Week 5: Tengo problemas cuando hablo...

So I was thinking about it, and I realized my Spanish has been progressing super well in the last month! I'm not near fluent, but I've definitely learned a lot. I don't have to think as much when I'm forming sentences, and I know a ton more words. I think I could've been closer to fluent if I had only spoke Spanish all the time, but when I'm with my roommates, a lot of the time we just speak in English. Bad, I know! 

Over the last 5 weeks, I've noticed that Spanish is seeping into my English. I'll accidentally insert Spanish words like "pues" or "entonces" when I'm talking with my family on Skype, or I'll accidentally replace English phrases with the direct translation from Spanish. For example, instead of "seriously", I'll say "in serious," because in Spanish it's "en serio."

I catch myself afterward, and I'm like:

It's kind of a problem. I have issues speaking English in general, so with the confusion of intermixing two languages, it's just making it worse!

Sometimes I find myself starting to think in Spanish when I want to speak in English, and starting to speak in English when I'm speaking to a native Spanish-speaker. And I get super nervous when I speak to hispanohablantes, so I usually stutter and can't get what I'm trying to say out of my mouth. Sometimes I'll give up and think about just waving my hands around trying to sign because it'd probably be more successful. 

But really, sometimes I think I could communicate better that way. Hahaha.

Okay my events from Thursday to Sunday!

For breakfast on Thursday, our mamá had us try a fruit here called "mamey." A lot of people here really like it, for some unknown reason. I can honestly say it's the most disgusting fruit I've ever tried in my life! It's slimy, soft, and it just tastes awful. So if anyone ever offers you mamey, JUST SAY NO!

Later that day our group went to an orphanage to do some service. The people there weren't so much kids... There were a lot of them who were 20+. All of them had disabilities, but they were all so cute! They were so smiley and they loved to talk! We sang for them, danced with them, and just had fun. It was really great!

After we got back, we went to Catholic Mass with our mamá and papá. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting! It was really different from the LDS church. I didn't understand much, because when the congregation would speak together (they have memorized prayers), it was impossible to get the gist. It was pretty good though, since we had to switch between standing, sitting, and kneeling pretty often, so no one could fall asleep ;) 

Starting Friday we went on a two-day excursion to Campeche! Back in the day, Campeche was attacked a lot by pirates, so pirates are a big part of their city. Yep, you heard me right! PIRATES! We visited some little museums at some of the forts made for protection. Afterward, we went to this awesome pirate ship!

We ate dinner ate this restaurant where a lot of people in our group ate octopus and a bunch of other icky things. I don't particularly like seafood. I never have. Not even lobster. So I was boring and got chicken fajitas. But they were super good! :) 

After dinner we went to a Luz y Sonido show about the history of Campeche, and they had actors up on a wall acting out some of the things, like the pirate invasions! 

Unfortunately, Kate and I missed a bunch of it because we were looking for a bathroom. We wandered around, walking down a street searching for a bathroom, but ended up deciding to backtrack. We saw the vans we were traveling around in, so we decided to ask the driver about a nearby bathroom. He told us there would be one straight through the huge gate that was in the wall that the actors were on top of. This required us walking through part of the set of the show where all the spotlights were, but we were fine walking in since everything was off.

On our way back, all the spotlights were on, but the guy in charge of the lighting waved us to come on through. But we accidentally walked in front of the lights, so our shadows showed up on the wall! The guy started yelling at us, so we just ran away. 

Oopsie! 

After that, we went back to our hotel and had free-time until 1 am! We stayed out until about 10:30. We went to a heladería and got some ice cream, listened to some music at a fountain that changed colors, then listened to a band that played in the main plaza!

It was a lot of fun! Afterward, we went to the boys' room and hung out til about midnight, then went to bed. Yeah, going to bed an hour before curfew... We're old ladies! hahaha.

The main event of Saturday was visiting some ruins called Edzná, and we could actually climb them!! IT WAS SO COOL!!!! :D Actually, it was super duper hot, but they were my favorite ruins we've visited, by far! :)

I'm super high up, and you wouldn't believe how scared I was!

We got home pretty late, and decided to just stay in and go to bed early. It was much needed!

