thoughts on mexican food, driving, and other stuff

sorry to those of you who would like me to post something every day. a) i'm lazy; b) at the present moment, i am not having an adventure per minute, so posting every day might be a little much and little boring right now.

i do have a few things to share though. i've been learning some interesting things about mexican culture, especially in the food area. one thing i've learned to appreciate are things covered in chili powder. mexicans eat pineapple dipped in chili powder. it's a unique taste. but it's more than just fruit. coco brought home a bag of watermelon flavored suckers coated in chili powder. at first, i almost couldn't handle the taste, but now i love them.

pizza is another example. last friday, we ordered a pizza from dominoes and daniela, my cousin charlie's girlfriend asked me if liked it with queso philadelphia (cream cheese). i told her i'd never had that before, but sure i'd try it. apparently, they love it here. the cream cheese is baked into the pizza. it was also interesting. i mean how can cheese on anything be a bad thing? they poured salsa on their pizza as well, though it's not the kind of salsa you're thinking of. it was more like a spicy sauce. that's the other thing -- any kind of sauce is called salsa, i.e. salsa de barbeque.

today we had hamburgers for lunch and coco grilled up some bacon (normal) and pieces of ham -- to go on the hamburgers. i've never had ham on hamburgers (and i opted for the bacon), but really if you think about it, ham and bacon are both from the same animal, so . . .

everything else i've had here is just delicious mexican food (i may come back from mexico packing an extra 50 pounds). they eat tortillas with everything. and refried beans. and salsa. oh and limes. coco buys limes by the pound (or kilo, i guess -- i still haven't tried to figure out the conversion from the english to metric system yet).

ok, i think that's it for the food.

i drove a few times on saturday with coco. she said that if i could drive in dc, i could probably drive in mexico, which is probably true. i'm just a little nervous still. i did pretty well, except a few times i thought we were at a four way stop, but it was only a two way stop. i asked roberto if they had four way stops in mexico, and he told me that mostly the person with the right of way is the person with the biggest car. speaking of cars, i found out an interesting fact yesterday. roberto had to go to mexico city and he took the suv. coco told me that he couldn't take the truck because there is a law in mexico city that if your license plate has certain numbers, you can't drive into mexico city on certain days of the week. this is to keep congestion and pollution down.

on saturday night, we went to a mexican fiesta for coco's sister-in-law's birthday. we drove out to a ranch that coco's father used to use to make bricks. it's not like a normal ranch with a house and animals. it's just kind of a place out in the country with a few buildings -- for making bricks, i guess. anyway, we had a party with good food and dancing. almost no one in her family speaks english, so i had to rely on charlie and daniela. daniela is so cute and alot of fun to hang out with. at first she was too shy to try to speak english, even though she can read, write and understand it. but this last week, she has been trying alot. i'm really proud of her.

sunday morning, coco took me to the international church. it was very small -- maybe 50 people. i was glad to be there, but it made me miss chbc alot. it's not quite the same. i will go back if i can. hopefully, i can develop some good friendships there and grow in christ.

last night, i taught my first class, even though i haven't been officially hired by this company yet. though i'm not really worried. they are desperate for teachers. i just have to go thru their training and then go thru the visa process. the class last night was good, although my two students showed up 20 minutes late, and it's only an hour class, so i only got 40 minutes with them. needless to say, i didn't get through everything. but i really enjoyed it. i'm anxious to start what i came down here to do. i do have an interview at a university this week -- on thursday. hopefully that will prove positive, since i think i may have to get jobs with several schools. i'm not sure this job at berlitz is going to be full time.

i am doing my best to pick up as much spanish as i can. though sometimes i find myself getting very frustrated. i love to talk. and when i start to think about all the words in the english language and all the ways there are to say things, i think "i will never be able to talk that fluently in spanish". however, i've only been here about 9 days, so i just need to be patient. coco tells me i am doing a good job.

finally, i've been trying to gain as much knowledge of mexican culture as i can. even the little things. they don't really recycle here, which is strange to me. and it hurts me every time i put something recyclable in the trash can. they do recycle coke cans, but that's about it. it is very interesting where i am living and what i see on tv -- it's hard to believe that mexico could be called a third world country. though i asked my cousin roberto if he thought mexico was still a third world country, and he said yes. apparently 55% of mexico's population live below the poverty line and the minimum wage is about 50 pesos per day, which is roughly 40 cents american. a day. crazy, right? i don't think i've really experienced or seen the poverty of mexico yet. saltillo seems to have alot of what you could want. the grocery stores, walmart, the mall -- they are all pretty similar to what you would see in the united states.

anyway, i guess this was a little longer than i intended, but i wanted to wait until i had alot to tell you. hope everyone is doing well. adios.