tortugas.

el tajin was a blast but so freaking hot! seriously 93 degrees and 79% humidity. yuck!

day 1- we arrived but made many stops along the way. our first stop was casa de cortez. it was cortez's house many many many years ago. there wasnt much left. then we went to another set of pyramids. a girl can only see so much before you get sick of it :) it was pretty too. then we went to this beautiful look out with SURPRISE more pyramids... finally we made it to the beach and jumped right in! we kept saying this has made the whole trip worth it! it was so warm and perfect! I LOVE MEXICO!

day 2- we got up early and went to the pyramids in el tajin. i have never been so hot in my life. because of the humidity it everyone was sweating to bad. the pyramids were beautiful but the tour guide talked a little too much. then i got some shopping done for jill, travis, and kyle. i feel like i bought a ton but when i came home i felt like i had bought nothing. then we went back to the beach and swam some more!

day 3- woke up. me and abby went and set some baby tortugas free into the ocean. got on the bus. stop and ate and watched the mexico vs argentina game. mexico lost. got home around six.

tortuga!

well in case you havent heard the big news i am an official winner of a BUSY BEE LAUREN GIVEAWAY! you can click here to see my fifteen minutes of fame that just so happens to be written in stone. i won out of 200 people. yeah i pretty much rock my own socks!

i won by commenting with this little number

"my mom totally has one and the smell seriously fills up the room. soooo yummy"

happy fathers day daddy-o.

top 10 things my dad has taught me

1. the best present to give anyone is beef jerky and diet coke

2. its perfectly fine to laugh at yourself when you know you are funny

3. opening and closing your hand twice is affective as saying hand me the remote

4. when the room smells like broccoli seize the opportunity

5. its perfectly fine to be so excited over one thing and then the next week be over it

6. once a sun devils fan always a sun devils fan

7. never ever ever hate anyone

8. sometimes making the kids listen to Jesus the Christ is a good thing (even if it is for a 2 hour drive on the way to the cabin)

9. the church comes first in life

10. love your spouse no matter what difficulties come along in life

i love you dad. happy fathers day

living life on the edge.

today we had a crazy taxi experience. we get in the taxi and tell the driver where to go. as we are driving he is speeding soooo fast you'd think we were on the fast and the furious or something. then after a while he is like is it left or right. we were just like ummmm idk you are the TAXI DRIVER. one thing about the streets is they usually run one way and are not perpendicular. its like they pretty much made up where to put a street. i can just hear them saying oh this looks good. *PLOP* then we pick left and all the sudden he pulls over and tells us to just get out. we act like we dont know what he is saying (one of the many bonuses to being white) i just tell him to take us to xalapa centro. he tries to kick us out and i say "si xalapa centro" and stay put. no way am i getting dropped off in a city where i dont know the language to wonder around. he starts to drive a little while longer and abby says WAIT I KNOW WHERE WE ARE we hop out i say "cuanto" he tells me 30. wow most rides are 20 and he wants 30! he didnt even take us to the place we were going.... twice and almost killed us! i show him that i only have twenty coins. and he says no thirty, abby starts to pull out her wallet. she doesnt understand that i have 30 and im not paying him because he is a serious joke. so i give in and pay him thirty. oh man KILL HIM. i'm still furious about it.

three facts about the taxis

1.all the taxis are stick shift in a very hilly town

2.right line drive/left lane stop whenever you want to as long as you have you emergency lights on

3.emergency lights i have now deemed the fiesta lights... this is because i have seen people use their emergency lights in these two weeks more then i have in my whole life. you'd think there was a party going on

and while looking for pictures of taxis to show you what they all look like i found this. this is a picture in the dead center of town where i walk everyday. yeah i live life on the edge... grrrrr

so yesterday and the day before that pretty much nothing new happened. but today for spanish we got to watch the mexico vs france game. we walk into spanish and he says guess what we are going to watch the game after our quiz! turns out they play the games live at the movie theaters so that is where we got to watch it! it was so fun. then we went to costco again and bought more muffins yum :)

oh... and while doing laundry i got stuck on the roof. luckily abby woke up HALLELUJAH!

