No Hablo Español: Accidentally Rude

If you've followed my blog for a while or are friends with me on Facebook or in real life, you know that I talk about learning Spanish a LOT.  Like, to the point of it being annoying.  But that's because it's literally taken...over...my...LIFE.  I have to speak a ton of Spanish every single day because our hotel staff speaks zero English (nor do I expect them to learn any.)  But also, we live in a Spanish-speaking country and I'm Bound and Determined (get it) to become fluent even if it kills me.  

So far:

• I've taken 3 six-week courses with a retired English teacher (an American) who has lived in Mexico for a bazillion years and now teaches "practical Spanish" to expats and snow birds (Hi, Sean!), and I'm currently attending my 4th course with him in "Advanced Intermediate" with just two other students.  
• I've spent hours and hours studying on my own and working through a college-level workbook (not lately, I need to get back on that.)
• I spent a month in San Miguel de Allende going to Spanish immersion school for 20+ hours per week last fall. 
• I fumble through several conversations per week with the housekeeper about the hotel schedule and logistical/maintenance stuff.  (Thankfully, she is patient and kind and uses verbs and nouns she knows that I know.  And, hilariously, she "translates" for me -- still in Spanish, mind you -- when I don't understand another Spanish-speaker.) 
• I'm constantly looking up how to say something or checking Google Translate before I'm going to be in a situation where I'll need to speak Spanish, and also after-the-fact to make sure what I said was correct(ish.) 
• I have to text, email and message a ton of Mexican guests, rental inquiries and vendors.  (Which I actually prefer.  I'm way better at "speaking" Spanish on paper than I am in real life, unfortunately.)
• I have to answer a lot of local phone calls.  If you've ever had a Spanish-speaking person call you on the phone, you understand that being able to communicate on the phone is like winning the Gringo Olympics.  I absolutely do a victory dance in the living room afterwards if I understand even 50% of the conversation. 
• I ONLY speak Spanish in stores, bars, restaurants, etc. in an effort to practice as much as possible...even if the staff speaks perfect English and responds to me in English, I still only speak Spanish. (Which can be a total downer, because sometimes I'm made to feel like I'm "showing off" by other English-speaking patrons in the vacinity...when really I'm just working my ass off to better myself and to adapt to the country I live in.  Roll your eyes at me for speaking Spanish in Mexico, and I'll roll mine even harder when you DON'T!)  
• And we've lived in Mexico full-time for almost two years...aaaaaaand I still feel inept and discouraged every single day.  

I need to be prouder of myself for how far I've come, because when we moved here I didn't even know how to say, "My name is Alissa," but as a perfectionist, I struggle to appreciate how far I've come compared to how far I still have to go.  (I'm also stubborn enough to not move out of Mexico until I'm 110% fluent...sorry, family!) 

And, not to sound arrogant, but I've never not excelled at the things I've chosen to do in life:

• Waitressing during/after high school?  I bought my first car with cash, I moved out on my own at 17 and was a homeowner by 21 because I busted ass waiting tables 50-hours per week instead of going to college.  
• Corporate life?  Even though I was originally hired to answer the phones as a 20-year old "kid", 5 years later I had more than tripled my salary and was managing a group of men more than twice my age (in a male-dominated field and without a college education, no less.)  
• Going to college studying Exercise Physiology in my late 20s?  Finished with a 4.1 GPA while taking 18+ credits per term and tutoring 8 other classmates at the same time.  One of my professors told me that I had the highest overall grades in the history of the program and that she thought I should consider medical school.  (Didn't know your sarcastic little nobody was wicked smart, did you?!?!  Yeah... I hide it well.)
• Personal trainer and bootcamp instructor at three different gyms in Seattle?  BADASS BOSS LADY with a client waiting list, a devoted following and in the strongest shape of my life. 
• Living in a foreign country?  Fat, sweaty, itchy and constantly complaining about living in paradise. (Which you already know by now.)  

So, yeah, I thought I would be fluent and accustomed and acclimated long before the one-year mark, let alone the two-year mark.  But apparently I'm not Superwoman after all.  Bummer.  

Enter Spanish:  During my never-ending quest to learn (and pointlessly try to perfect) speaking Spanish, I've made it a priority to at least not be unintentionally rude by way of ignorance or lack of confidence in the meantime.  What I mean by that is... We, as non-Spanish speakers, unintentionally "ignore" Mexicans in certain situations simply because we don't know what to say!  If you were up North on your morning walk and you passed by another person, you'd say, "Good morning," or at least give them a nod or a smile, right?  Here, I see far too many tourists and expats not even acknowledging Mexicans (even if they have to interact with them directly, such as a cashier) simply because they don't know HOW to acknowledge them or what to say.  

So...here are a few of my favorite, simple ways to remedy some of the awkward, silent moments you might encounter on a daily basis living in (or visiting) the beautiful Banderas Bay:  

Con permiso -  With permission.  This is used when you're passing in front of someone or when you need to get by someone, etc.  It's the equivalent of saying "excuse me" when you need to step into or near someone's personal space, essentially... Like if someone is standing in a grocery aisle mulling over the tortilla selection and you need to walk in front of them to get through, you'd say, "Con permiso," as you walk passed.  It's a very easy way to be polite and conscious of your surroundings and other people.  

If I'm walking down a sidewalk and I have to walk in between two people having a conversation, and I quietly say, "Con permiso," as I walk by, I can almost feel them relax... Like I'm not just another white lady pretending they're invisible.  (Sorry if that offends you...but, oh wait, I'm not sorry.)  

Buenas tardes (or noches, etc.) - Good afternoon.  This one is much like "con permiso" in that I can literally sense people let out a sigh of relief when I say it.  If you've lived here a while you might've noticed that everyone greets everyone before they continue to say anything else.  Whenever I walk into a tienda, greet a cashier, pass someone on the street, get on the bus, call for a taxi, etc., I always rattle off, "Hola, buenas tardes," immediately.  Even if I'm talking to no one in particular, (like when we're getting on the bus and just talking to the "room") it's just *what you do* here.  And when I say it, I feel like the cashier or bus driver (or whoever is silently groaning about having to deal with my white ass) is automatically relieved that I'm not a tourist.  

