what year is it again?

Jaaaaanuary first. Welcome to 2013. Sounds kind of futuristic, right?

Hi all! I'm still around. In Yellowknife for my annual freeze-yourself visit to my parents'. This Christmas is a little different, since my aunt moved up here last June and my Oma (maternal grandmother) came to visit from Ontario for the holidays. She's turning 91 in a couple days! So there's been more going-out-and-doing-stuff than there usually is, which, coupled with my ever-growing random errand to-do list, means I've hardly gotten any reading or tv-watching done, which is what I always imagine going "home" for two weeks will allow me to do.

Still have a few more days to get some more done. Just finished checking out how long a Canadian can stay in the U.S. for without any kind of work visa - it's looking a little depressing, I mean, technically I can stay for six months, leave, and come back for another six months, but it doesn't look like a sustainable strategy for life. Le sigh. But no shit. Anyway.

Let's think about happier stuff!!! I don't have many pictures with/of my friends, so I'm excited every time one comes along. This is (clockwise from left) me, E.O., Poppe, Jimmy Tam, and Tol in December after the last shift of skating at Union Square. Posie was there too but was taking the picture (thanks Posie!). [I know all these people through ultimate, except for Jimmy Tam, who I met at a Couchsurfing meeting.] I was psyched to get out on skates even if I was a little rusty.

Quick digression in order perhaps? Through ultimate I've met a loooot of people, and a lot of people I like a lot. As always happens when you move to a new place, at first you hang out with some people, then you hang out with others, but I think eventually you settle down somewhat and figure out who you're most comfortable with. I have also involuntarily stopped seeing some people I used to hang out with in August because they're no longer playing ultimate in the league(s) with me, and when you don't see someone twice a week at the usual hangout (the fields, pickup games, the bar I used to go to twice a week after rec league games) and they don't actually live near you in the city, all of a sudden it gets really hard to see them.

For the past few months I've mostly been hanging out with E.O., who was on my first summer ultimate team. He's my best friend in the city, above and beyond. Apart from being everything a good friend should be and a very competent human being, he always knows what's going on in the city, and always wants to check it out. With him I've checked out Fleet Week, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (with his dad), Flugtag, the reindeer at the Cal Academy, Journey to the End of the Night, saw my first falling meteor, and done Thanksgiving in the South Bay with his friends, as well as been his date and/or wife to other dinners and parties. Basically, he's the best. Talked him into playing beach league now, so I get to hear him whine about how cold it is twice a week now, plus whenever else we hang out.

In the summer I played league games Tuesdays and Thursdays and we all went to the bar afterwards. In fall league, though, the weather got suuuuper nice and we started playing Sundays during the day, so no one really wanted to go to the bar afterwards. There was a lot of foot-dragging and stuff when it came time to get off the fields, and we just ended up sitting around on the grass or throwing discs like dinosaurs. I liked it. But some of my friends from summer league didn't want to play on Sundays, so I basically stopped seeing them, sadface. The thing about ultimate is that once you show up (everyone always shows up late), it's really hard to tear yourself away. You play, then you play some more, then people hang out, then you're like "hey, why don't we go get dinner?" -- This is why I tried to stick to the rule of not having work on evenings and weekends, because it totally sucks to be like "that would be cool, but I have to go home and be alone and work."

Anyway here's some of my fall league team after our last game, played on turf in pouring rain (which stopped by the end):

This team is where I met Posie (third girl from the left), who actually lives a block away from me, so we are now the kind of friends who can actually just drop in on each other at 10pm on a weeknight if we want. She's pretty awesome -- speaks French and Spanish and has a shitty road bike and a shitty car that leaks when it rains. So I'm glad she lives near me.

Then fall somehow fell into winter and now technically I'm playing beach league on Sundays, which is even worse in terms of not spending the whole day playing ultimate/hanging out with ulty peeps. Games start at 1pm, and there's music, and you're hanging out on the sand, and then people start playing pick-up after the games, and someone hands you a beer, and all your friends are there, and the only way to drag yourself away is for your friends to be like "let's go bike to dinner!", and that's what you do, and you spent the whole day out. ....That sounds pretty awesome. It is, actually. But then your entire Sunday just disappeared. Mysteriously enough...

