Merida

Still can't figure out the accents on the keyboards. This one shows a typical keyboard here, but types like one in the US. Huh?

Let me tell you quickly about today, and then I have to run to catch a bus. No photos yet, sorry, don't have time to upload, but today was an adventure.

We've been in Merida (a REAL Mexican city, according to all) for two nights. Same cool story: meeting great people and having a good time eating and lazing about. Also, went to see the ruins at Uxmal today with a group of German girls (3) and one German guy. They had a rental car, so we rode with them....um wow. I thought I was going to DIE. Driving here is crazy. At one point, we tried to get lunch in a little town called Ticul (a whole story in itself), and ended up going the wrong way down the busiest street. Crazy gringas....

The ruins, though, the ruins! I took over 200 photos today, I'm pretty sure. I will sift through and upload some probably when we are in Tulum in a few days. By then, We'll also have seen the Palenque ruins, too. It's really quite touristy (or, touristic, as the Germans say) at Uxmal, but we got there early enough to have a bit to ourselves and before the heat was unbearable. Amazing that these structures still exist like they do, and it's amazing to climb up and down them and realize that the steps are so small because they fit the people that built them. My duck feet barely fit on the steps, and as the wind was blowing I felt a few times as if I might tumble down as a punishment for my huge Chacos.

Lunch in Ticul was amazing, we paid 188 pesos for 6 people to eat a full, wonderful, local meal - with drinks. The people here take Easter seriously, too - we got to witness the locals walking around town singing, chanting, and carrying lifesize crosses as a way to begin celebrating....It is Good Friday, after all.

Jessie and I catch a night bus to Palenque tonight, and I hope we will get some much needed sleep because I am exhausted. So much sun, sweat, and not enough water, no matter how much I drink.

I can't get enough of this region: the food, the people, the places, the weather, the sights, the language....It's a shame I have to come home. But then I realize something cool about myself, as I'm thinking this: part of what's going to make me an excellent teacher is my openness to people who are different from me. In fact, not just openness - excitedness or interest or something. It's what makes me able to hang at these hostels, with a bunch of (let's face it) sometimes weird people...it's what makes it so much fun. But my drive to use that part of my personality and others to really serve a population that deserves high quality teachers is what really brings it all together.

It's funny, because I was thinking about this trip today, and how it's probably the best thing I've ever done for myself. Oddly enough, I'm not doing very much soul searching, not like I thought I would. I'm mostly just RELAXING....which is what I needed anyway. I know who I am (or who I am becoming), and what I want, but I work too damn hard. So I don't need solitude and soul searching - I need fun and adventure! Exactly what I'm getting.

Photos soon....

Muchos besos!!