Yesterday, Ty and I walked the beach into La Cruz to have dinner and he popped into a corner store on the way.  I waited outside and leaned against the exterior of the building to finish responding to an email on my phone next to a bunch of 30-something guys carrying on in Spanish... It looked like they had just gotten off work because they were all sitting around with a cold beverage "shooting the shit."  I wasn't paying too close attention, but could understand some of what they were saying to each other and after I caught a few curse words and the word "blancos," I knew they weren't exactly saying anything kind about Ty and I, even though we were just minding our own business.  (Fun fact:  Racism and prejudice exist in every country, in case you've never been a minority anywhere.) 

So when Ty came out of the store, I went over to him and we walked passed the group of men, and, very routinely and non-nonchalantly, I said, "Buenas tardes" in my very passable/pretty impressive Spanish accent to the group of them while not really looking up from my phone.  Needless to say, every single one of them looked shocked and then meekly mumbled, "Buenas tardes," back to me and then went completely silent until we were out of earshot.  The expression on their faces was kinda like, "Ooops, they aren't tourists."  I got a good kick out of surprising them, but I wasn't even mad they were speaking poorly of us... Unfortunately, I'm often embarrassed by the behavior of other "white people" here and I don't blame the locals for not liking some of them/us. 

Side note:  I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a tourist -- the world should be explored, but its people should also be respected.  Vallarta gets 1.5 million tourists from the US and Canada every year and I imagine that the locals have a lot of frustrating personal experiences with tourists who don't speak a word of Spanish, or worse.  I have personally seen tourists complaining about/to workers in the hospitality or the service industry because they don't speak English...in MEXICO.  Who are we that we're so frickin important that every other country needs to learn OUR language??  I damn near punched a woman in the face at WalMart once because I was so disgusted by the way she was talking to an employee because he didn't speak English...but I digress.  

Tenga un buen día! - Have a good day!  I mostly say this one to the cute, elderly baggers at the grocery store after giving them their "propina" and a grateful smile for bagging up my items, but it's something you can use everywhere.  Servers, gas station attendants, your hair stylist, cashiers...they'll all be pleasantly surprised if you bust this out as you're leaving.  (I hear this one mumbled through a lot and the "un" gets skipped... "Tenga buen día" or even just "buen día" is what I usually rattle off in real life.) 

• Afterthought:  That's another thing... In case you didn't already know, the baggers at Mega, Chedrauri, etc. only get paid in tips, and I see a lot of people sorta just toss a coin down on the counter in their direction (or not tip at all.)  I make sure to purposely place the coins in their HAND while looking them in the face and thanking them with a smile.  Every single time.  People really just want to be treated with respect and kindness.  It's that simple, folks.   

Quisiera - "I would like..." (pronounced kee-see-era.)  This is a good one to use in a restaurant or somewhere where you're asking for something you would like to have or receive from someone.  "Quisiera tres tacos de camarones, por favor."  (I would like 3 shrimp tacos, please.)  

• Side note:  For those of you thinking, "I thought 'me gustaría' means, "I would like!" Yes, it also means, "I would like," but more in the way of:  "I would like to go to the movies tomorrow."  Not really when you're ordering food or asking a locksmith to make you an extra set of keys, etc.
• Second site note:  Can we all just agree to tip like we do at home?!  I have seen a lot of appalling tips left for servers in the past two years.  One time we watched a family of three Americans (who live here) run their server for hours getting food and drinks and then the dude flipped a 5 peso coin on the table before leaving.  FIVE FLIPPIN PESOS!  Unless the service is legitimately terrible (which is super rare), we still tip 15%-20% in restaurants here.  If you can afford to rack up a $600 peso bar tab, but you can't afford the $120 peso tip that goes with it because you're "on a budget," then you need to stay home and cook your own dinner, in my opinion.  The locals that we rely on everyday, work very hard for very little.  

Igualmente! - "Same to you!"  This is a quick and easy way to say "Same to you!" when someone tells you something kind like, "Buen día!" or "Feliz Navidad!" 

Gracias a tí - "Thank YOU."  Usually, the "gracias" is skipped though, so you'll just hear, "a ti" or "a usted."  This is said when someone thanks you and you want to say the equivalent of, "No, thank YOU."  It's similar to "igualmente" but I use it when my hair stylist makes me look like an acceptable, frizz-free lady for a day.  

Es igual - This is the polite way of saying, "Either way is fine with me," when you don't really care one way or another.  While we were at an Italian restaurant recently, I ordered soup and a side salad and the server asked which one I'd like first.  I shrugged and smiled and said, "Es igual."  The look he gave me made me feel like I won Best Gringo of the Week Award, because not only did I understand his question, but I answered politely.  Ten Spanglish points for me! 

• What NOT to say in this scenario:  "No me importa"... While it technically translates to, "I don't care," it's considered very rude, because to a native speaker it means, "I don't care about what you're saying." 

Claro que sí - "Of course!"  Like when you want to say more than just "yes" when someone asks you something... Our housekeeper often (meekly) asks me if she can pour herself a cup of coffee from our coffee pot in the mornings, or if she can have a soda or apple or something and I always answer, "Claro que sí!" because I want her to feel like she doesn't even have to ask... (Sometimes I say, "No tienes que pedirme permiso!" but she always does anyway out of politeness.) 

Por nada - Everyone knows how to say, "de nada," but I don't like saying, "You're welcome" in any language.  I never have.  It feels like I'm being condescending or something... Like, I'm doing the other person some grand gesture and they should be super grateful...even if that "grand gesture" is giving the bagger 10 pesos for bagging my groceries.  I can't explain it, but I don't like saying, "You're welcome."  I only ever smile and say, "Por nada" here (and my English-speaking friends have probably never heard me say anything except, "No worries!")  "You're welcome" kinda feels like "You owe me," to me, maybe.  I dunno.  I'm weird. 

Por nada still technically means "you're welcome" but in a more casual way.  So, if your housekeeper worked an 8 hour day and then thanked YOU for loaning her 10 pesos for bus fare and you would've said, "Don't worry about it!" in English, "por nada" is good for that.  

Mande? - (Pronounced mawn-day) I've mentioned this in a previous post, but I'm repeating it again because it's that important!  Don't bother trying to look it up on Google Translate, because it doesn't exist.  You're just gonna have to trust me on this one.  "Mande?" is the polite way of saying, "Sorry, I didn't hear you. Can you repeat that?"  (If you didn't know this word before, you're going to start hearing locals say it all the time now.)  