I'm also playing organized pick-up on turf on Wednesday nights. People are pretty good there. It's nice to bike to a different part of the city too.

Oh did I mention I finally bought a new bike? "New" is a stretch I guess - it's not even in working order yet. But here it is -

Needs some brakes, for one thing. We'll take care of that soon enough.

Other than my ever-changing ultimate schedule, I try to get to Planet Granite with Marc and Jordan (who I know through Tol, who was on my summer ultimate team) or Jimmy Tam, or Mission Cliffs, if I'm with Phil (E.O.'s roommate), to climb a couple times a week. Things keep happening though, like: I rolled my ankle pretty bad and was off it for about six weeks from Sept-October (I  also think I had a pulled groin from August till December but largely ignored it until it was magically healed after the first day of beach ultimate?), so I didn't climb much in there either, then sometimes schedules clash (and it's hard for me to get to the gym if I don't have a ride), and there's just ALWAYS COOL STUFF TO DO IN THE CITY that E.O. or someone else invites me to, or I'll be tired or whatever and Phil will be like "why don't we just drink tea and watch a movie?" and then I'll do that instead.

But yeah, I guess if I avoid any further sports injuries, don't have work in the evenings, and don't get invited to cooler stuff, I'll be able to climb twice or three times a week. Yeah.... that'd be nice. I started bouldering just before I left for Christmas, and I want to try to go Saturday mornings now. I got new cute purple Evolvs for Christmas! My old second-hand high-tops were losing the rubber on their toes. So, sweet.

So yeah. My life = work, ultimate, climbing, events in the city, hanging out with friends in general. Plus wanting to read, eat, keep my place and clothes clean, and sleep... how do people have time to watch tv and movies? I basically don't unless it's with someone else around. Admittedly, I waste a lot of time on the Internet reading, so I'm going to try to actually schedule time to do that now to make it more efficient.

I'm ambitious on paper with the number of things I want to do, but it sure takes discipline to stick with it. How do people manage?

Anyway, I guess I can't complain. There's just so much to do in the city! I'm lucky enough that the weather lets me play outside all year and that I know such awesome people. Example: I was at home in Yellowknife for a quiet New Year's Eve with my family, but before going to bed, I got to virtually clink glasses with Tol, Marc, and Jordan in SF via gchat call. That was sweet of them. :)

Over this vacation I've also heard from Marco, Haruka (!!), José Luis, Jonathan, Janzen, and Jason. So nice to know what's up with faraway friends.

So, happy 2013 all! If all goes well I'll be hired shortly by a tech company and sponsored to live forever and ever in this great city we call San Francisco. Wish me luck.

xo

L.

WHAZZUP AUGUST

Oh... hey y'all! Here I am, still in San Francisco! Still the most amazing city ever, still never want to leave! Every day I see more awesome things... ok ok get ahold of yourself.

HIIIIII ok I finally have an hour to chill and write something! Because I really wanted to write stuff for a long time! And I have a special feature for you... that could even be interactive. It's called, "Being Canadian in Amurika."

Ok, let's play. So, I've been in the States for two years now. Mostly I go unnoticed, and if someone finds out I'm Canadian (or re-finds out, that happens a lot too), their reaction is usually: "But you don't have an accent!!" And my reaction is usually: "........."

Do Canadians have accents? Can someone help me out on this one? I mean sure, Newfies, Maritimers, Quebeckers, people from Northern Ontario... do people from B.C.? Because most people around here are more familiar with the part of Canada directly north of here. Iiiii dunno. Moving on.

So ok. I say "out" weird. I guess. I can definitely hear it now when I talk to my friends and family from Canada on Skype, so, alright. And some Americans say soda, and jelly instead of jam, or whatever. But what other fun things have I learned living here that I was not aware of previously?

