Week 6: Un casi encuentro con la muerte!

Okay, I'm just cutting to the chase today since I don't have too much time to write!

Thursday! We went to the temple, and naturally it was fantastic :)

Afterward, Emilio took Kate, Gabi, Kevin, and I to Progreso in the nighttime! CARNIVAL TIME! :) It was so much fun! 

The first thing we did was play foosball. We all got really into it and were yelling and whatnot. And guess who won? Kate and Chanel! I’m telling you, we’re the DREAM TEAM!

Afterward, we decided to go on a couple of the rides there (which probably wasn't very safe since they were really rickety and old…). They only cost 20-25 pesos (about $2), so why not?! :)

The first ride was a mini rollercoaster sort of thing that just went in circles. It was kinda like Tilt-a-Whirl, but in rollercoaster form! 

Kevin and Gabi! 

Kate and I sat in the same cart. It was pretty fun at first, but as we started going faster it started to get pretty scary. Then the force from going so fast and in such a tight circle was making it so I was getting crushed by Kate (just kidding, it wasn’t THAT bad!).

To make matters worse, after a couple minutes, the rollercoaster started going BACKWARD. But that's not the worst of it. Right then, our safety bar came unhinged, so instead of just regular yelling, we started screaming for our lives!

We were clutching onto the back of the cart, panicking, screaming, eyes wide... and all Emilio did was point and laugh at us the entire time. How mean! I can honestly say that was in my top 10 scariest moments of my life! Although it wasn't likely, I very well could have DIED! Okay, I'm just being dramatic ;)

The second ride was a ferris wheel sort of one, but instead of going up and over, you stay on the inside of the wheel and go upside down. Gabi, Kevin, and I were all together in a cage (that’s basically what it was). Oh my gosh, that one was seriously frightening. We were yelling so much. The worst was when we were hanging directly upside down for a good 20 seconds… I felt like my head was gonna explode!

Afterward I felt so sick and dizzy. My head hurt so bad!

The 3 girls who went on the ride after us hardly made any noise… Wow, us three Americans are a little embarrassing...

I got some pretty nasty bruises from the rides, but it was totally worth it!

Friday we went on an excursion to some really cool caves in Loltun. There were these really cool columns that you could hit really hard and it’d make a noise!

Afterward we went to a nearby cenote and ate lunch there. We had Poc Chuc! There were all these piggies running around, and they were kind of cute!

But then Kelsey pointed out to me that they weren't just there for funsies like I thought. Their brothers were the Poc-Chuc that we ate for lunch! :'(

Saturday we went on another excursion to Izamal. On our way there we stopped by a hammock factory to see how hammocks are made. All of our tour mostly consisted rooms full of thread. It was super cool to see all the bright colors though!

Izamal also known as the Yellow City. 70% of the city's buildings are yellow! It was so pretty! It’s actually where our mamá is from. Unfortunately we didn’t get to spend a lot of time there, but we got to go on a horse-drawn carriage ride throughout the city! It was so cute because a lot of the horses had hats! We were riding in a yellow carriage through a yellow town. It was adorable!

Oh, and I won’t forget to mention we had a very cute and nice chauffeur named Elmo. Who lived in a yellow house of course. And his horse was named Dora. SO CUTE!

Later that night Kelsey and I went out with Emilio to get REAL, refrigerated milk and Oreos. Normally here our mamá buys this stuff in a carton called Nutri-Leche. It's this gross milk that has vegetable oil in it and doesn't need to be refrigerated. Warm milk and cereal is always a tasty treat! Hahaha... hah...

When we brought it home, I saw the peanut butter on our table, and I was so happy! Parent Trap, anyone? YUM.

Sunday was great! Since it was fast Sunday, and I decided to get up and bear my testimony. Gosh, I was so nervous. I don't bear my testimony very often, and adding onto that a different language… I was afraid I'd end up standing up there, like:

It was hard! It was hard to express what I wanted to, and I know I made plenty of mistakes. But I guess I didn't do too awful, since I got some compliments. I was pretty proud of myself! 