• What NOT to say:  When you don't hear someone or need them to repeat what they said, don't say, "Qué?" even though it technically means, "What?" it's considered aggressive or impolite, like... "What did you say to me?!"    

I'm sure they're are a bunch of other "polite" things I'm forgetting, but it's late and my brain is tired.  And the point I guess I'm trying to get across is that it doesn't take a lot of work to be respectful to other humans and that we need to appreciate and respect other cultures and customs instead of expecting them to wield to our own...and you don't have to speak Spanish well to do it.  The locals will just be glad you're making an effort! 

I'll update this post as I think of more ways to acknowledge the kind, hard-working people that surround us everyday.  Tengan una buena noche, mis amigos!  

Our New Normal: Hotelier Life

I mentioned in my last post that I most likely feel less inspired to write about our "experiences" down here because they don't really feel like "experiences" anymore.  What was once bizarre is now our "new normal."  

Like seeing a guy take a snooze on a pile of pallets in rush hour traffic?  Shrug.

It gave me the idea to write about what a typical day in the life of two dorky Gringos running a busy, boutique hotel is really like since I don't have any new expat-fails or terrifying bug stories to entertain you with.  

Our new normal...life as hoteliers:  

7:30am - The damn parrot starts squawking his head off for 20+ minutes because the sun is coming up (he thinks he's a rooster) which is when I sandwich my head in between my two pillows and try to go back to sleep after muttering about the "dumb bird."  The bird's name is "Macho" because he thinks he's the king of the friggen castle, even though we (Ty) has squished spiders bigger than him.  

He tried to bite me several times while trying to get this photo of him...jerk.  

All of our guests love him for some reason and no one (expect me) has ever complained about his incessant squawking, so I guess we'll keep him around.  (I personally call him "Ruidoso" instead of Macho which makes the staff chuckle because it means "noisy" in Spanish.) 

Ty almost always gets up before me because ever since moving here, I am no longer a "morning person."  Every job I've ever had has always required a super early wake-up time... As a waitress opening a busy breakfast diner in my late teens, I had to be there at 5:30am; all of the office jobs I had started at 7:00am or earlier; while going to college in my late 20s, my first class started at 7:00am; teaching bootcamp classes before the sun was up meant I had to be out the door by 5:45am... So, I think I've been doing a LOT of catch up in the sleep department since moving here, but I'm okay with that.

But around 8:30, (okay, sometimes 9:30), I'll sluggishly mosey out of bed...always hopeful that Ty has already started brewing coffee in our kitchen, which is across the courtyard/hotel lobby.  I throw on something presentable, tame my crazy-ass hair, brush my teeth and wash the sleepy look from my face.  It's a weird thing having to immediately "get ready" before you can even leave your bedroom because you don't want to run the risk of running into the gardener, the (hunky) pool boy or any of your hotel guests while sporting a disheveled nightgown without a bra on, frizzy bedhead and eye crusties.  Sexy.  

Most of my morning is spent sipping coffee, repeatedly asking Ty to go on "poop walks" (where he makes a loop around the property in search of puppy nuggets that our guests don't need to be subjected to) and then I usually continue doing laundry.  And by "continue" I mean the laundry is absolutely never-ending when we're fully-booked.  Sheets, pillowcases, bath towels, beach towels, hand towels, kitchen towels, bath mats, small rugs, cleaning rags, seat covers, table cloths, guests asking if you can do a load of laundry for them....there just aren't enough hours in the day (and our washer and dryer are old and inefficient) to stay caught up with it all.  When the baskets in the laundry room are empty, I always want to take a picture of them and scream, "Victory!!!!"  

Two out of three...not bad!  (They were all over-flowing when I got up this morning.)  

The dryer can't keep up with demand (and it's expensive to run all day), so I "half-dry" things on the line first... 

Yes, we have a housekeeper who has the laundry going all day too, but she doesn't work every day so whenever she's not here I'm chipping away at the heap myself.  (If I didn't try to stay caught up with it, there wouldn't be fresh towels ready when she services the guestrooms or clean sheets when she needs to change over a room, etc.)  And then comes the hours of me standing at our kitchen table neatly folding everything before it gets wrinkled until my back hurts, but I digress.... (We could legit hire a full-time laundry person from November to April, and maybe next year we will...or better yet, I'll convince Ty to buy me better machines!) 

10:00am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday - Our housekeeper arrives and I give her the rundown (in mediocre Spanish) of the day's events: which rooms are checking out today, which are checking in, what the priorities are, what guests told me they needed, what we are running low on, what THING OF THE DAY IS BROKEN, etc.  (Seriously.... There are 11 toilets, 9 showers, 23 sinks, 6 kitchens, 5 hot water heaters, 23 ceiling fans, at least 4 propane tanks, who knows how many pumps and cisterns or whatever else kind of plumbing thingys I know nothing about, and one gazillion lights on the property (I just did a quick count of light switches in our room alone and there are 28), so there is ALWAYS something that needs fixing, replacing, unclogging, blah... Always.)  

Oh!  And then there are the curve balls!  A week or so ago, a dead sea turtle washed up on our beach and Ty (with the help of some concerned guests) buried it in the sand and covered it with rocks before it started stinking up the whole hotel, only to have it be un-buried by the tide overnight; so then he waited until high tide and waded it out into the ocean.  Unfortunately, I have no photographic evidence of this very traumatic/gross experience because I was super bummed that the very first turtle we've seen on our beach was a dead one.  Moving on... 

The rest of my day is spent updating calendars and spreadsheets, replying to emails and booking inquiries, managing our reservation software, updating our rental listings on multiple sites, doing inventory of supplies, helping the staff, (poorly) translating Spanish, calling taxis, walking the grounds and making sure everything's in order, and getting huge eye rolls from Ty when I so much as ask him to change a light bulb or put on shoes... 

When we have a lot of guests, we mostly stay in our bedroom/living area (while keeping the doors open) and guests often come knocking to ask a question about how something works, or to tell us they're running low on something, or ask for restaurant recommendations or for us to call them a taxi or whatever else.  I have a lot of anxiety about both of us leaving the house at the same time when we have guests because I'm always like, "But what if someone needs something?!!?!"  But I need to be better about calming down and giving ourselves a night off once in a while... This past week was nice though; we we're fully-booked, but all of the guests had either rented a car (usually meaning they're more self-sufficient) or they had been here a few weeks already and were familiar with getting around and didn't need us at all.  