1. They say "real" instead of "really" as an adverb. As in, "I'm just going to tie my shoe real quick and then we can go." This used to bother me. Now I say it. Hum hum....

2. They don't use "aft" as an abbreviation for "afternoon". At first when Dan couldn't believe I said that I thought I was just weird. But then I googled it and apparently it's Canadian. You can get paranoid living out here.

3. I was riding in the car with Emily and mentioned someone was going to make me pasta. She was like "wait... are you saying it wrong or is the person in your story saying it wrong and you're making fun of them?" I was like... "saying what wrong?"

So I say "pass-ta" and she and everyone else around here says "pahs-ta". Oh. Someone else said, "oh yeah, that's a Canadian thing." 

My real question is HOW DID I LIVE HERE FOR TWO YEARS AND NO ONE TOLD ME I WAS SAYING PASTA FUNNY?!

4. Apparently they don't say "brek" or "brekky" for "breakfast" either. I might just be weird on this one though.

5. Another pronunciation giveaway is saying "soe-ree" for "sorry" instead of the American "saw-ree". I didn't notice that one for a while.

6. It's not KD, it's not Kraft Dinner, it's "mac and cheese". Well yeah... or... wait... is it?

It's just funny when someone looks at you and is like "wait... did you just say...?" Anyone else got anything?


Ok so that was "funtimes in Americaland". Now moving on again to San Franciscoland.

So I went to visit Michaela in East Palo Alto (it's a thing, and it's dangerous) not this past weekend but the one before that. FUUUUUUUCK Palo Alto (and the peninsula in general) is HOT. Here in SF we've been getting a ton of sun since I've been here, but it's always nice and fresh and breezy and sometimes goddamn cold and misty. Palo Alto was hot. We wandered around the cute main street and checked out the Stanford University campus. It's gorgeous and green and huge and is so clean and well-planned-out that it seems like an amusement park. They have their own (good) art museum that's FREE, nice.

Stanford Campus.

Took the Caltrain there and back (Ah! Commuter trains, how convenient). Then, on:

Monday - ran with the Hash House Harriers (http://www.sfh3.com/sections/1/pages/2). I went today as well. Basically, you follow a trail marked with chalk and flour for around an hour and then get to a keg at the end. And a ton of chips. The amazing thing about it is they change location every time, and you get to explore different bits of the city. We ran up Mt. Davidson and then through a verrrrrrry well-to-do area last week, and then today we ran through the Presidio park and got incredible views of the Bay, the Bridge, and the ocean. Absolutely.... fabulous. 

View from Mount Davidson! Not my picture. I was running, you remember.

Coastline, we spent some time on a trail along here today. Also not my picture!

So yeah. I will keep up this running shit just to get to see the city.

Tuesday - Went to a San Francisco Giants (baseball) game with Drew and two other girls. We bundled up and ate gourmet leftovers. Drew is moving away... or has already moved away now, so, bye Drew :( Off to Yale with you! Oh, and Giants won against the Mets!

Wednesday - down to the Independent on Divisadero to see a mashup band called the Hood Internet. Went with a bunch of guys from ultimate, got cheap beers at this amazing café called the Beanbag, danced the night away. Did not sleep enough that night.

Thursday - Went to Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences (awesome museum with a living roof, aquarium, four-storey rainforest, Planetarium that I think is better than IMAX), which is when you can only come in if you're over 21 and pay less than half price to get in because you can drink alcohol once you're there! It was pretty packed, they had ping-pong and a DJ as well but I didn't get to stay long. I DID, however, get to see the BABY OSTRICHES which, as Kevin said, were wayyyy cuter than I was even expecting. THEY RUN AROUND AND THEN THEY LAY WITH THEIR NECKS ON THE SAND!!!!!

Friday - had a movie night and ate Indian pizza. (It exists!) Saturday worked, and Sunday hung out in the sunny sunny Mission for Sunday Streets with ultimate peeps, and drank milkshakes that were... THE BOMB. And so ended my crazy week. 