So as for Elder Gibby... He got transferred into another area today!! I got an e-mail from him this morning saying that, but he wasn't sure if he'd get time to e-mail anyone today other than that quickie one. I'll letcha know on Thursday if I hear from him or not :)

742 Days Left! :)

Week 5.5: Los chicos en México son románticos...

For anyone who has known me for the past 5 years, you know that I have this incredible knack for attracting creepers. For example, my senior year in high school, I had 4 creepers. One from a college class I was taking at the Community College, 2 from the city pool that I worked at, and the other went to school with me. Oh, that was a fun year :)

If I have a superpower in life, it's attracting creepy guys. The Creeper Magnet. Has a little ring to it, huh? ;) I wouldn't make much of a superhero though...

But really, just replace the dogs with creepy guys, and that's me:

It's actually quite miracle that Adam became my boyfriend, because not only is he not a creeper, but he's also really, really amazing! And I've been lucky since coming to Mexico, because now I have a boyfriend as a great excuse for the boys who've bothered me here. It's fantastic!

Anyway, I've been told that I attract creepers because I'm too nice. I feel rude if I blow someone off when they talk to me, ignore them, or don't smile. I like to talk and smile! Little did I know that was actually a weakness... 

But when creepers are even slightly forward, I get super uncomfortable, and my way of dealing with the situation is to avoid them and hope they just go away. And it's actually worked in the past! I feel so bad turning guys down, and it's pretty much impossible for me to tell them that I feel uncomfortable with what they're doing. So avoidance has been my method for the past 5 years, and although it's slow and, now I realize, slightly cruel, it's worked.

I really don't need them doing this around me:

So the whole purpose I'm telling you this is to give you a little background about a situation that's arisen this past weekend.

About 3 weeks ago, the 4 of us girls made friends with one of the members of the Church here, Daniel. He's a nice guy and super smart, and he'd take us out to do things, which was super nice cuz he has a car! But every time I'd get on Facebook he'd send me a message on chat, which was a little weird/annoying, but I wasn't usually doing anything and I wanted to be nice, so I'd reply and talk to him.

Starting about two weeks ago, he got really persistent. He'd always ask us to do things, he'd show up out of the blue to our school to take us home, and still send the constant messages. Also, when we went to see a movie as our whole group he tagged along, and asked to sit next to me. During the movie he leaned over and whispered to me, took popcorn out of my hand, and had his arm touching mine the entire time. It was pretty awkward in the moment and I thought it was weird, but whatever. 

I know I probably should've said something, but when I know a guy likes me, it makes me REALLY, unimaginably uncomfortable. So I chose not to think much of it. I wasn't sure if Daniel was being just really friendly cuz that was just his personality. Daniel also already knew that I had a boyfriend who I love very, very much, so I didn't want to assume anything (being the dumb girl that I am). Anyway, after getting thoroughly frustrated with Daniel on Saturday, I asked my friend Emilio for help. 

I figured Emilio would be a good choice to ask advice from, since he knows the culture here, and he's also he's protective of us girls in the program. So Emilio came over on Sunday and I told him the whole situation. While Emilio was over, Daniel had posted some lyrics on Facebook. It was something about a new love and caressing or whatnot. Anyway, Emilio told me it was the perfect opportunity to talk about Adam again to fend him off! 

So he had me write the following (but in Spanish):
"I liked your post on Facebook. It made me remember my boyfriend who I love a lot. Thanks FRIEND."

A little straightforward for me, but what the heck! If it'd work, I was all for it!
A half hour later, Daniel replied that he was glad I liked it, because he posted it for me. 

Uh, what? 

Emilio then took my laptop and starting writing for me, saying:

"Thanks for your sincerity, but we can only be friends."

NEVER in my life would I say something like that. NEVER EVER EVER. Oh gosh. I feel awful just thinking about it! It's too bold! Ahhhh!

And Daniel's response?
"I know." 

Well jeez, why was he being so persistent then? 

At this point, Emilio had left me on my own to drown. So, still being a dumb girl, I wanted to truly find out Daniel's intentions, since he said he knew we could only be friends, so maybe he was just being overly-friendly. It could very well just be a part of the culture!