In the evenings, we usually watch a show on Netflix or Hulu while we wait for all of our guests to return so we know they're "home safe" and to make sure the front gates get locked properly, etc. which makes me feel like parents waiting up for their kids.  

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Guests tend to "drool" over our gig as Property Managers and Hosts at Jardin and they have a lot of questions about what's it's like to live here, and we always laugh and say, "It doesn't suck!"  Which is true, it doesn't suck, and we're very fortunate; but we usually leave out (or downplay) the "hard parts" of maintaining a half-acre Estate (on our own dime, no less), running a busy vacation rental business and managing a full staff in a foreign language. 

For example, some of the never-mentioned "hard parts":

Sometimes I spend 10+ hours on my feet and I feel like a grumpy, self-pitying, one-woman show and "the only one who gives a damn around here!".... but I'm a perfectionist and I put waaaaaay too much pressure on myself to make everything as good as it can possibly be.  I've always been that way... I don't know how to NOT do my very best at something...even if that "something" is scrubbing toilets or folding towels.  Doing anything less than my best will legit keep me up at night; and when I see other staff members not doing as well as they could too (Ty included), my head feels like it's going to explode, and often times I can't help myself and I go "fix" whatever they did.  

As a bonus side effect to being an incessant perfectionist, I've started unconsciously grinding my teeth at an unnatural angle (with my lower jaw shifted to the right, for some reason) while cleaning, rushing or stressing and I can actually feel/see the wear on my bottom teeth -- not to mention the headaches it's causing me. (I sound like a delightful, laid back person, don't I?) 

Oh, that reminds me... I've also been bombarded with what I call "work stress dreams" the past month or so.  When I was a waitress, I used to have dreams where the entire restaurant was full and I was the only one there and all of the customers were angry at me.  Now, I dream about guests showing up early and their room not being even close to ready or about accidentally double-booking a room.  When our WiFi went out a couple weeks ago (for 4-5 days) I had dreams two nights in a row about it being fixed and then waking up and realizing it was still broken.  Nothing like having a panic attack first thing in the morning because umpteen guests are gonna be pissed off about not having internet... Fun!  

Much to Ty's credit, he does all the accounting and bill-paying/banking/tax junk for the hotel because that's way too boring for me to care about.  He also does the majority of the in-person guest interaction and "crisis management" (a.k.a. bribing a TelMex technician to fix our WiFi today, not next week) because I'm not very good at talking to humans I barely know or handling problems.  Both make me want to hide, so I'm thankful he's good at being the calm, cool, like-able front man and "fixer."

I don't like it when Ty's not home, in case you can't tell... 

Most days are okay, but some days are really HARD.  Whenever we have a "turnover" (hotel lingo for when guests are checking out of a room and new guests are checking into the same room on the same day) on a "non-maid day" (Tuesdays, Thursdays and the weekends) ...then yours truly gets to spend 2-3 hours busting ass to get the room clean and ready before the new guests show up.  Stripping sheets, making beds, scrubbing bathrooms, emptying leftover food from fridges, emptying garbages, washing dishes, dusting, sweeping, mopping....and then restocking everything:  towels, soaps, coffee, water, paper products, etc.  It's a ton of work to get done in a small window of time and it's about 87 trips up and down the stairs because it's impossible to get everything you need in one trip and then I usually forget half of the things I went to the supply closet for.  And, of course, there is still laundry happening in the middle of all of this.  Let's just say, I'm grateful when guests say their plane doesn't land until 4:00 or 5:00!  

I really don't mind the cleaning aspect (because of the whole perfectionist thing)...it's the rushing and stressing and sweating part I don't like, because after I'm done getting a room ready, I still have to change my dirty clothes, mop up my face, fix my hair, and try to look easy breezy when Ty pulls in the driveway after picking up our latest visitors from the airport.  So, I often go from stressed-out, sweaty maid to smiling, care-free hostess in a single afternoon.  

Heaven forbid there be any sort of emergency when it's down to the wire...like a toilet overflowing in another room and flooding into their living room while I'm the only staff person here and I'm still trying to finish a different room and the new guests are going to arrive any minute....yeah, that happened like 3 weeks ago.  But I pulled it all off and still managed to play the "put-together" hostess when they arrived.  (I might have done a little stress-sobbing in private later that night, but you can't prove it.)  

We also do tons of shopping.  It feels like we're at the store every other day.  It takes a TON of supplies to run a hotel... Laundry detergent for colors and for whites, fabric softener, OxiClean stain remover (for when people decide to use my pristine white towels as makeup wipes....grrrrrr), bleach, dish soap, hand soap, body soap, shampoo, conditioner, kitchen sponges, plastic wrap, tin foil, toilet cleaner, floor cleaner, tile cleaner, glass cleaner, wood polish, rust remover, paper towels, napkins, toilet paper, kleenex, garbage bags in 4 different sizes, coffee, water bottles...just to name a few.  And then there's something that always needs to be replaced, whether it's a rusty can opener, or a refrigerator that's older than I am, we're always shelling out cash.  Speaking of which, don't get me started on our electricity bill...(and guests ignoring our polite requests to turn off their A/C when they're not at the hotel.)   

The other thing about being so busy is the impact it has on our personal lives... Remember all that laundry I mentioned?  That means there is rarely time to wash our OWN clothes.  Our hamper is usually overflowing, our room hasn't been cleaned really well in over a month (because the housekeeper and I are too busy and Ty only knows how to "boy clean"), I don't have time to shave my legs or wash my hair as often as I'd like (I know, too much information), we never exercise anymore (but I'm still developing plantar fasciitis anyway from constantly running around on hard surfaces in flip flops), we go to the store constantly but it takes about 6 trips to remember that we're nearly out of toothpaste and our fridge is always empty, we rarely hang out with our friends, we don't go on dates or out to restaurants, we don't get to have lazy days in our pajamas binge-watching movies, and Ty and I are both more irritable with each other than usual.