It was so crazy because we had a "by" week with frisbee. Games resume this week. Yeah so, normally what I shoot for is playing ultimate Tues and Thurs nights and Sat mornings, and climb twice a week as well. Work-wise, I try my best NOT to work in the evenings, and preferably not on weekends. But I do the latter sometimes. Sometimes I just need an afternoon off during the week, and that means I have to find other time to work if I want to be financially responsible. 

Haven't been climbing as much as I'd like to because Brian's been so busy with work/car craziness. Hopefully we'll get back in the swing soon. This past week was awesome, but I need my exercise.

And work is going well! I'm definitely getting enough, and I think I've gotten better with managing everything. I usually have work set up for days in advance, so I don't have to stress about missing emails offering me work. I aim to start work at 9 and finish at 5 and have a lunch break, and mostly it works out.

So yeahhhhh! Things are good! I love SF! (Shut up already....) I wish for all of you to come see me! Thanks for reading and/or skimming... :)

DA JUICE

*cue café saxophone soundtrack*

I am loving San Francisco!! Hahaha I feel so unoriginal saying this. On the other hand, aren't you supposed to enjoy the good moments when they come? I am loving being in a city again, meeting new people and hanging out with frisbee peeps, watching the streetcar or whatever the hell they call it go by, reading in the sun in the Golden Gate Park. I like living in my little quiet neighbourhood near the park and everything I need at 9th & Irving, I like being able to bike to both ends of the park where I play frisbee (east end on Saturdays, west end Tuesdays and Thursdays). I like my roommates and my apartment! It's all good.

I've been "working" from home this week since my OPT started. What that has meant is that bleary-eyed at 8am I open my laptop from my bed in case someone emailed me. Because I have learned that if I don't respond in less than two minutes to the email, the job will be given to someone else. That happened on Monday. But I learned! And now I am crazy on top of my email. And I've gotten more jobs. Thank the flying spaghetti monster.

So then, if I do get some work, I, still bleary-eyed, stumble in my pajamas to the table in the kitchen and try to get organized really quickly. I'm not really a fan of this process - I like being able to shower, get dressed (if only in sweatpants) and put my contacts in before starting the day. I've been trying to set a sleep schedule for myself to wake up at 7:30, but I've been having some trouble being tired early enough at night to not want to kill myself waking up at 7:30. I think today I actually woke up before my alarm, and I managed to get up and ready and at the table at 8am to start my workday. Look at me, I am so good. GIVE ME WORK!

I was actually supposed to work a few hours this morning, but apparently the translator never did his/her work and so the file will be ready tomorrow instead. I actually have a full work day tomorrow. So today, I finally made it out of my house and into a café whose tables are almost fully occupied by people with Macs. Well, one guy has an iPad, but I guess that still counts. AREN'T WE COOL?!! Living the life. Is everyone else unemployed(ish) like me?

So the weather has been amazing summery, and everyone likes to warn me that it isn't going to last. Today it's cold - 12 Celsius (55 Fahrenheit - look at me learn!) but I'm not any less happy, it just feels like fall in Canada, which I happen to love! NOTHING WILL STOP MY GOOD MOOD!

Alright, that's enough caps lock for today. I came here for a reason, on to the applications.


BYYYYYYEEEEEE

New start y'all

Whoo! Only like four or five months since my last post! Truth be told there wasn't that much to talk about and it would only have gone like this:

"Oh my god what the hell am I going to do after I graduate ahhhh!!!!!"

Thoughts going in circles. Repeat repeat repeat. So, not a whole lot exciting.

I was pretty sad to leave Israel in January because I knew this semester was going to be horribly stressful. And it was. Not school-wise, even though, yeah yeah, I was supposed to pass all my classes and I was taking ten different subjects sort of and I was in Practicum, which is really time-consuming. I was just friggin' stresssssed about knowing what the hell I was going to do after I graduated.