Sunday was, naturally, a relaxed day. Church, Skyping, and whatnot. Oh! It was our first time we ever ordered pizza by phone here! Our papás went to Progreso to celebrate their granddaughter's birthday, so they left us money to order pizza for dinner. It was so scary, but we succeeded! When I was walking back inside from giving the pizza man his money, I cheered, "Éxito!", which means "Success!" I decided not to look behind me and see the pizza man's expression. Thank you, but I already know I'm a weirdo... Hahaha :)

Now time for Elder Gibby! :D

This week him and his companion taught a whopping 43 lessons, which is a record high for them! And it's pretty impressive since his companion is leaving next week to go home, which is when Elders tend to get lazy and really homesick. Good job Elders!! :)

They have 5 investigators right now, 4 of them little kids that they're teaching to play piano. They give them lessons while teaching them about the church. Elder Gibby told me he's gotten pretty good at playing the piano now! I'm a bit jealous. I always wished I'd stuck with the piano, but then I think, ehhhh... I know my notes and can play the right hand. That's all that matters, right? ;) Just kidding!

Tomorrow is our six months! It's really weird to think it's been so long. We're actually pretty legit now! Whoop whoop!

749 Days Left! :)

Week 4.5: Me encanta la comida. Un montón.

So after writing this, I realized a lot of this post is about food and things I ate... Which made me realize that I kind of love food. A lot. Especially the food here. How am I going to live back in the United States??!

Okay, my fun-ness so far this week!

Monday night for FHE we went on a Turibus! It’s a double-decker bus that took us around Mérida and told us all about the historic sites. I wasn’t really paying much attention to the history part, but the old buildings looked SO cool! And we were busy ducking and weaving to avoid tree branches and wires as we were driving haha.

Afterward we went to Colón and got helado! YUM YUM YUM. This time I got chocolate! It was weird though, because it tasted kind of like it had a hint of cinnamon/ginger… But it was still super good!

Unfortunately, from Colón we couldn’t find our way home. So our director had us take a taxi home! It was a little more expensive than a bus (60 pesos, making it 15 pesos each), but it was so much better! The driver was super nice and really fun to talk to! Plus we got home in like 15 minutes, rather than a half hour plus 10 minutes of walking.

Tuesday we got to go out for breakfast for one of our classes!! This time we went to a waffle shop. OH MY GOSH IT WAS SO DELICIOUS. Call me a fatty for eating ice cream for breakfast, but it was so delicious, I don’t even care!

That afternoon it rained SO hard! While I was minding my own business, doing homework in my room, all the sudden there was this GIGANTIC crack of lightning! I almost had a heart attack! It was super close to our house, and then the thunder grumbled grumbled grumbled. I really like thunderstorms though! I think they’re so cool!

After the rain let up a little bit, Kate and I went with our friend Daniel to a park in Southern Mérida. It had a humongous lake in the center. It was awesome! There were ducks, SO many fish, and TURTLES!

Daniel bought some food of some sort (I still don’t know what it was…) to feed the fish and turtles with. When we threw pieces of the food into the water, the fish went crazy!!!
Check it out! (You can even hear me using one of my favorite words, fó!):

We walked around for maybe about an hour. It was so pretty! There was a ton of green, and it reminded me a little bit of my beloved Oregon :)

After the sun was beginning to set, we decided to go out for dinner! Daniel said he knew this awesome pizza place, and they even had vegetarian options for Kate! He told me that I HAD to try this pizza with turkey on it. Turkey on a pizza sounds pretty bizarre though, right? It’s actually really good! Especially with this sauce they had there. We still don’t know what the sauce was…

Right before we ate we heard meowing. We looked for the source of the noise, and Daniel found two kittens behind a bush! OH MY GRACIOUS THEY WERE SO CUTE! But they didn’t have a mommy! It was so sad :’( Some of the boys who worked at the restaurant are going to take care of them though, I think :)

Wednesday our group went to the movie theater to watch the Lone Ranger! Oh my goodness, that movie is SO funny!! I love Johnny Depp!

After the movie, Daniel took the four of us to el parque de las Americas, because Kelsey and Gabi wanted to try something called a “marquecitas". It’s basically a crepe with cheese in it. Sounds pretty good, right? Except apparently a popular choice here in cheese with nutella.

CHEESE.
WITH NUTELLA.

Of course, even though I really didn’t want to, I tried it. And it was icky. I don’t like mixing my salty with my sweet. I don’t like salted caramel or salt on my chocolate. Nope. Can’t do it!

So I just decided to get one with Nutella, with no cheese. Which I was told is actually pretty strange. Oh well, it was super yummy! :)

After we finished eating, we explored the park. There was a shell there, like the ones used for choirs and performances.