But... This is our life now...at least for the "high season" anyway.  Looking at our calendar, we won't have a single day where we're "home alone" until mid-May and we have reservations into late July.  Oy.  We're not living very exciting or relaxing lives at the moment, and I don't see any laid back beach days, impromptu hot springs trips or private pool parties any time in our near future...but we get to live in a truly unique place and we get to share it with visitors from all over the world, so that's pretty dang cool.  

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Easily the best part of running Jardin is getting to witness other people fall in love with it, like we did.  I never tire of showing guests to their rooms, giving tours, telling stories about the history and the artifacts, or seeing the expressions when guests walk through the ancient wooden doors for the first time.  

I also love reading people's reviews after-the-fact (most of them make me teary and/or give me goosebumps) and I especially love when guests book their next vacation with us before they've even finished their current one!  Because, to me, "I can't wait to come back," is the truest test that a place is magical.  (It's exactly what happened the first time we vacationed in little La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, and now we live here.)  

Anyone can stay at a mega resort or fancy condo with all of the high-tech amenities...but it's not going to leave an impression on them -- which is what this place does to people.  But...don't take my word for it!  Experience it for yourself.  Hint, hint.  

Okay, that's enough complaining for one day... I should probably go check on the laundry.  Adios mis amigos!  

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year!!!  Like...a month late!  (I really just needed a title for this post, and that's all I could come up with.  I'm boring.)  

I was recently reminded that I have a blog and that I should scribble some stuff down once in a while so the people back home know we're still alive or whatever... I checked to see how long it's been since I last bored you with my ramblings, and it's been 3 months!?  You poor things.

Here I am, alive and well!!  (I'm just using this "proof of life" photo as an excuse to post a shameless, after-salon selfie from 3 weeks ago.  Sorry, not sorry.) 

I think I feel less inspired to write now because things feel less "weird."  The totally bizarre has become the relatively normal.  Guy juggling machetes while riding a unicycle at the stop light in hopes of getting a few coins?  Normal.  Finding out about a Mexican holiday because celebratory cannons are going off at 4:00am?  Normal.  Dude walking around with his shirt pulled up and belly hanging out because he feels like it?  Normal.  (I'm telling you... That is a THING here.  Every time we see someone with their shirt pulled up, Ty and I gleefully chant, "Bellies out!!!" in unison.) 

It happens a lot... (Thank you kind stranger for your contribution to my blog post.)

    
We drove down to Zihautenjo, Gerrera and stayed in a cute hotel for a week as an early Christmas present to ourselves, and on our 14-hour drive South I remember driving through Manzanillo and being all like, "Holy smokes, this city is HUGE!  There are car dealerships and fast food restaurants and a Costco and Sam's Club and TWO cineplexes on the SAME STREET?!?"  Which in hindsight, is hilarious and forehead-smackingly stupid because I was in genuine awe by a place that resembled absolutely any generic place in the Portland or Seattle suburbs, where I have lived most of my life… Understandably, Ty was looking at me like we had moved out of the States 20 years ago instead of 20 months ago.   

(Remember that cheesy 90s movie with Tim Allen where he visits his ex-wife in the jungle and finds out that he has a teenage son and then he takes him to New York or wherever and the kid is all like, palms-against-the-windows-jaw-dropped-in-awe of the Big City the whole time, and he pees in the house plants and whatnot because he doesn’t know how to behave in “civilization?”  Yeah, that was me in Manzanillo.  I need to get out of La Cruz more, apparently.)

Meanwhile, back in Nayarit, when I see a baby smooshed in between his parents on a motorcycle, or I have to slow down to let an iguana cross the road, or we have to make a trip to the "rope store" (where they literally only sell rope) to rehang a hammock that fell down...I don't even bat an eye.  I guess you can say I've acclimated to coastal life in Mexico.  

May marks TWO years since moving here and I cannot believe it's been that long already -- it feels surreal, yet kinda encouraging.  Like, we haven't totally bombed at Ty's-early-mid-life-crisis-thingy yet!  Wahoo!!!  

We've been running a boutique, beachfront hotel (www.jardin-del-mar.com) in between La Cruz and Bucerias for the last 13 months and we (*I*) have been very, very busy since "high season" started around mid-December.  Some days I'm on my feet for 10+ hours dealing with never-ending tasks and to-dos and laundry while also trying to play housekeeper, maintenance, hostess and concierge; while other quieter days, I spend glued to the computer from dawn til dusk catching up on admin work (which I actually enjoy because I'm a giant nerd who would rather make Excel spreadsheets than talk to other humans); and some days I'm so tired that I brattily refuse to get out of bed and tell Ty I'm taking a sick day and that he's in charge -- which, of course, never works because both he and the staff need me to translate for them.  Don't get me wrong, we definitely have more freedom than we used to, but so much for "early retirement" during the winter.  I'm sure we have your sympathy, right?

Maybe I'll write a post about what running a small, busy hotel is really like... Because everyone wants to read about me folding 187 towels per week; unclogging toilets while standing in an inch of water while also scream-texting at Ty about "how my day is going"; spending our own money to improve the hotel only to have things be broken, stained or stolen; having to bribe a Telmex technician to fix our internet outage before anyone else's so we don't have 20 guests angry at us because there's no WiFi; and nagging at Ty to make sure there's no dog poop in the yard everyday, right?  We live a very glamorous life. It's okay to be jealous.

I *do* get to wake up to this view every morning, so I'll quit complaining. (For now.)

I'm getting off-topic... What else is new with us?  

We were fully-booked over Christmas and New Years, so those we're kinda a blur.  I insisted on getting a tree this year to help combat some of the homesickness I feel during the holidays, so that was fun.   

It was also cold and drizzly the week before Christmas and I was freeeeeeezing!  And it was GLORIOUS!  It felt very homey and cozy.  It was in the mid-to-low 60s during the day and I actually got to bust out my slippers for the first time.  (I joked that I had to check them for scorpions before I put them on because they had been in storage for so long...but, it wasn't really a joke.  I totally checked them.  Because, duh.)

Immediately after the holiday rush was over, we had a full house of friends come visit us from Portland.  One of Ty's best friends decided to have his bachelor party at Jardin so he had a great time catching up with all of his college buddies.  We weren't able to fly back home for the wedding, so it was good to see everyone...but 6 days with a house full of 14 aging frat boys was enough for me!!  

