Kitchen Mini-Makeover

**For anyone who has ever wanted to see Jorge figure skating, check out my sister Sarah’s blog, Nerdy and I Know It! She recently had a photoshop contest, and I won. 🙂

 

The last few months, we’ve been doing a lot of changes to the house we’re renting. (About time, too… we’ve been there almost 2 years!) We finally have the furniture we need in the living room, so now we can spend most of our time downstairs instead of upstairs.

This week, we got shelves in our kitchen, and it is AMAZING. We have a teeny tiny, one-sided galley kitchen with minimal storage space and only 1 small square of counter space. Since we had nowhere to put our toaster oven, canisters, juicer and blender, they were all kind of stacked on top of eachother on the counter, cutting my tiny counter in half.

Now my counter space has gone from impossibly small to kind of small, and I’m so excited! We also had hooks put in under the shelves, so now all my pretty hot pads are on display (2 years after I got them), and our pans don’t have to be stored in the oven anymore.

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Happy Birthday, Jorge!

Happy 26th birthday to my best friend 🙂

Love you, Jorge

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More Yucatan Cuisine: San Simon and Caballero Pobre

Last Saturday, we went to a birthday party for my suegro.

Jorge’s grandmother had traveled from Yucatan to celebrate, and a visit from Abuela Elsy wouldn’t be complete without some fabulous Yucatan cuisine.

First we had San Simon. This dish is basically turkey with broth, covered in lots of toppings. The toppings can vary depending on the recipe, but our San Simon was covered in fried plantains, onion and homemade french fries.

It sounds like the most random combination of ingredients ever… but it was DELICIOUS.

For dessert, I got to try Caballero Pobre (“Poor Gentleman”) for the first time. I feel like this dish is basically the “french toast” of the Yucatan. It’s a baguette soaked in egg, fried in a bit of oil, then covered in a syrupy-cinnamony sauce.

Jorge’s been going over to his parent’s house every day this week to get some more of Abuela Elsy’s food.

What dishes are popular in your area?

What I’ve Been Up To

So the past few weekends I’ve taken tons of pictures to share with you guys! Things have been pretty busy at work, but I figure I’ll keep ya’ll updated. Here goes…

Last Weekend:

Went to my friend Dama's birthday party at Black Pub Friday night

Saturday: Went to another friend's birthday party, complete with palapa and a taco stand

My "gringas"... flour tortilla, pastor, onion, cilantro and pineapple

Saturday night: Burgers in a friend's backyard (it had very cool design, but I only managed to get a shot of this light-covered palm tree)

 

This Weekend:

On Saturday I bought this... I'll tell you why later!

Sunday afternoon: Puerto Morelos

Saturday night: Carnaval parade in Playa del Carmen (all pictures were either blurry or blocked by pedestrians, but the costumes were great!)

What did you do this weekend?

The Geography Lesson that Brought Me to Shame

Did I ever tell you how I broke my culture shock? The defining moment when I went from “I hate it here, why don’t they do things my way?” to “Well, this might be ok after all!”

I was in my second year of university here in Cancun. I had a world geography class that totally blew my mind. As I looked up at the world map for several weeks, I thought to myself, “This is wrong. Why is the professor teaching wrongness? Why are my classmates not correcting him? Does nobody care or even notice that the map is wrong?” (Gosh, I’m such a typical American.)

In the US, we’re taught early on that the world has 7 continents: North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and Antarctica.

In Mexico, they’re taught that the world has 5 continents: America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania. Under this model, what we Americans consider to be North and South America is actually one large continent of America, and Antarctica doesn’t factor in at all!

MIND. BLOWN.

But wait! It doesn’t stop there! North America is everything north of the Panama Canal, right? Well, that depends on who you ask.

Get this: Mexicans don’t consider Central America to be part of North America.  Here, the large continent of America is sub-divided into 3 regions: North America (Canada, the US and Mexico), Central America and South America. In this model, Central America is no longer part of North America, it just borders North America.

North America in blue, Central America in yellow, South America in green... 3 regions making up the continent of America

After a few months of fuming to myself, I decided to look it up on Wikipedia to prove that I was right. Instead, what I got was this:

Number of Continents

And that’s when it hit me. My way isn’t the only way.

Even though I was taught something as fact, there still might be millions of other kids in other parts of the world learning it differently.

It was a huge step for me as an expat to realize that I can believe there are 7 continents, and my friends can believe there are 5 continents, and people on the other side of the world can believe there are 6 continents, and we are all correct.

This led me to realize that just because Mexicans don’t do things the way I might want them to, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Sometimes their way is even better than my way! (Except when they put ketchup on their pizza. After 7 years, I still find that unacceptable.)

I spent my first year in Mexico trying to make everyone more like… me. Then I spent the following 6 years trying to become more like them. All thanks to one geography course.

Only in Mexico

The president of my company sends out a daily e-mail with a Bible verse and Catholic lesson… and a prayer to “La Virgen”.

Why do I get the feeling that in the United States, this would result in a company-wide lawsuit?

Sometimes I’m not sure which country is weirder.

My Mexican Thanksgiving

As I was going through some pictures yesterday, I realized I hadn’t told you about my Thanksgiving!

Back in the US, my family does Thanksgiving just like everyone else’s family… turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy and lots of desserts! When I was in college in Cancun, I never had any fall breaks. Now that I’m working, I only get back home for Christmas. So I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving since 2005, I think. (or seen any fall weather, for that matter!)

