Halloween!

Yay for awesome weekends of good fun! We dressed up, partied it up, and danced it up.... A LOT!! I seriously LOVE dancing down here. I am sorry, but in Canada, we kinda suck in the dancing department at times. We give it a solid effort but there just isn't the love for dancing that there is down here which means we all stand in a circle and kinda dance. Down here guys ask girls to dance and they dance Salsa and meringue and banda and anything you ask for really! Boys, take note, a guy that can really dance.... HOT! There was a church dance on Friday night. Random note: they don't turn the lights off at the dances. It is bright and you can see everyone. AND PEOPLE STILL DANCE!! Imagine that!! Moni and I went dressed as ballerinas to the dance. It was pretty awesome. We made our costumes and they were awesome. The entire night was spent dancing and laughing and taking pictures. It was super fun because I am starting to feel like the Mormon's down here are actually my friends and they actually get my personality. It has been a rough ride, but we are getting there. Plus, for some reason, I all of a sudden can keep up with their conversations!! It is seriously SOOOOOO exciting!!!!! I have really had a hard time with all of the slang and with the fact that 18 people are always talking at once. I haven't spent a whole lot of time with this group of people in the last couple weekends and I think the break did me good! I can understand now and it is great.

After the dance, of course, we went out for tacos. Hahaha! I love the little taco stores here. I am super excited to make them for everyone when I get home. You will like them. I promise. And if you don't, you are crazy. We ended up getting home at around 2 and I was in bed by 2:30 which normally isn't too bad except for the fact that as we were going home a group of us girls decided that we would go and do baptisms at the temple in the morning..... at 8.... meaning I had to be out of the house by 7. Me + 4 hours of sleep??? Hahahaha! Yah. Let's just say that didn't happen and we left late and just cabbed it. When we got to the temple, it was PACKED. We sat and waited for four hours until we were able to get in to do baptisms. It was a SUPER long wait considering I was exhausted and the stupid air conditioning made it soooo cold! But, as usual, the wait was worth it and the temple is still awesome.

After, I went home, ate, cleaned, prepped my costume for the party on Saturday evening and then had a wonderful nap! I decided to go as a Canadian hockey fan to this party. Go Canada!! Problem was that I really didn't have the things that I needed to do so. Hahaha! I don't think I did so bad though with what I had! I was pretty worried about this party. The night before had been awesome because if I didn't feel like talking to people or I was struggling with the language, I could just laugh and then dance and people were okay with it. But, this was a party..... with socializing.... and talking..... and nowhere to hide. Ugh..... Turns out it was totally alright though because, apparently, Mexicans dance no matter where they are! Hahaha! Music was playing all night and I probably spent a good hour or two dancing, which is EXHAUSTING and AWESOME! It was sooooo much fun. Some of the guys down here are complete goofs! Oh, we had a good time dancing like complete fools. After that, we had a skipping competition. Yup.... skipping as in what you did when you were ten. It was hilarious!!!! Here we were in the middle of the street late at night skipping. Oh, I love YSA. After we had had enough skipping, the next logical choice was musical chairs. Hahaha! Oh man. I seriously love little kids games and I am awesome at them! Well, mostly. I came in second both times I got to play mostly because I didn't want to squish the princess like girls I was playing against. That's my excuse and I am sticking to it! I ended up with this wicked scratch down my arms from the game though! It was pretty crazy!

Anyways. It was an awesome weekend and it isn't even done. We still have El Día de los Muertos fun to be had! We are definitely holding an FHE type night at our place and we are playing Murder in the Dark!!!! Oh, the joy of introducing awesome games from home to the crowd down here! Love it! 

The bratty twenty-something tagging along

So, this weekend has been quite excellent, quite excellent indeed. I spent this weekend getting a tour of the city. I know I have been here over two months now but I really haven’t seen a whole lot of the city. That being said, there really isn't TONS to see. I have hit some of the highlights but not all of them. So, this weekend, David has a co-worker from Mexico City in town. He was working at our office for the majority of the week but then this weekend David gave him a complete tour of the city. At the party a couple weekends ago, Dave offered to let me come along should I want to see the city highlights with them. And that is exactly what I did!

After work on Friday David, Jean, David's girlfriend Heidi and I spent the night on Chapultapec. Chapultapec is one of the main drags in Guadalajara. The entire street is lined with restaurants of all different varieties. Well, kinda. If you want to eat in Guadalajara you have 4 choices. They are Mexican, Italian, Indian or Sushi. That’s it. We went out and ate Indian at this tiny, adorable little restaurant. I really wish we still had more restaurants like this in Canada or that we took better advantage of them. It seems like anytime we want to eat we head out to one of the many franchises that dot the streets of Edmonton rather than all of the little independent restaurants that can provide some sort of variety or culture into our cookie cutter lives. Anyways, we ate, talked, laughed and then went out for drinks and bar snacks. The bars that I end up going to are really more like Cafes that serve alcohol. They serve these awesome little snack things at almost every one of them. I, for the life of me, can’t remember what they are called but they kinda look like pretzels... kinda, but they are really just flour and water and have very little taste to them. That is compensated for by smothering them with chilli sauce. Quite excellent.