Thankfully, Dan and Hilary (Ty's cousins) made the trip too (their third time to La Cruz!), and Hil and I got to do fun lady things like pedicures and massages while the boys did silly shenanigan things like play pool beer pong for six hours straight and stay up until the wee hours of the morning.  

Hil and I also kept up our yearly tradition of making the hour-long walk along the beach into Bucerias to have lunch and do some shopping... Playing hostess is rough!  

This past week we had even MORE friends come visit us from Portland (one of them being Ty's ex-boss and my "work dad" back when we all used to work together at Oldcastle.)  

Their first night in town we took them to the La Cruz Inn for dinner. (I have no idea what Ty's face is doing in this pic, but let's be honest, I only choose photos I think *I* look cute in... Sorry, babe.) 

An afternoon in San Pancho...

Sailing and whale-watching with Red Dolphin Cruises...  

I accidentally took them to Bucerias on the busiest day of the year (The Blessing of the Boats) and it was PACKED, but they enjoyed the dancing horses and the music and bartering with shop vendors.  It's always fun to get to take people to our favorite restaurants and places and share "our" Mexico with friends and family.  (Hint, hint!) 

Well, I think I've caught you up on the highlights over the past few months.  February through April are going to be crazy busy with hotel guests checking in and out, so I'm sure it'll fly by.  Hope everyone is doing well and staying warm up North!  Adios!  

NopeNopeNopeNopeNope

It has happened.  The inevitable has happened.  I've finally reached maximum NOPE status and I'm thiiiiiiiis close to packing my bags and high-tailing it out of Mexico and heading for less terrifying climates.  To say I am ready for winter is the world's biggest understatement.  I need all of the creepy crawlies to go back to hell where they came from!!!  

Yesterday, while simply moving a chair out of my way, I found this DEMON MONSTER underneath and I gasped loud enough for the neighbors to hear before screaming bloody murder for Ty.  He found me shaking and pointing aggressively at the floor.... 

Granted, this killer beast was dead when I found it... (Ortho Home Defense perimeter spray is the only way I can sleep at night) but that didn't stop me from shrieking and standing on furniture so as not to be on the same surface as it.  That's normal, right?  If I had seen that thing ALIVE and crawling across the floor, for sure I woulda given myself a heart attack from all of the screaming and hyperventilating.  I'm getting woozy just thinking about it.  And if this is the shriveled up version of it...how big was it before???  I can't even.  

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING???"  A quick Google search (which is never a good idea) of "giant spider with tiny pinchers" informed us that this thing of my future nightmares, isn't a spider....in fact, it is a "tailless whip scorpion."  OH, AWESOME.  OF COURSE THERE IS A SCORPION THAT LOOKS LIKE A SPIDER.  Kill me.  This is the part where I spent a solid 15 minutes jumping frantically around our living room because I felt like things were crawling on me, which led to me jumping in the pool to calm my itchy skin and then dry-heaving every time I thought about the fact that I just found a giant scorpion-spider hybrid with legs eight feet long.  

And, just two weeks ago, I found a "normal" scorpion munching on a cockroach and I thought THAT was the grossest thing I had seen so far.  I thought for sure that couldn't be topped.  That had to be the highest level of grossness, right?  Even after alllllll of the things I wrote about in my last post about my disgusting encounters with creatures from the underworld...I thought I was done being out-noped.  But, NOOOOOPE.  

In case you're wondering, these toddler-sized scream-inducers are not poisonous or harmful to humans according to this blog post I read (aka skimmed through while not looking directly at the photos, because, gross.)  So that means their sole purpose is to haunt your dreams.  Have fun trying to sleep tonight.  You're welcome.    

And because misery loves company....heeeeeeere you go.  

I Need a Vacation from my Vacation

Ty and I vacationed in La Cruz three years in a row before we (he) decided we were gonna move here permanently... It was a cold Seattle night on the couch and he had had a few beers when he saw his friend post a room for rent on Facebook in Nicaragua.  From that moment on, there was no changing his mind... "Life's too short, we're doing it wrong," became his mantra and within 7 months, everything we owned was sold and we were on the road headed south. 

Living in paradise and visiting paradise are two very different experiences.  Yes, I get to look at this view everyday... No, I never have to set an alarm clock.  Yes, it's awesome having my unstressed, always-happy husband back.  But... I miss the excitement of getting to plan a vacation somewhere so different from where I live.  I miss getting to research hotels and drool over photos of places I wanna visit.  I miss counting down the days until you get to ditch the dreary rain and head for warmer climates.  I miss falling in love with a tiny town (La Cruz) and being absolutely giddy to return the following year.  

But planning a vacation when you live in paradise, also feels kinda silly.  Like...where are we gonna go?  Let's go to Hawaii and pay triple what we do here?  Are we gonna shell out a bazillion dollars to visit Europe?  (The cheapest airfare I found from Vallarta to Paris would set us back $6,800.)  Since we live in a "special" place, are we gonna go on vacation to a "normal" place...like, Ohio?  I'm sure you feel really sorry for us, right??  

Another reason why I'm feeling mopey...is because as people who operate a beachfront hotel in the Bay, we don't get to celebrate the holidays.  High season here is from about November to April and the holidays are the busiest time, tourist-wise.  Jardin is 100% filled to capacity during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.  So, that means we'll be super busy working instead of celebrating.  And to add insult to injury, we'll be working while watching all of our guests have the time of their lives.  That's a bittersweet feeling for yours truly.  I had thought before we moved here that we would for sure adopt some new holiday traditions, but I never thought the tradition would be to skip them entirely.  Wah, waaaaah.... 

Every time I talk to an excited guest about planning their vacation at the hotel, I'm happy for them...but a little bummed for myself.  I miss being the super excited guest!!  I miss having something to plan and look forward to.  I miss going shopping for cute vacation outfits and getting pre-vacay pedicures.  (I'm very aware of how whiney this whole post is, but I'm okay with it.)  

Sooooo, after my most recent stint of feeling super sorry for myself, I mighta convinced Ty that we should get outta here before all the hotel madness starts.  And it only took a minimal amount of threatening to cry over not getting to have Christmas for him to agree!  Haha.  So, we're officially going on vacation in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and calling it our holiday celebration!  (I also had to agree not to ask for a single thing until my birthday next summer, but we'll see about that.) 