Daniel stood on one side of the shell, while Kate and I stood on the other. He whispered something, and we could hear him like he was right next to us, talking normally! IT WAS SO COOL!

That's Gabi, Kelsey, and Daniel on the other side :)

During our exploring, Daniel pointed out a replica of a famous statue that is on a pyramid… Somewhere. It’s of a Mayan man who sacrificed people and offered their hearts to the supreme Mayan god on the plate in his lap.

That position just looks uncomfortable...

Next we ate dinner. TACOS ARABES!!!!!! Yessss, mi amor!

If I could marry tacos arabes with garlic cream sauce, you bet I would. So delicious.

Okie, update time for my favorite missionary!

He and his companion dropped all their investigators because they weren't progressing, which is pretty tough. I can't imagine working with someone, teaching them for a while, and because they won't make the changes they need to, needing to drop them. That's got to be so hard.

However, they still do have some investigators! :) They have one kid who might get baptized in a couple weeks, and there's a woman who only needs to get married, then they should be set.

Alright, I gotta go, so until Monday! :)

753 Days Left! :)

Week 4: Comida + Diversión - Ejercicio = Gordita

Guys, something terrible has happened. Among enjoying all this delicious food and having fun, I haven't been working out for the past month. Do you know what that means?

WEIGHT GAIN.

Nooooo! I knew it would come to this though. I noticed it starting last week, but I was in denial... So today I started exercising so that I'm not Jabba the Hutt when I return home!

Ew.

So I've dabbled a little bit in running throughout my life. I was in soccer Kindergarten through fifth grade, then did it one more year my freshman year in high school. That requires quite a bit of running, right? Well, except that I was defense... So much for that haha.

So to jumpstart my exercising, this morning, bright and early at 6 am, I went for a run throughout the neighborhood, and this is basically what I looked like:

Even at 6 in the morning it is HOT and humid here! I was basically a human fountain of sweat. Not to mention the roads here are in really bad shape, so I felt like I was going to roll my ankle or something. Well, and to be completely honest, I kind of suck at running.

I've been working on trying to get better at running though. The past couple years I've gone out for runs with my sister, and while I was away at BYU I went for runs about... er, maybe 15 times? Oh boy. That number seemed bigger in my head. Also, before I came here to Mexico I went for a few runs during the month and a half or so that I was home.

So why would I choose to run for exercise if it's not something I particularly enjoy doing and not something I'm any good at?
Well, I'd like to get my endurance up, and have you ever noticed that avid runners are always super in-shape?

Okay, I know that obviously doesn't seem like a good enough reason to do something I suck at so bad at.

...Fine! I'll tell you!
A teensy part of it might be that Adam is incredible at running.
Only a TEENSY WEENSY part though, okay!?

But yeah, that's probably why I started running more during my second semester at college, because that's when I found out he was this super star at running. It's just, if he ever sees me run, I don't wanna look like a rotting tomato that's about to explode. Very unsavory.

Well now that you have that image in your head, it's pretty clear I'm not cut out to be much of a runner.

An example of my terrible-ness at running:
You know when your spit gets all thick and you can't swallow it? Well runners just spit it out, and go on their merry way.

Uh, yeah. No joke, I tried doing that on a run right before coming to Mexico, trying to be all cool, and it ended up like this:

I'm being completely serious. Luckily nobody saw, but some of it ended up on my shirt... Er, embarrassing.

But you know what? For what I lack in running skills, I make up in other areas! Like my smiling skills. Those are probably 20x better than the average person's! So take that, people who are awesome at running! Hahaha just kidding. I really admire runners! You guys are super awesome, and props to you for being stellar!!

Okay, now for my events of this weekend!

Thursday was SO much fun! My roommates and I all headed out to the beach Thursday afternoon with one of our friends, Daniel. He took us to a beach that’s west of Progreso, and it’s seriously beautiful! Everything was so clean, the sand was really soft, the water was a pretty green, and the sun was out!

We got in the water for a little bit, but we were supposed to be meeting up with some of our group at Progreso, so we decided to head over there after about 20 minutes or so. It was pretty windy in Progreso when we arrived, but by the time we got in the water it started raining a bit and it was SUPER windy, so the waves were all choppy.

We got out of the water and were chatting for a bit when the two boys that were there decided to leave. As they were walking off the beach, a girl stopped them and asked to take a picture. Nathan started to put his arm around her, but then she said, "sin camisa", meaning without his shirt on!!! And so I took a picture to remember this funny moment:

We decided to do something else, since the beach isn’t all that fun when it’s really windy. Gabi and Kelsey wanted to go with some of the girls in our group to explore Progreso, so Kate and I stayed with Daniel and we continued our beach hopping adventures!

