Que Tal?? Yes, despite not hearing from me for quite some time, I did manage to get married since my last post. Yup, no last minute jitters, panic attacks, or running for the hills—on her part I mean, thank God—so we wrapped up the civil ceremony on the beach (more or less) as we had planned.There’s a lot to tell about our awesome week and wedding, but believe it or not I’m still trying to gather and organize photos to post. (You bastards who are holding out on me--send me the proof!) So, while you wait another week or two for that story and pics, let me catch you up on a few highlights over the past six months.
Work—I started the year as the new Social Studies Department Head. Luckily, I have the best department in the school. It is great working with them, especially with helping a new teacher in the department. Also, the second time through my Western Civ curriculum has been even more fun than last year. This year’s crop of sophomores is super nice, cooperative and eager to learn. I’m also teaching a new elective course—Genocide—during the spring semester. The students and I are very excited about it and I fear the early positive response will mean more students than I can handle next year. The construction on the high school additions and renovations continues, but the suffering is more bearable as we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The high school classrooms are completed, if with a few remaining kinks. It may be two years later than first projected—but the definitive end IS coming.
Travel—I spent a couple of weeks in Oaxaca in August doing more Spanish studies and checking out things there. It was a great time. I actually started a more detailed blog of those experiences but never finished it once I got into the grind of the day to day with work. I met some great people, took more Salsa lessons, did a weekend hike through the mountains, and enjoyed the many events connected to the annual Guelaguetza indigenous festival going on while I was there. It was truly a great two weeks. Perhaps, I’ll finish that story and send it on later. The first trip of the semester was a weekender to the old colonial town of Taxco with Ale, Marlowe and Will. This was at its core a wedding ring shopping trip, since Taxco is a renowned silver mining town and outlet. We ended up with two beautiful rings (plus quite a bit of other silver stuff for Ale—how did that happen!?) and had a lot of fun eating and drinking the weekend away. One memorable moment came during a detour we took on the way home to a “zoofari” when Will almost had his head bitten off by a white Siberian tiger who took Will’s leaning out of the car window twenty feet from the large carnivorous beast as an invitation to lunch. The other significant trip we took—other than getting married in Tulum—was a four day weekend to Morelia for a our second annual visit to the International Film Festival there. We met friends Tina and Jackie there for a smorgasbord of movies from around the globe. I think we saw over 20 movies in four days—quite a feat, even for movie buffs like us. Being short on cash after buying/furnishing the apartment and having the wedding meant low key Christmas vacation, which we spent at my friend Steve’s hacienda in nearby Tepoztlan. I watched the property and his three awesome dogs (two Rottweilers and a German Shepherd) while he was away and took some more Spanish classes for part of the week. Ale joined me off an on while I was there, the last time for Steve’s New Year’s Eve party. His place is amazing. It is mostly the brainchild of his wife Sally, a talented architect who has been working on creating this special place, bit by bit, over the past fifteen years. It is located in the countryside outside of Tepotzlan, surrounded by these rocky mountains through which I would walk the dogs each morning. Super relaxing. A more recent trip took us to Malinalco, another cute little colonial town built on a pre-Columbian site nestled in similarly craggy mountains. We found a hotel with a pool on a hill overlooking the main square for 350 pesos a night. Friends Tim, Corbin, Ryan and Lydie joined us for part of the time. We enjoyed several great meals, especially the town’s specialty, fresh trout, as well as a nice hike up to an Aztec temple on the top of one of the mountains. I sat up there, and later by the pool, reading an interesting book about Maliche, the woman so maligned for helping Cortez conquer the Aztecs. Friends and family continue to threaten to visit us, but no one has confirmed anything definite. So, I’m about to start putting together some Spring Break plans.
Housing—Last June, we decided to buy this apartment in the southern part of Colonia Hipodroma Condesa on the Escondon border. Not the best location in La Condesa, which is one of the nicer-hipper colonias, but all in all it is a very nice apartment and came at a very good price. The journey through Mexican financial bureaucracy was a true test of our patience. Several times we were given conflicting information about requirements, deadlines and outcomes. We were told at several junctions the deal was not going to go through at all and consequently began looking to rent again. This sort of customer service is more the norm than the exception in Mexico, as many of you who have lived here know, but it’s a little more stressful when the stakes include a 120K dollar apartment and where you are going to live. We had to move downstairs to the “cave” apartment underneath our previously awesome place for a couple of months, but are now finally located in our new digs as of November. We are in the process of filling it with furniture and making a few structural changes (building this little closet has managed to become quite a challenge), but it should be ready to showcase it in a month or so. (Hopefully we’ll be filling it with a baby soon!)
Mexico City—Still crazy, exciting, smoggy, crowded and interesting. I’m learning a new area of the city surrounding my new apartment. Very happy to have found a new sports betting bar nearby where I could go and watch every NFL game on at once on Sundays. I also located a cool looking billiards place a few blocks away that I want to check out. Oh, and the prostitutes lining the streets around the corner of my new pad. (Won’t be checking that out anytime soon, especially since most have very large Adam’s apple’s.) I’m still playing Ultimate Frisbee and playing with an ad-hock acoustic band. Still getting out of town for long weekends to discover the endless supply of neat little Mexican colonial towns. Spanish classes conflicted with the book club meetings last semester, but it looks like that conflict has been resolved and I’ll be able to get back to doing some more of that. And yes, you may have heard that the drug war continues, with over 5,000 murdered nationally for the year—over 700 alone this past November. Luckily, 90% of the killings are between the police/soldiers and drug traffickers as they respond to the ongoing crackdown on narco-trafficking. Every day there are stories in the paper about shootouts, kidnappings, bombings, beheadings, etc. Pretty gruesome stuff for sure; but because so little of the violence actually takes place in DF, it’s comparable to you reading about the daily violence and mayhem in Iraq. It’s somewhat connected to you, but has no real impact on your day to day life.
Anyhow, that’s Miguelito in Mexico in a nutshell (I’d say taco shell, but a hard taco shell doesn’t exist here). The wedding blog is basically written and ready to send. I just want to get the pics together for you before I send it.
Peace and Love,
Miguelito
Miguelito
Photo: The adorable zocolo in Malinalco.
Remember, you can always read this blog and previous blogs in a nifty format, along with additional info and links to photos at: www.miguelitoinmexico.blogspot.com