This year, my suegros took pity on me and prepared a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. They invited some of their friends, and I invited some of mine. We had a pretty big group (not all are pictured), including an American priest from the church my suegros go to.

There was turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and lots of veggies! Everyone seemed to really enjoy all the American food. I was almost expecting them to break out the tortillas, but they resisted.

Thanksgiving dinner still had some undeniably Mexican touches to it, though… dinner didn’t begin until 10:30 pm, the turkey was heavily seasoned with lime, the dinner was blessed by a Catholic priest, and the priest had to explain the Thanskgiving story several times to our Mexican guests. Close enough!

Me being a dork

Oh mashed potatoes… it’s been too long since we last met!

Catrinas and Calaveras in Cancun

Mexico is known across the globe for its vibrant and colorful holidays. Here, even death itself takes on a joyful vibe every year on El Dia de los Muertos (“The Day of the Dead”). Held on November 1 and 2, this holiday celebrates loved ones who have passed on with altars to the deceased called ofrendas and an annual visit to grave sites.

 

Since Day of the Dead falls so close to Halloween, the two holidays are often combined here in Cancun. Children roam neighborhoods trick-or-treating with parents and friends, while the streets fill up with images of La Catrina, an elegant lady skeleton symbolizing Day of the Dead.

One of the many Catrinas I found in Cancun’s Parque Las Palapas tonight

 Tonight was an interesting one for Jorge and me. We had several groups of trick-or-treaters stop by, and we gave them some classic Mexican candies. (Jorge’s enjoying the leftovers as I write this.) Then we took a stroll around Parque Las Palapas, which had lots of family activities, people in costume, and a show with colorful Mexican dances.

My best friend Viri had an ofrenda for her brother and grandfather set up at her home, and her parents were kind enough to let me take some pictures. It has many of the classic ofrenda elements, with incense, marigolds (Flor de Muerto), pan de muerto, candles to guide the way of the deceased, sugar skulls (calaveras) and some of their favorite food and drinks from when they were living.

I always feel like Day of the Dead is a fascinating mix of intimate family memories and vivid social traditions, bringing together families and communities alike. This year in Cancun was no different.

Disclosure:  I am being compensated for my work in creating and managing content as a Community Manager for the Mexico Today Program.  All stories, opinions and passion for all things Mexico shared here are completely my own.

My Three Day Weekend

So my 3-day weekend for Mexican Independence Day was busy, busy, busy! I’ll do a quick run-through for ya 🙂

Thursday

To celebrate Independence Day, we played it simple this year… tacos and potatoes at a friend’s pool. Just a calm evening sitting around and talking while listening to fireworks in the distance. Ended the night around 5 am, I think.

We really need to hang out with this group of friends more often. They’re friends of Jorge from high school, and we always have a great time with them.

Friday

Also a low-key day. We ordered the plants we want for the backyard, then went to Jorge’s cousin’s 3rd birthday party where we had tortas and raspados. Then we went home and took a long nap!

In the evening, we went to my suegros house for some pasta from Cheester.

Me and Jorge at Sofia's bday party

Saturday

My brother-in-law scored a dozen free passes to Xcaret. Since Jorge’s cousins were in town visiting, we went with them for the day. I’ll do a more detailed post later this week, but here’s a teaser photo for ya…

Sunday

On Sunday morning, we (and by “we”, I mean Jorge) planted some mini palm trees in our up-and-coming backyard, and laid some some dirt. I’ll post the full makeover later this week, so you can check out our little patio, palm trees, fancy grass and orchid (whaaaaat??)!

Here’s a preview shot of Jorge hard at work while I supervised (and by “supervised”, I mean ate cereal, took pictures, played with the dogs and decided where the palm trees should go).

I think we can all agree that Jorge is the best husband ever.

The grass and orchid plant came today, but won’t be installed until tomorrow. Boo.

Immediately afterwards, my suegros came and picked us up to go to the pool. My brother-in-law’s girlfriend’s parents (confusing, I know) own a piece of land out in the middle of the jungle where they’ve built a little private pool and garden, complete with hammock area and bathroom. We spent the rest of the afternoon there. I would have taken pictures, but I was too busy swimming, eating Domino’s pizza and napping in hammocks. Life is so hard sometimes.

Afterwards we did laundry at my suegros house, like we do every Sunday. Meanwhile, I caught up on reality TV online… Project Runway, new season of Survivor (hurray!) and America’s Next Top Model All Stars (go Allison and Laura!). Then Jorge and I went home and watched the first episode of Jersey Shore Italy. (Oh Mike, you scoundrel!)

So that’s it for my 3-day weekend. What did you do this weekend?

 

Happy Saturday Sept 10

Today I’m gonna copy Kristi and Krysten with a Happy Saturday Post!

I'd be even happier if I were here!

10 Things That Made Me Happy This Week

1. Doing the hydrotherapy circuit at the Excellence Playa Mujeres

2. My shimmery powder brush from The Body Shop

3. Watching Criminal Minds reruns

4. Project Runway (no spoilers please, haven’t seen this week’s episode yet!)

5. Photoplasty entries on Cracked.com

6. Getting my first credit card

7. Salmon and stuffed tomatoes for dinner

8. Winning $200 pesos at the Yak roulette table

9. Modern Family

10. My Starbucks buddies giving me multiple cake pop coupons