thanksgiving weekend where neither one of us gains weight for being little piggies! Ha. All in all, we had a great holiday south of the border.
What else. My family was here visiting last week!!! I've known for months that my grandma and aunt and uncle were coming, but lo and behold when we picked them up from the airport they had a few stowaways with them... My parents! I've suffered a few bouts of homesickness over the last six months while trying to adapt to an entirely new life, language and cultural and it was refreshing to have a sense of home for a week. We went fishing, zip lining at our friend's family ranch, swimming, beach-ing, snorkeling, boating, shopping.....and we ate a LOT of good food. I had also intended to throw a mini Thanksgiving while they were here, but again, the heat and laziness won and we went out to a tasty restaurant last Thursday in Nuevo instead...
What else. Ty and I have been making more of an effort to get outta the house on the weekends (hence the lack of blog posts) and explore Mexico more rather than just stare at computer screens all weekend. It's led to some, let's call them "interesting," adventures.
I mentioned in my last post that we found some awesome hot springs about a scenic 90-minute drive from us and a couple of weeks ago we tried to find the "back way" there hoping it would be less of a drive. Picture a couple of gringo kids in a mini van with their pup asking at least a dozen non-English speakers, "Donde estan las aguas termales?" as we got lost in little villages and farm lands trying to remember where we had come from the previous trip... We asked an old man on horseback, a man working at some sort of power plant, women chilling in the shade on the side of the road... We understood almost none of what they told us, but hand gestures and waving and pointing are more useful than you realize until you move to a foreign country.
Amazingly, we found the hot springs...buuuuuuuutttt not before being stopped on a dirt road in the middle of the mountains by a caravan of AK-47-toting Federales. Watching a man with a gun strapped to his chest ask your husband to get out of the car while your dog is barking at the men in the back seat, makes you wanna crap your bikini bottoms, turns out. They didn't speak any English, but motioned for Ty to open up the trunk, which he did. We think they were looking for drug traffikers and we explained we were headed to the hot springs. The camo-clad military man in charge told us it was about 5 more kilometers and let us continue on.
Needless to say, I did a bit of freaking out the rest of the way to the springs. Luckily, they weren't there on our way back home which was a big relief... We're always reminded that the military are the "good guys" by both expats and locals, but DAMN, they're scary. I wish I had a picture for you, but I was too busy mentally planning my husband's inevitable funeral and trying to quiet our loudmouth pup to think of taking one. In hindsight, that probably wasn't a good story for my mothers to read today, but such is life in Mexico! Never a dull moment!
Happy Thanksgiving from your favorite kids (and pup) south of the border. Love and miss you all! (And GO DAWGS!)