Flying somewhere was going to be too expensive for an impromptu trip (we looked at going to Belize since it's not too far from here, but it would involve a 15-hour layover in Houston both ways and cost a thousand bucks per person.  So stupid.)  So, we decided to pick somewhere a little closer and to make the 11-hour drive down to Zihuatanejo (zee-whot-uh-nay-ho) simply because we've never been there (and Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies.  Duh.)  We rented a fully-equipped Casita just a few blocks from famous Playa la Ropa for 7 glorious nights.  

(Google photo)

Technically, this will be our first true (relaxing) vacation since visiting Nicaragua almost two years ago.  Finally, we get to be the ones playing tourists again instead of hosts.  We get to sleep in an air-conditioned room without worrying about the electric bill.  We get to explore new restaurants instead of asking each other what boring thing we should make for dinner.  We get to relax on the beach instead of making yet another trip to Costco for toilet paper and laundry detergent.  I get to lounge by the pool and read a book instead of being glued to a computer all day.  Yippeeeee!!!

Okay, speaking of worky things... I gotta go finish painting the bathroom in Casa Palapa in the sweltering heat, so I'm off!!  

Is it Winter Yet?

Well, I've been home from my month of Spanish immersion school for a couple of weeks...and it's HOT.  Like, every minute of every day is spent sweating, complaining about sweating, sitting directly in front of a fan and mopping up my greasy face.  Sexy.  It's still in the 80s as per usual, but the "feels like" temps have been over a hundred a few times this past week and 90% humidity.  Kill me.

All my friends back home are posting pictures of golden foliage and fall boots and talking about pumpkin-flavored coffee, while Ty and I are jumping in the pool naked and dragging Bloo in with us even though he hates it.  We're still getting the occasional thunderstorm and when we do, it feels like (very brief) glorious relief.  We're all miserable and ready for winter.

Speaking of thunder storms... Tropical Storm Pilar created a few hiccups in my travel plans coming back from San Miguel a couple weekends ago!  Ty drove me to school, but I had booked a flight to get home because it was super cheap.  But turns out Pilar planned to hit Puerto Vallarta the same night my flight was scheduled to land.  I had been hearing the wind and flood warnings in the Bay and I got really nervous about my flight being cancelled because I would be stranded in the Leon airport alone overnight, or have to scramble to find a hotel or some other terrible adulty things I didn't wanna deal with in the middle of crisis mode.  But more importantly, I was super homesick and just wanted to get home to my family. 

My one-hour flight from BJX to PVR departed 20 minutes late and almost immediately after we were airborne the crew announced that the Vallarta airport was CLOSED.  Um, say what meow?  A few minutes later they announced that the airport had instructed them to remain in a "holding pattern" and not to approach the storm.  Awesome.  So we slowed down and killed time by swerving back and forth over inland Mexico for over an hour unsure if we were going to make it to Vallarta.  Finally, we hear, "We've been cleared for landing" and I was immediately relieved only to hear, "Nevermind, we have to return to Leon," like 2 minutes later.  I might have actually cried at that point, but you can't prove it.  

Meanwhile, Ty was sitting in the airport parking lot for 90 minutes (with Bloo and Luna) in pouring rain and flooding waters waiting for me because my flight wasn't being updated online.  He had no idea that my flight was delayed or where I was.  It wasn't until my plane got sent BACK to Leon and we landed that I got his umpteen text messages and I was finally able to tell him I wasn't coming.  I was a bit of a hot mess, to say the least.  And to top it all off, my phone was nearly dead (and there were no outlets on the little commuter plane) so I wouldn't be able to update him (or my panicked mother) either.  Double hot mess.  

Not gonna lie, he's cute when he's worried.  And yes, he really does call me "friend" as if it's my real name.  Ha.  

Long story, short... We sat on the runway for another 45 minutes waiting for new information and then they decided to reattempt the flight to Vallarta for the second time three hours after the original departure time.  I've never been so happy for a plane to land.  I was off the plane and out of the airport in 10 minutes (hooray for domestic flights!) and grabbed the first cab I saw... I didn't even haggle with him, I woulda payed double. 

When we got near Mega in Bucerias the highway was totally and completed flooded for hundreds of yards (at least a foot of rushing water) and I started panicking when I realized Ty had to drive through the same flood to get home.  But in true Mexican style, the taxi driver just put on his emergency flashers and drove right through the "river."  I've also never been so happy for a taxi to arrive at my front door.  I was finally home!!!  Four hours late, but I made it.  It was late and the gate was locked (Ty didn't think I was gonna make it back that night) and I rang the doorbell about 30 times and woke up all the neighborhood dogs, including ours.  Sorry, not sorry.  

Not much else is new with us... We've been busy working on maintenance and upgrades around the hotel to get ready for high season while the place is empty.  I've given myself, Ty and the staff lists of to-dos to get done before guests start arriving next month, so everyone is busy working on crossing things off (apparently "go golfing 3-4 times per week" was on Ty's list though...hmm.)  I've been super busy revamping all of our photos, website, booking profiles, social media, etc.  I need to step away from the computer though, because it seems we ONLY get reservations when we're not working.  Like, I've spent probably 50 hours on the computer this past week, and then as soon as we got to a sports bar yesterday to watch football, ding ding!  New reservation for January.  Go figure.

Looking ahead at our calendar kinda makes my head woozy though.  It's gonna be a whirlwind.  Since we reopened the hotel so late in the season last winter, it was really more like a "soft opening" and all of our reservations were kinda last-minute...so this upcoming winter will be our first full tourist season.  There will be a lot of crazy days with all hands on deck...like, a family of 15 people checking out the same day 18 new guests are checking in.  (Ty will probably try to convince me to let him go golfing that day.)  Fun times!  

Well, that's all the super-interesting updates I have for now... We're taking the dogs for a car ride so we can all sit in front of some air conditioning for a while.  It's okay to be jealous.  

Adiós, San Miguel!

I'M DONE WITH SPANISH SCHOOL!!!  Yesterday was my last day of class, and I couldn't be happier that it's finally over.  Four weeks might as well have been four months and I'm so ready to go home tomorrow.  I miss my dorky little family like you wouldn't believe.  If I ever do something like this again (right now that seems highly unlikely) I would rent a house for a month and drag Ty and Bloo along with me.  Having someone to study/vent with and to explore San Miguel with these past few weeks would have been a game-charger in my bad attitude department.  School was over-whelming, but feeling lonely and homesick for a month was miserable.  