One the one hand, people were saying - just concentrate on school, you need to pass your exams! On the other, I kept hearing that prep is key to launching your career, you don't want to leave everything to the last minute, etc. etc. Fair enough. Some people were able to juggle those two aspects, others got too focused on one or the other and let the other aspect suffer a bit... I kept swinging from one to the other.

It all started in February with the career fair, resumes, nice suits, blah blah blah. And then it just continued. Constant searching, basically fruitless. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that as a Canadian in Americaland I am subject to immigration and work restrictions just like any other poor slob [foreigner], so I had to apply for a work permit called Optional Practical Training (OPT). And how it works is, I have a year max to work, but only 90 days of unemployment total in that year. So once my OPT starts, I have three months-ish to do jackshit before I get kicked out of the country. To be able to stay for the year, I can freelance, but I need 20 hours of work minimum a week to maintain status. Obviously, I had no idea if that was feasible, but it didn't look like I was going to be getting a steady job.

To sum up, I was kinda jealous of the folks who got to go home to their parents and take their time finding a job. If that was needed.

Like I said, my job search was pretty much fruitless, and I didn't get a job before I graduated. So I just decided to move to San Francisco and start looking for freelance work in anything and everything (OPT only applies to work within my professional field). If I got work, great, and if not, I would have a nice summer (if foggy) in the Bay area. This is my chance to stay for a year in the States, and I figured it was as good a place as any to look for work.

I also wanted to live in San Francisco because:
1) It's a big city with good public transportation
2) It was close to Monterey (could drive with my stuff)
3) I disliked it when I was a tourist

I know that sounds weird. Everyone seems to love San Francisco, but somehow I was really underwhelmed every time I visited. It was cold or something, or I didn't know where I was going. I knew it was supposed to be great and I believed that living there, it would be great.

So, I moved there!

Well, my stuff is there. In the place I'm subletting for the summer. I move myself there on Thursday, June 7! Ben and I drove up with my stuff in a U-Haul from Monterey... thanks Ben! Right now I'm staying with Ben's brother and brother's girlfriend (Dan and Lynashley) in Berkeley, and I have to tell you something.

BERKELEY IS AMAZING. I was all like... Yay big cities, yay noise and tons of people, bring it on. And when I first got to Berkeley (I've been here for about a week) I was thinking ok, this is way too quiet. But then I really started getting into it. I've just been hanging out every day, in quiet North Berkeley, and walking around and seeing the houses and the parks and it's all so leafy and green and all the houses are crazy damn cute with all these out-of-control flowers spilling off their lawns into the streets and it all looks so peaceful and adorable and organic, like everyone teaches their kids not to discriminate and not to eat animals and they just let the plants grow and read books instead and AHHHH IT'S ADORABLE.

Of course it helps that I'm completely on vacation right now, I just chop plants down around the house and eat and go for walks and read, and I get to hang out with Dan because he is also not working right now, so for me this is awesome.

Dan and Lynashley have been the best hosts ever, but all good things must end, and I must move into my (admittedly also quiet) neighbourhood in SF. If you put this into Google Maps you can see where I am living: 12th avenue at Lawton, San Francisco

Apparently the Sunset is notoriously foggy, so, sad face! But on good days you can see the Golden Gate Bridge from this intersection. Google Maps doesn't really do it justice. Golden Gate Bridge, you will be my new CN Tower.

= 

Warming my heart wherever I may be. And honestly... San Francisco is actually really cool. Now that I've driven around instead of being a lame-ass lost tourist, it is amazing. The bridge looks stunning as the sun starts going down. The city looks amazing from across the bay in Oakland. There is a great coastline if you drive west of the Golden Gate Bridge. I live close to Golden Gate Park and am planning on playing in an ultimate frisbee league there. Can't wait to get out and start meeting people...