I asked him why he had posted those lyrics for me, and he replied something along the lines of:
"Because I've known you sufficiently to know that you would see it and like it, and still that being sincere, I was hoping that you would be slower in realizing. The great thing is that every word of those lyrics was directed to you."

I wouldn't have realized what he was trying to do if it wasn't for Emilio! I wouldn't have been in that situation if Emilio hadn't opened up the dungeon of doom! Gaaaaah.

I asked him if he knew I had a boyfriend (which I knew he did), and he replied that yes, he knew, but it didn't matter to him, because "me gustas y te quiero."*
*Cultural note: As described by Emilio, "te quiero" is the equivalent of 80% love, whereas "te amo" is 100% love.

Sooo Daniel confessed to me after hardly knowing him for 2 weeks. We've probably spent 5 days in total doing something, and it was always in a group. Don't ask me how he thinks it's even possible to like me so much after such a short time.

It's one of those moments where you can't stop laughing, but then you realize how much it really sucks and then you want to start crying.

So I turned off chat for him, and I decided to avoid him, hoping the problem would go away. Talking with him only made things worse, so you bet that I'll never take that route again with creepers. EVER. 

Emilio advised me stay away from Daniel for the rest of the trip, but for some reason, I was only freaked out for that day. Don't get me wrong, what he did was creepy. But I was thinking about it, and figured he probably did something like that to all the other girls who come here on exchange programs. 

So I asked a girl who came to the program last summer, and she said he confessed his love to basically every girl. Kate and I talked to our mamá mexicana about it, and she said what he did was completely normal. The people here are super open and romantic, so we had no reason to be afraid.

We also found out the reason why he'd come pick us up from school is because he drives past the university around that time anyway to go to work (which is like a 30 second drive from our house). He likes picking us up too, so he doesn't have to drive to work alone. So, in the end, he was just being really nice.

So I felt really bad that I didn't think of that being a possibility.

So there you have it.

I decided that it's okay if I hang out with Daniel (in a group of course!), because he's just lonely and really likes to talk. I still know to be cautious around Daniel though. I'm not THAT much of a dumb girl :) 

Moral of the story: Mexican culture and American culture are two very different things. What seems creepy in the United States is acceptable here. And also, a person's intentions can be a lot different than what they appear to be. Don't judge!

... To be honest, I really didn't do much these last couple days, so I'm glad I had that long story to fill up the space! Hahaha.

Just a gross thing that happened Tuesday morning...
Tuesdays and Thursdays Kelsey and I don't have class til 11:30, but Kate and Gabi have class at 9:15, so we just go to school with them. While we wait for the 2 hours until our class, we'll usually go into a classroom with air conditioning and work on homework, or surf on the internet.

While Lonnie (the other girl in our 11:30 class) was walking out of the classroom, she pointed out something on the ground that someone HAD to have stepped on on their way in, because there was brown guts smeared all over the floor.
And this was the beast:

That is a mangled spider. WITH FUR. That has a worm/centipede thing as company. And it was BIG. If it was alive, it'd probably be as big as the palm of my hand. EW. EW EW.

Okay, onto Wednesday! Kate and I decided to go with Daniel to Centro to go souvenir shopping and walk around. 

I didn't really buy anything... Just something for a friend. Which is bad, since I only have two more weeks. I need to buy more presents!!

Anyway, while we were walking around, the sky looked super cool!

Once it got to 7:30, we needed to head over to the theater because we were going to watch a show of Yucatecan dance. It was super cool and adorable! I don't know how they danced so long without fainting!

Afterward, we went to Los Trompos to eat dinner (at about 10:30! haha). We were all going to order tacos al pastor, but the directors found out it was cheaper just to buy us all 3 kilos of meat and have all the tortillas we wanted.

So we had 3 of these HUGE trays of meat spread out along the tables. And it was so good! I don't know what I'm going to do when I get back to the United States and I can't eat all this delicious food anymore... 
:'(

I'm sure I'll survive though! Hehehe.

746 Days Left! :)

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! :)