In total, we visited 5 beaches that day! The second to last one we went to had a pier, and there we tons of people fishing off of it. I even saw a real swordfish! I’ve never seen one of those in real life before!

It was pretty dark about 7:30 since it was so cloudy out, but Daniel said he wanted to take us back to Progreso since it’s really fun there at night. We’d never seen Progreso at night, so when we saw that it was a CARNIVAL we were in awe! 

Every night at 9 there is a huge party in Progreso. There’s a huge tent with a DJ in it, carnival rides, TONS of food, and lots of lights! IT’S CRAZY! 

We weren’t sure whether to be happy to find this out, or sad that we missed it the first half of our trip! We didn’t stay until 9 since we had to wake up really early on Friday, so we didn’t get to stay for the dance party :( Unfortunately we can’t go this coming week either since we have too much going on, but hopefully the next week we can go party in Progreso!!

Friday we went to the temple in the morning, and it was fantastic!!!! We relaxed during the day, and I even took my first siesta during my trip here! Those 45 minutes were DIVINE :)

That night we there was a party for the mamá of two of the boys. It was so much fun! There was karaoke, dancing, food…

But I’m pretty sure you already know the dancing part was a disaster. I pretty much dance like this:

Yep it was a blast!

Saturday we woke up bright and early to go to Chichén Itzá (aka Chicken Pizza), which is one of the 7 wonders of the world! It was a two and a half hour drive, but luckily we had a movie to watch during the ride!

Chichén was a lot different than the other ruins we’ve been to because there were SO MANY GRINGOS. It was a weird feeling, being surrounded by white people speaking English! I haven’t had that for a whole month! 

Here I am with my friend Emilio!

There were so many little shops too! The venders were so funny. If they heard us speaking in Spanish they told us that we’d automatically get a lower price. For the most part they spoke in Spanish. Their English consisted of, “cheap prices”, “one dolla”, and “Something for your boyfriend?”

Funny story! My roommate Gabi got a lower price on a ring she bought by giving the vender a kiss on the cheek. Well, it was the air right next to his cheek. How brave! She also sold her $12 pink Wal-Mart watch for a knife. What the? Hahaha.

A lot of the younger venders would ask as I walked by if I wanted a Mayan boyfriend. I talked to one guy in particular for about half a minute, and he mentioned his friend sitting next to him was looking for a girlfriend. Sorry boys, I already have someone, and you can't even come close to comparing to him! :)

After we finished up at the ruins we headed to our first real cenote, Ik Kil! Ahhhh! 

IT WAS AWESOME! I even confronted my fear of heights and jumped off a cliff 5 meters (about 16 feet) high into the water! THREE TIMES!

We got home at about 7, so we still had a decent amount of time til we needed to go to bed. Kate and I decided that we aren’t going to waste our nights anymore and stay at our house. We want to get out and have fun, even if we are exhausted from a long day!

Emilio picked us up to go to one of the boys’ house to play cards. Some of the other girls came too, so we played Monopoly Deal in partners. The second round, Kate and I dominated! Whenever we’ve played as partners in Monopoly Deal, we’ve won! Kate + Chanel = Dream Team. It was a fun night! I was super tired though, and ended up lying down in the street before we got in the car because I was so tired! Oh boy.

I was like this the whole way home:

Sunday was the first time we ever took the wrong bus! After church we were waiting at the bus stop, and after a good 10 minutes, FINALLY the bus we were waiting for, Linea Norte 52, rolled on up. 

We piled on, and were going down our usual route when all the sudden it turned into a neighborhood off of the main road. I figured he was probably just making a side stop, because bus drivers here do that sometimes. But then we kept getting further and further from where our stop was supposed to be! 

One of my roommates pointed out that the sign on the bus hadn’t said “Villa Haciendas”, which is the bus we were supposed to take. Luckily at that point we knew where we were, so we got off the bus and started walking. It was a decent walk, so our usual 20-minute bus ride ended up taking us an hour. Drenched in sweat, we came home just in time for lunch!

I think from now on, we're gonna pay more attention on the destinations of the buses though :)

Okay, since this post is already super long, I'm gonna save the news about Elder Gibby for my post on Thursday. Stay tuned!

756 Days Left! :)