Why My House Smells Like Pot

So I love my quiet neighborhood here in Cancun. Lots of families, very clean, everyone says hello, etc etc etc.

And then there’s my next door neighbor. A pretty normal-looking, average guy who isn’t at all friendly, but doesn’t really bother anyone either.

Yesterday I came home from work and I saw his dogs tied up to the window in the front yard. I figured, “Oh, they must be doing some work in the backyard.” I walked into my kitchen and was overwhelmed by the smell of pot in the air. I whined about it on Twitter, then went about my day since this is a pretty frequent occurence. (Our houses share a wall, so smells and noises frequently make their way over to our place.)

I sat on the couch and noticed some of my neighbor’s friends enter his house. Minutes later, I heard chanting in some unknown language coming from his backyard. I was about to go peek into his backyard from my upstairs window when the chanting was suddenly accompanied by what sounded like hammering. Confused and more than a little weirded out, I decided to stay put.

The chanting and banging eventually stopped and the men all came back out into the front yard. Jorge got home just then, and I heard them ask him a question and he responded cheerily.

When Jorge came into the living room, I said “What did they ask you?”

“They wanted me to check if their pigeon had flown into our backyard.”

…

…

…

I really hope that pigeon made it to safety.

How to Speak Like a Mexican: Blah, blah, blah

In English, when we fast forward part of a story, we use “Blah blah blah” (and a few other fun phrases).

However, I kinda like the Mexican version: Sha la la, Sha la la

Example:

• English: I went to the store to buy eggs, then blah blah blah I ended up buying an entire cart of food!
• Mexican: Fui a la tienda para comprar huevos, sha la la, sha la la Terminé comprando un carrito lleno de comida!

Much more sing-songy, doncha think?

Trash the Dress Photos Part 3

Monica send us more photos of our Trash the Dress shoot at Garrafon Park today! There should be 1 more batch of photos after this. I’m thrilled we got so many good shots!

Part 1

Part 2

Credits and thanks:

Location: Garrafon Park, Isla Mujeres

Photography: Monica Lopez

Makeup: Vanessa Dominguez Alvarez

Dress: MOM!

Casa Las Tortugas Hotel in Holbox

Our favorite part of our weekend trip to the island of Holbox was our hotel: Casa Las Tortugas. Jorge and I both agreed that if and when we return to Holbox, we will be staying at Casa Las Tortugas again.

The hotel has a beautiful pool area, a beachfront restaurant, a spa and a chic beach club area. We loved the rustic Mexican design and beautiful palapas throughout.

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Jorge and I booked the most basic room. I was worried I’d regret not getting an ocean view room, but as we spent an evening lying in the hammock on our balcony listening to the ocean breeze move through the palm trees… I knew we’d made the right choice.

Trash the Dress Teaser

This Sunday, we had our Trash the Dress photo shoot at Parque Garrafon on Isla Mujeres. There were so many beautiful locations to shoot there, and it was a gorgeous day! Don’t worry: I’ll be sure to do a full post with the professional pictures once I have them, but here are a few of my cell phone pics to keep you entertained in the meanwhile.

My makeup (and a creepy stare, sorry)

Remember the crinoline skirt I bought a few weeks ago? It was to give the dress extra "princess poof" for this shoot.

View from the buffet restaurant. WOW!

**Note: No dresses were harmed in the making of this Trash the Dress shoot.

Vazquez Sounds

I dunno if these kids have become at all popular in the US yet, but for the last few months the Vazquez Sounds have been taking Mexico by storm. This family of 3 kids became famous with their cover songs on YouTube, and they are really good! (and adorable)

The one thing that bothers me, as my hermosa amiga Jessica from Mexican At Heart pointed out, is that all their cover songs thus far have been English songs… and the lead girl seriously needs to improve her accent. I’m not saying all Mexicans should speak English, but if you want to make a living off of doing cover songs in English… learn English! You can tell she just memorizes the sounds and doesn’t really know what she’s singing.

Accent pickiness aside, they’re really good, especially because they sing a lot of my favorite songs. Check out the Vazquez Sounds:

What do you think? Amazing? Sickeningly cute? Annoying accent? Charming accent?

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.

Saturdays at the “Tianguis”

The last 2 Saturdays, Jorge and I have gone to his aunt’s house to sell our used stuff at the local tianguis (pronounced “Tee-AHN-geese”), a kind of Mexican flea market. In his aunt’s neighborhood, people set up stands along the street to sell snacks, books, used clothing, video games, makeup, and the list goes on and on. In previous years I’ve sold my used clothes to earn up to $500 pesos in a day (about $50 dollars for my US readers). We haven’t been so lucky the last 2 weekends because we keep getting rained out, but we’ll keep trying until there’s sunshine. At any rate the afternoon is never a total loss since Jorge’s aunts always have tamales, brazo de reina, and fried fish on-hand for lunch!

Here are some photos from Cancun’s Saturday tianguis…

This last photo is my makeshift used clothes stand. I love so many of the clothes I’m selling, but many no longer fit me since I’ve lost weight. And some of those shoes have amazing memories! I haven’t had the chance to wear them in years (I wear a work uniform 6 days a week), but haven’t been willing to let them go for a very long time. I also have 2 bridesmaids dresses from my wedding, but I doubt I’ll be able to sell them at the tianguis since they’re more expensive items.

What kind of local markets do you have in your city?

Año Viejo: New Year’s Tradition in Yucatan

For New Years, we once again went to the fishing village of Chabihau in the state of Yucatan to visit Jorge’s family. This year there was even a wedding! Jorge’s cousin Yeni (pronounced like “Jenny”) got married to her long-time beau, Armando.

We also did some crocodile watching out on Chabihau's salt lagoon

I’d heard before about a special tradition in the Yucatan known as “Año Viejo” (“Old Year”), but this year was the first time I got to see it. On our ride from Cancun to Chabihau, we passed through several villages that had dummies set out by the front gate of the homes. These dummies are known as “Años Viejos“, and they’re filled with rockets and fireworks.

Read that again… rockets and fireworks.

On December 31, the Año Viejo dummies are set out by the front door, and at midnight they’re ignited in the street to represent the end of the “Old Year”. Make sure to keep your distance! It can get pretty loud.

An "Año Viejo" in the town of Cansahcab, Yucatan

From what I could gather from Jorge’s family, it seems Año Viejo is a popular tradition throughout the Yucatan Peninsula, as well as in the state of Veracruz.

Since I was at the wedding at midnight, I didn’t get to see the Año Viejo lit up this year, even though we did have some regular fireworks and sparklers. Oh well, there’s always next year!

What did you do for New Year’s?