xico.

so this morning we got up extra early and headed off to a rural school. it seriously looked like a prison when we showed up! the school was 7th-9th one class per a grade about 15 students per a class. we were told to bring pencils since they didnt have a lot, but some how they still afford uniforms? weird.

then we went and had some guy talk to us about coffee for seriously thirty minutes. it was painful. i never knew i could experience pain while someone was just talking about coffee.

then we went to Xico and saw lots of banana trees, coffee, big trees, and waterfalls.

so nothing has really happened today. we went to church. its amazing how no matter where you go everything is still the same. THE CHURCH IS TRUE. then other then that it was pretty much been a lazy day. i watched God's army, watched some mormon messages, and skyped for a little. last night after i posted we went to a fancy restaurant and watched some flamenco dancers they were fabulous! thier feet moved so fast! it was wonderful. and of course me and abby forgot our cameras.... bummer

luxuries in mexico.

so the other day me and abby were talking about how we are ready to go home but we arent. we just want our beds, real food, and all the other luxuries in life. 

then today we went to COSTCO it was seriously the happiest day of mine and abby's life... well our mexico life at least. it looks exactly the same as home. we were so happy i even did a high kick in one of the aisles. we bought fishies, pineapple, oreos, water, and much much more. we spent 1,090 pesos. but it was 1,090 pesos of PURE HAPPINESS!

we also found this little gem...

we have already watched twilight and new moon once on the trip and plan to at LEAST one more time. we are so excited for eclipse june 30th baby!

so in conclusion... i really do love it here. i love teaching the kids. i love the cultural experience. i love the family we are staying with. i love being able to get school done here. i love hanging out with abby.

i figure hey at least i have legitimate clean water and costco food! yeah i think i can man up for three more weeks :)

the world cup.

so yesterday we bought our sweet jerseys for the big game. this morning when i woke up our host father asked if we were ditching school to go to the game i just shook my head no, gave him a sad face, and said escuela.

when me and abby walk into the school wearing our shirts the principal of the school stops us and wants to take our picture. she l♥ved us showing our team mexico spirit! then our teacher and another teacher look at us and say bueno! we had the most cheese ball grins on our faces.

today in class the kids all got mexican flags put on their faces. some of the kids pushed me and abby to the front of the class to get ours done too. then we made mexico flags and the kids kept waving them around saying VIVA MEXICO! then the teacher pulled out her phone and started playing the theme song for the world cup by shakira. the song was in english and amilliano knew every single word to the song it was sooo funny. the teacher kept texting her brother to figure out the score. all the kids were so excited when mexico scored their reaction was this.... (the cute girl in the purple top is the teacher)

the score ended up 1-1. this was the reaction of all the xalapanos (not the peppers the people) was insane! and they hadnt even won! this is what was going on in the town square in xalapa.

mi casa es su casa.

so if you havent heard by now i am staying in the town of xalapa. in spanish xalapions and jalapenos are pronounced the same. so when you are asked do you like xalapinos or jalapenos. its always best to reply with a yes!

one day our host family was telling us where they had been in the US she was saying california, arizona, minnesota, and obama... then she was like no no no alabama jaja (i say jaja now instead of haha because i am pretty much a native)

tomorrow is the big world cup game for mexico at 7 in the morning so me and abby bought team mexico jerseys to wear tomorrow

mi casa

first one to spot the creepy man in the picture wins!

worst ballet ever.

los ninoes

tonight we went to a ballet. omg kill me now. this guy walked slowly across the stage in pretty much a speedo. and then fell to the floor. seriously five minutes long. five different times. omg i still want to punch something.

we also tried to go get dairy queen and the guy didnt even try to talk to us shook his head no. then pointed at the fridge and said dilly bar. we pull out dilly bars and our money and he just sits there... and does nothing. so after a minute we put the dilly bars away and walk out. after that we meet up with our friends who decided to go to dairy queen. we walk in and the people in front of us in line order blizzards and when we try to order they say no we arent serving so we walk out and the next couple gets served dilly bars behind us....