It's a super special town... I just hope I don't associate it with stress from here on out! 

The part I liked about school the least were the daily "compositions" we had to write every night, which were basically a 2-3 paragraph short story incorporating the grammatical elements we learned the previous day.  Every morning we'd each read our composition aloud to the class as our teacher talked over us the entire time correcting every tiny error, every forgotten "de, le, a, por," every mispronounced syllable, and every wrong conjugation.  It may sound helpful, but actually it just felt really belittling to all of us.  His whole teaching "style" was like that... Super picky, never complimentary and condescending.

It wasn't a motivating environment for yours truly.  He also wasted a lot of time on tangents and beating a (pointless) topic to death and then under-explaining things that were actually important because we ran out of time... He once went on a 20-minute rant about all the different ways to order a cup of coffee and which ways were more efficient.  (Uh, pretty sure I can say "Café, por favor," and a cup of coffee will magically appear.)  And another time, while I was reading an excerpt from a book, he kept talking over me to correct my CADENCE.  That's right.  He didn't even like my tempo or inflections.  We couldn't do anything right ever.  I rolled my eyes extra hard that day.    

For our last assignment...the intermediate students had to give a 20-30 minute "speech" (basically just talking about a topic of our choice in bad Spanish) and then we had to answer questions from the teacher and other students for another 20-30 minutes.  Mind you...we were given a whopping 20 hours notice for this "final project" so writing a speech and memorizing it wasn't gonna happen.  I made a feeble attempt at jotting some thoughts down on paper Thursday night before shrugging my shoulders and deciding to just "wing it" the next day.  Either I can speak Spanish, or I can't.  Besides...what's he gonna do, fail me?

Friday morning before class I was chatting with my classmates, who all seemed super nervous as well as shocked when I told them I didn't have a topic in mind yet... They each had written out outlines of their talks (even though we weren't allowed to look at notes or have anything on our desk when our turn came)... I knew I was going third, so while the first and second students spoke, I decided to just talk about all the times I've embarrassed myself while struggling to learn Spanish over the last two years.  Making groups of people laugh (especially when I'm nervous or uncomfortable) has always been something I'm good at, and turns out I'm a stand-up comedian in Spanish too.  Duh.  I had the whole room laughing, even my stick-in-the-mud teacher couldn't help but let out a few smirks.  

I told them about the many times I've confused the word for "embarrassed" (avergonzado) for the word "pregnant" (embarazada)... I told them about the time I thought a man was complimenting my hair (cabello) and I giggled and thanked him like an uber nerd, and then someone told me he was asking me if I liked horses (caballos.)  Face palm.  I told them about the time I ordered sandy tacos (tacos de arena) instead of flour tacos (tacos de harina)...and my many other Gringo failures.  

After my 30 minutes of story-telling were up, people asked me questions about what I intend to do to continue to learn Spanish, my teacher asked how my impression of Mexico has changed since moving here, etc.  It was actually pretty fun and although I messed up a lot (whoever decided Spanish needed TWO past tense conjugations is real jerk) I was understood well enough and if we were actually being graded, I'm sure I would have passed with flying colors.  Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.  But whatever.  

Overall, I don't know if I'm much better at Spanish after all this... If anything I speak much slower now, because now I know 20+ conjugations of every verb instead of just 4-5 and so I overthink every little thing I say.  Again, why there are two past tenses in Spanish, is beyond me!!

Before I came here, I was only speaking in the present tense and using "time" words (yesterday, this morning, next week, etc.) to help the person I was speaking to understand what I was trying (and failing) to say.  So, instead of saying "I went to the store yesterday."  It was more like... "I go to the store yesterday," because up until a few weeks ago I didn't know past tenses.  (Even just typing that grammatically incorrect sentence makes my perfectionist nerd brain cringe.)  

Also... My brain feels like a jumbled hot mess tornado of English and Spanish words right now.  For weeks, I've been flip-flopping between the two languages usually mid-sentence... I wrote out a list the other day of things I want to get done when I get back to Jardin, and only after I was finished writing it did I notice that half of it was in Spanish and half was in English.  Some examples: 

• Finish painting the baño en Serena
• Escribir a new Welcome Letter para los huéspedes 
• Comprar more artwork for Santiago
• Replace low-quality fotos en línea 
• Update all calendarios

You get the point.  Talk about Spanglish. 

I'll also read something in passing (a product label, or a sign or something on the street) and about 10 seconds later it dawns on me that I don't know if I was reading Spanish or English.  I read it subconsciously and understood what it said, but I don't know which language it was thinking back on it.  It's a very strange phenomenon and I don't know how people who speak multiple languages keep them all separate in their heads.  

I think it'll take getting back into my old routine and being around my usual Spanish-speakers to really know if I'm any better at understanding and speaking the language.  Amazingly, I've been able to understand at least 95% of what the instructors have been saying since I arrived here (they speak almost zero English in class) which feels super encouraging.  Granted, they're language teachers, so they speak clearly and don't use slang, etc. but damn!  I actually understand Spanish!  Now if only I could get the gardener to slow down and stop mumbling, I'd be all set.  In 9 months, I've understood almost nothing of what he has said to me.  Fun. 

Yesterday, after classes were over, we had our last "cooking class" as a group...which is basically just the school director cooking us a free lunch.  Score.  Yesterday we (she) made super tasty Chile Rellano and we all sat around the dining table and talked about going home.  None of us are perfect Spanish speakers, but it was neat to see how far everyone has come since our first group meal.  And by "far" I mean slightly less terrible, of course.   

Since today is my last full day in San Miguel, I decided to play tourist a bit and explore new parts of the city I haven't seen yet.  And I think I'm going to swing by the Artisan Market to pick up a few graduation gifts for myself.  Sorry, babe.  (Except not sorry.) 

Tomorrow afternoon I'm getting picked up by a shuttle company and making the 1.5 hour trek to the León Airport and then taking a quick 55-minute flight to my beloved Bahía de Banderas where my sweet man-boy and dorky pups will be waiting for me with open arms and lots of kisses.  (Right, babe?)  And then I'll proceed to melt my friggen face off and make whiny Facebook posts about how hot it is.  Because, duh.

Adiós, San Miguel!