¡Vamanos!

We’ve tried a lot of great new foods, fruits, pastries, snacks, and candies here.  One of my favorite - simple cheap and yummy are pepita seeds - dried salted squash seeds. You can get them at the market in bulk, but they are also available from sellers for a couple pesos in public places like the zoo or a ballgame.  Add a little lime and yum!

Yesterday I woke up with an itchy ear and a blotchy face.  It got worse through out the day, though Benadryl helped the pain by keeping me knocked out.  This morning it was much worse, spreading down my neck and burning - my ear is actually hot to the touch.  So I headed off to the emergency room today.  I’ve got to tell you, I’m still in pain - but pretty damn proud of myself. 

Five months ago I arrived here speaking no Spanish, and I still haven’t gotten around to taking that class (I will in Sept!).  However, I was able to meet with 2 doctors, 3 nurses, a receptionist and a cashier and explain, understand and answer everything in Spanish without my dictionary! Name, age, address, insurance, pain yesterday, pain today, medical history, family history, allergies, clean sheets, no new foods, no new cosmetics, no new detergents, no recent trips, no new pets.  I was even able to tell my doctor things to do and places to go on his upcoming trip to Barcelona.  It would have helped to know the word for itchy, which I didn’t, but that one is easy enough to pantomime.

I left with a cortisone shot in mi trasera and a prescription for a weeks worth of heavy duty antihistimanes, so I may be pretty sleepy this week.  Hopefully I’ll be myself by the time we arrive back in Boston next week.

(PS - Hubby didn’t come with me, because I didn’t tell him I was going. I thought it was important that I try to do this stuff myself in case we have an emergency when he is traveling).

You know how at the Franklin Park Zoo, there’s a peacock that isn’t caged, it just wanders around the zoo?  Well there’s an iguana like that at the zoo here - and it is GIANT.  Not only that - but if two little gringa girls corner it near water - it SWIMS - REALLY FAST. So fast that I couldn’t capture a photo of it actually smimming - but trust me, it was a lot like the dog paddle.

J loves guessing what the spanish word might be for words she hasn’t learned yet.  She gets excited when she is correct (for example, plant is planta), so she’s fearless about adding an a or o to the end of any noun or adjective. It’s great - except yesterday I thought is was cursing at the dentist’s office.  It turns out she was just pointing out which things in the aquarium display were real and which were fake. There were a lot of fake fish, so she was running around pointing and yelling “Faka, faka, faka, faka, faka, faka, faka”.

I didn’t figure it out until she pointed at the starfish and shells and said “real” with a good accent!

I think my siblings and I owe our mother an apology.  In the 38 years since I made her a parent, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her paint.  Yet, she decided to take a painting class now that she is retired - and look what her FIRST attempt produced!

Way to go Mom!

People often ask us this question, and I’m embarrassed that I don’t know.  I know how much you in the US are paying for gas, because it is in the news everyday.  There are 3 contributing factors to why I didn’t know:

1. The only gas station here is PEMEX.  It is government owned.  Everyone pays the same price everywhere, so it’s not advertised on giant in-your-face comparision shop signs. The price is only on the pump.

2. The price is in litres, and I’ve been too lazy to convert the litres into gallons and the pesos into dollars.

3. By the time I leave the gas station, I forget what the price is to answer anyone’s inquiry.

So yesterday, I got a pen and wrote it all down at the pump so I could tell you. We have two types of gas here - Magna and Premium. Yesterday Magna was 7.17 pesos/litre and Premium was 8.99 pesos/litre.

Yesterday , I asked for $200 pesos worth of Magna gasoline. I got 27.9 litres. At yesterday’s rates that means I spent $19.34 USD on 7.37 US gallons, which I’m pretty sure means I’m paying $2.62 USD/gallon.

No surprise to learn that people in San Diego are driving over the border to fill up!

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Note: Careful what converter you are using, as there is a difference between US & UK gallons:

3.785411 liters per gallon (US). 1 liter = 0.264172052 US gallons
4.54609 liters per gallon (UK). 1 liter = 0.219969157 UK gallons

Sad that genius George Carlin died.  If you’ve never seen his Modern Man piece, check it out. I don’t know anyone who could do this at any age…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCljFYn3zTY

Hubby wanted to go to the zoo on Father’s day.  The girls wanted to take him on a rowboat ride at the zoo.  Poor papi - over 90 degrees in a rickety old boat, with one oar because J dropped one under the bridge.  Add to that having to duck under the feet of those traveling on the rickety low-slung funicular. Only three people allowed in a boat, so I got to be your official photographer for the fun.  

Just change the -tion to a -cion.  I was pretty psyched when I realized this one.  It makes speaking much easier and takes you out of the realm of Dick and Jane sentences (or Ricardo y Jania).

abreviación
abdicación
acción
aclamación
acumulación
administración
admiración
adoración
afirmación
aglomeración
agitación
alegación
animación
anticipación
aplicación
asimilación
asociación
atención
atracción
autenticación
autorización
automatización
aviación
celebración
cesación
circulación
(more…)

Last Weekend, we went to Izamal.  Almost all of the buildings are painted yellow as a tribute to corn, it makes you feel as if you’ve stumbled into a fairy tale. Throughout the town are ruins of Mayan pyramids - almost all ruined to make the church in the center of the town when the Spaniards arrived. Click on collage to see enlarged pictures.