Which is especially important because! I forgot to mention this but it seems like right now I will be working from home fulltime for a translation company as a badass quality manager. This is a very good development because it will:

- give me money
- give me hours to keep up my immigration status
- be flexible enough to allow me to do interpretation stuff if that comes up
- give me great experience within the translation industry

So yeah. I hope it works out. My plan is to keep looking for interpretation stuff in the Bay area, work on getting court certified for California, etc., while doing this quality assurance stuff. If it works out, I could be staying in the Bay area for a year, not just a summer! :)

And that would be very nice.

For now I'll just be moving myself in, exploring, and setting up shop to start work. My work permit starts on June 18, so I still have a decent amount of time to be on vacation.

I'll tell you more about my roomies and San Francisco in general if it seems pertinent a little later! Till then, sayonara and good night.

DA JUICE

new year, whatever

It's January 1st, national hangover day as far as I can figure, and I'm reaping the rewards of mixing several alcohol varieties last night. Adleen plied us with wine punch and cheese-and-avocado quesadillas, I cried laughing at the Don Cherry piano video, then fell asleep on Janzen's shoulder on the TTC ride home. Now it's rainy and I've been walking around in my wimpy Keds, but it's not that cold, and there's no snow. At my brother's in Guelph it was all wet snow and fog. Right now I"m looking at Jack Layton the female ginger cat sitting in the window watching the raindrops roll down the window and Janzen is trying to nap her hangover away. Had a candy cane latte at Second Cup with Jonathan and also sushi, and I could use a nap too. But somehow I feel like I need to write down what's going on, because I'm starting to lose track of the days. I can't believe how quickly I can forget about school. And I was just starting to get into the whole thing! When I get to Tel Aviv I'll have to force myself to do SOMETHING for school. But I know I"ll want to bike around and work on Hebrew and watch TV. Oh sigh.

So I passed all my exams! Including Simul into Spanish, somehow miraculously, considering Leire gave us some crazy ass-exam that I'm pretty sure got interpreted into pure gibberish by me. I still haven't gotten around to (read: gotten up the nerve to) listen to my recording. Shudder shudder.

With exams done I chilled out for a week and cleaned my whole place for my subletter, then went to San Francisco for a day to see the Nutcracker ballet (awwwesome) and get that bigger-city fix with Dan and Becky. Next day got to Yellowknife and did the Christmas thing there, then the parents and I flew over to Ontario to hang out with my brother in Guelph, and now I'm in Toronto for a few days just to hang out. The weather kind of sucks right now, but hey maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow so I can do some shopping.

Saw my Oma yesterday before getting on the GO to come here, and on the 3rd and 4th I'm supposed to hang out with her again, then the 5th it's off to Tel Aviv already. Lucky me, so much vacation. Poor Perki is being worked like a dog while I kick back, and like I said I should be doing stuff for school, but it is sooo hard to feel motivated when it feels so good to do fun stuff. I still need more break; just thinking about next semester makes me feel tired and overwhelmed. Not to mention everyone keeps asking what I'm going to do after I graduate in May, but I can't blame them. I'm just as curious as them to know what the hell is going to happen to me in the real world. Only time will tell, or something.

GUYS I SUCK!

Blah blah, I whine that no one reads my blog but then I never keep it up. What do you WANT from me??!!!

K so here's what happened after my last blog post. In super-summed-up style. [EDIT: ok I knew this wouldn't happen. Disregard.]

I finished up working at ECLAC in Mexico City at the end of July and it was vacation time for me. I'd promised Marco's family I'd visit them again once I finished work, so I went there to Querétaro for a few days and stayed in the little green house again.

I loved spending time with Bere and Isaac; they really spoil me with their attention. The last time I saw them they were 3 and 4 years old, and now they're 9 and 10. Bere swears she remembers me.

Bere and Isaac; me, Marco and Isaac

I felt like an honorary aunt. I have tons of little cousins (or not so little anymore, like I would know) but I barely see them.

After Querétaro I went back to Mexico City so I could drive with the frisbee girls to the national tournament in Xalapa (or Jalapa) in Veracruz state. The tournament was Aug 6-7. It was awesome, altho we only won about half our games and got bitten terribly by some bug that left bites way bigger and more long-lasting than mosquitos. Either that or Jalapa has some mighty huge mosquitos.