gotta love mexico...

first day of school.

today was our first day with the kindergartners. we arrived early and got to see all the boys play soccer. i leaned over to abby and said "travis would love this" everyone knows trab is the best futbol player in the world but i bet these 5th graders could keep up!

when we first arrived the preschool and kindergarten met together in a large room and we all did stretches to mama mia! i was dancing and singing along it was awesome!

we have the most rambunctious class ever they are awesome! they love to ask how do you say cat or dog or house in english. its crazy that what these 5 year olds are learning is like what im learning in spanish. lunes, martes, miercoles... every-once-in-a-while i will have to ask how to say purple or green. their favorite question to ask is como te llama? after i answer there response is always their eyes getting big and saying ooooh nee-cole. then i reply muy bueno.

today was also my first day of spanish.... man i need to brush up on that. welp nothing much new then that yummy food still :) i l♥ve having lunch be the meal when we eat the most! its muy diferente pero muy bueno

radishes and carrots.

this morning waking up was way hard. then for breakfast i had a luke warm drink made of radishes and carrots. today we traveled to different schools me and abby both picked to teach kindergarden at this school. we will be here everyday for the next two weeks. we are both really excited!

something about those big brown eyes makes me melt inside. they are so cute! communication between us and the family is getting way better. and we seriously had the yummiest food for lunch! the best cheese EVER!

we made it to XALAPA it is way less scary here and i am glad to get out of all the pollution... YUCK. we met our family and they know ABSOLUTELY NO ENGLISH! they are an older couple, man and wife, very nice. with their two perros. it is very hard to communicate. but we do have our english-spanish dictionary. that is helping a lot. we have internet HALLELUJAH! im gunna try so hard to be friendly and get to know them but i only understand about 50% maybe less of what they say. me and abby learned fast that it will be easier for us to try to speak spanish then for them to learn english. ill keep you posted on how it goes. right now i think its awesome! but at the same time i feel bad for the family. they thought they were getting two girls who actually know spanish.

one thing from yesterday. me and abby ate dinner at the hotel and this is how the conversation went between me, abby, and the waiter.

nic- are you still serving dinner?

waiter- *looks at me funny*

n- *looking at abby like HELP*

abby- i dont know how to say dinner

n- are you still serving dinner (a little louder and slower, you know that always works)

w- you know you can speak english...

n- *sighs* are you still serving dinner

w- oh the internet is up stairs

a- no dinner *makes a motion of eating*

w- oohhhhh si si.

i knew i cant speak spanish but now english too! oh brother....

lifes an adventure... gotta l♥ve it.

the pyramid of the sun.

so mesas elevation is 1117 ft and mexico citys is 7349 ft. so when i was asked to hike the 3rd largest pyramid in the world i had to say YES! 246 ft isnt that bad to hike right? anyway its called the pyramid of the sun and the aztecs built it a loooooong time ago.

when we pulled up there was three guys on a really tall poll playing music. totally legit mexicano.

we found this sweet tree and named it grandmother willow

i found this little tunnel i HAD to climb through it! my teacher later said he saw me crawl through it... WHOOPS :)

before we hiked the pyramid. look how tall it is!

after we climbed to the top. the altitude made it so rough!

next we went to the museum of anthropology. one of the biggest in the world! this is a picture of the aztecs map made out of real stone!

some sweet mayan palace. the mayan part of the museum was by far the coolest!

after that we just hung at the hotel. long day but super fun!

i have arrived.

well good news i've made it! it is absolutely amazing to be here! i'm soooooo glad abby is here with me too! i've decided to bring back my famous poems i started back in england :)

it smells funny.

the food was yummy.

the sights were gorgeous.

my suit case is enormous.

im so tired beyond belief.

i'm here what a relief!

yep that pretty much sums it up :)

p.s. if you think i havent dished enough about mexico you can always check out abbys blog too!