The girls drove back to Mexico City, but I stayed in Xalapa with a Couchsurfing host. I visited a couple of tiny but cute villages nearby (Coatepec, Xico) and saw the horribly ugly centre of Xalapa. Then it was off on a bus to the Port of Veracruz. I thought it was humid in Xalapa, but I got hit with a wall of humidity getting off the bus there. Sweet! Tropics time.

This girl Liza from the frisbee team told me her parents lived in Veracruz and would be happy to host me. I felt guilty about taking her up on it, but also felt rude not to do so. So I stayed with her parents in a really nice house in a subdivision right near the coast and her mom took amazing care of me, driving me all around and hooking me up with her nephew Emilio to show me around. He enlisted his friend Isaías to do the grand Veracruz tour with me, and I had a great time hanging out with them both, eatin' tacos, swimming at the beach, etc. (Taquitos... playita... chelitas...)

Not the world's nicest beach, but no complaints outta me. (Isaías.)

Next up was an 8-hr bus ride to Oaxaca, on the Pacific rather than Atlantic coast of Mexico. There I stayed with a friend of a friend of Liza's parents, so it was kiiinda weird to be taken in by them. But I basically got my own tour guide assigned to me again. This time it was a couple of grandparents with a big, gorgeous house and their kids and grandchildren visiting. So to take care of me, I got the maid to take me all around. Nice!

She and her friend brought me to the market, had amazing chocolate, ate some locusts, yada yada. The next day we went to the ruins of Mitla, about an hour bus ride away. Not that impressive, but we did eat some AMAZING nieves, which are like snowcones but about 100 million times better.

I'd heard about Hierve el Agua, which are calcified waterfalls, a little further on. So we jumped in the back of a pickup and wound up a mountain for another hour. That ride was the best part.

Hierve el Agua. You can see the falls on the right.

And the NEXT day, I got driven on a moped by some other really nice kid up to the ruins at Monte Albán. Those were pretty sweet, and I am a huge sucker for motorcycle/moped rides. HAPPY ME!!! Love summer, love the wind in my hair. Helmet what?

Then it was another bus ride to San Cristóbal de las Casas. There I was in a hostel, and met some nice people, most notably a Kiwi named Jonno. (Only Kiwis and Aussies get away with calling themselves shit like that.)

San Cristóbal itself was for me largely meh. Except I DID have the best nachos and michelada of my LIFE in a bar there (Revolución. GET THE NACHOS AND MICHELADAS!). We went to watch a soccer game, maybe the under-17s, and I also kind of developed a crush on the girl wearing the Interpol shirt serving us. SHE'S PRETTY AND SMART! SHE LIKES INTERPOL! SHE LIKES DOGS! SHE LIKES DARK BEER! We are clearly meant to be together. A dog came in out of the rain and I took pity on him, but then the manager said he had to go. I tried to convince him to stay near the door, but that didn't work, so I had to kick him out. The waitress thanked me for doing it, because she didn't have the heart. If only I could have adopted that dog and the three of us could have been together until the end of one of our natural lives. Oh well, yet another love that could not be.

Anyhoo, the best part of San Cristóbal apart from that was outside the town. A few hostelers and myself got a bike tour together to a village near(ish)by called San Juan de Chamula. I guess all the tourists go there to check out the church, but I HIGHLY recommend it anyway. You can't take pictures inside, otherwise I'd put one up. The people there mix Catholicism with some type of paganism, and the result is tons of burning candles stuck onto the floor and Coke being used for a ritual. You gotta go.

The other cool thing was the (water-filled) canyon that also all the tourists do. But I still think it's awesome. Kind of fjord-like.

Then I set off to Palenque with Jonno. We hooked up with some Frenchie to do the ruin tour. Gorgeous.

Palenque.

Thennnn I took a 12- or 14-hour bus ride back to Mexico City, and met WEINER! Nice time.

Us on the bus tour.

Then I flew back to Monterey, California.

And began my third semester at MIIS! Finals are in a few weeks. So far everything's great, feeling comfortable, getting good marks. Just can't believe I'm supposed to get a job soon. I am NOT that good yet.

I went to my brother's wedding in September and had a great time. Might have given too many shots to the bride.

Also me and Perki are back together, he came to visit in October and showed up my cooking skills as usual.

Dan, Perks, Becky, Calli on our way to the beach in Carmel.

I'll do another post sometime with my final observations on Mexico. For now I hope I've tantalized you sufficiently with my very exciting life.

ya casi casi

Right so... last weekend I went to Querétaro with Burnsy and the frisbee team, all us gals in a van, left at 5am to get there by 8.30 or so to register. We played two games and half of a third, at which point it began to rain profusely - cold rain, drops as big as your thumb, driving wind, etc. - and after bravely plugging through for a bit, the pathetic throws and inability to catch the frisbee made it impossible to score any points, and we could barely see anyway at that point, so the other coach finally yelled "Ya!! That's it!!" and we all sprinted for the stands. The guys packed it in a little bit afterwards and we all sat, soaking, on the concrete steps, the wind blowing the rain in at us, lakes widening on the fields. Eventually it let up a little bit and we all headed for our respective vehicles and the hotel. It was cool, we had a suite for all 10 girls, sitting around eating peanuts while we each went to shower. Dinner out in the pretty centre of Querétaro, then I was fucking dead from having slept around 5 hours two nights in a row, so I went and passed out in the hotel.

Oh and! I had a break between the second and third games on Saturday, and I took a taxi into Querétaro to have lunch at a mall with Marco, his mom, and his sister Alma, and then walked over to their house where they made me an ice cream sundae and I taught Marco's 10-year-old sister Bere, Alma, and Marco how to play Crazy 8's... it was so nice to be back there again in their house, speaking much better Spanish than I spoke 5 years ago and feeling at home in Mexico, and yet feeling like not a whole lot had changed.

On Sunday Marco's mom, dad, Alma, Bere, and the little brother Isaac came to watch me play frisbee and gave me my birthday present, so thoughtful! We had two more games on Sunday plus the other half of the one that was cancelled, and I scored the last point for us in the tournament! Although through most of the tourney I was just running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I slowly started figuring out where I was supposed to be and started defending better, so, cool.

Then it was my birthday week with the actual day on Wednesday. The girls at work made me a cake, on Thursday I went out to the pulquería (where else?) and CS meet at the Oslo, Friday we went to see the last Harry Potter flick, Saturday Burns and I went to Teotihuacán (pyramids just outside the city) and at night Luis and Flor had organized a crazy party for Luis' birthday. I was feeling pretty burnt out but once I walked into my house at 11pm and the DJs were at it and the house was full of people.. I suddenly felt up to it somehow, hehe. I went to bed around 5am and most people had started leaving by then. The house was disgusting the day after... broken beer bottles in the shower... whole floor sticky... some guy passed out on the couch, on the half that wasn't vomited on... ha. Real good party.

Hum hum, what else? I only have this week and one more after that at work! I still haven't quite figured out what I'm doing after I'm done, except that I decided I'll stay in Mexico, since I'm here and I haven't gotten out of the city much.

On Tuesday went with Eduardo - another awesome Couchsurfer - to buy souvenir-y things in the market at the Ciudadela, yesterday had a short frisbee training complete with a million mosquitos, and tonight I went with Eduardo again to our awesome Cantina Crawl... just me and him, haha. La Camarita (Corona), some random bar to get a hamburger (Sol, and yes it does taste like water), El Salón Corona (i think that's its name) - tarro de clara, and Dos Naciones, now serving prostitutes and no music!! (Bohemia). I think it was good that Dos Naciones was last on our tour, haha.

I feel like more things must have happened, but maybe not. Lately it's been sunny in the afternoon instead of overcast/raining. God I love summer when it's summer.