Saturday was even better. Dave, Jean and I spent most of the morning in Centro Historico touring all of the important buildings and seeing all of the sites and fountains and random statues. We spent some time in San Juan de Dios as well.  I have been waiting to hit this place for quite awhile. It is a three story market that is filled with anything you could ever want a counterfeited copy of. Haha! I LOVE it! It is one of those places that you need to hang onto your money or you won’t have any anymore and the little kid next to you will be a little bit richer than he was a couple minutes earlier. It is just filled with people and noise and color and culture! I LOVE it! I think it is like the biggest market in all of Latin America or something like that. Good times.

After our tour of downtown we headed off to Tlaquepaque which I had already been to but I still got to see a lot of different things that I missed the first time through. David took us in to see the collections of some of the local artists and wow! I was amazed by some of the stuff they had there. Granted this is the kind of stuff that doesn’t have price tags because it might actually kill you to know how much they want for it but it was quite nice to look at.

Stop number three was Festival de Octubre. October is a month of celebration apparently and so the carnival came to town! It was like a giant K-Days or Capital Ex or whatever you want to call it. Good times, good times. I haven’t ridden that many rides in years. I was so proud of myself! And I am totally paying for it now with a stomach that is still upset and a splitting headache but it was super fun. Boss = Screaming like a little girl. Jean = Green. Haha! So much laughter and merriment! Jean had a great love for the little carnival games you play hoping to win the stuffed animals. It was so hilarious! He spent a good 80ish pesos or like 8ish bucks on all of these different games and ended up with a little stuffed Patrick at the end of it. He did win a stuffed hamburger toy at one point but that flew the coop while we were ridding the roller coaster. Ohhhh!!! So, they have the most RANDOM stuffed prizes here. They had any vice you could want in the form of a stuffed toy. They had hamburgers, beer, and even cigarettes!!!! Seriously!!! The cigarettes would even say things like, “You are my vice” and other such lovely phrases on them. So hilarious!

After we had had our fill of rides we went to downtown Zapopan to see the cathedral and to have dinner and drinks. The orange juice I ordered was a wonderful combination of tang and McDonald’s orange drink. Yummm. (sarcasm.) The restaurant/bar thing we were at was playing this really heartfelt Spanish music that made me laugh. Secretly I loved it but it was still hilarious to hear it in the setting we were in. I commented on it to Dave and he told me he had requested it especially for me and had dedicated this song to me. Right after he said that, the next full minute of the song was nothing but the lyrics, “I love you” which obviously led to sarcastic jokes about him proposing with a rose in his mouth which was timed wonderfully as a man then walked by selling roses. Oh, I had a good laugh over it.

All in all, it was quite an excellent day. I got to see the sites and spend time with excellent people. It was really interesting to listen to Dave and Jean talk about their jobs and the likes and dislikes and perks and everything. It was interesting to see the impact that this job has on their spouses and on the kids of the employees of DFAIT. I think that would be the only drawback of applying for a job like this. I would love, love, love to work in this position forever but that being said, it would have SUCH an impact on my family and I don’t know how I feel about that. Stupid life decisions! Haha! Interesting situation, Jean has a little one year old daughter. Turns out that she has citizenship in three countries! She was born in Mexico, has Canadian citizenship since her dad is out working on a posting, and her mom is Puerto Rican. That would be so cool! Turns out I am not even allowed to be a Canadian citizen because I get cold at night here in Mexico which clearly leads to me losing my citizenship.

Oh, one last thing. I have the best boss ever. Not only does he let the bratty little twenty-something tag along and spend the weekend touring the city with him but he also refused to let me pay for ANYTHING. I spent a grand total of ten pesos over the entire weekend when I snuck off to buy a bottle of water. That was it. I tried to pay and he refused. He said he was going to cover it since I do all his work. Therefore he was going to pay for my food and drinks and snacks and entrance into the amusement park and the cost of rides ON TOP of picking me up and driving me around and dropping me off. How is that for employee motivation??! If only all bosses could be this awesome. Seriously.

Moral of the story. This weekend = awesome times.

The Happy Worm Song

So, one of the things I appreciate most about my job is the variability. I get the opportunity to work in a number of different industries and research a crap load of different things. It keeps things interesting. So, today I was searching for Canadian companies that can supply a wide arrangement of different products to Mexican companies. Sounds dull, I know. And for awhile it kinda was.... UNTIL there was a change in tone.

I was researching compost bins when I stumbled across this website that was selling red worms for composting. I was a little grossed out by it as it has some nasty looking worm pictures on it. If you walked by my office at the moment it would have been hilarious since I actually had this look of disgust on my face. As I was reading, I saw this link talking about how one of the people who I assume works for / owns the company found a worm crawling up her door. So, what does she do? She takes a video of it and posts it on YouTube. Yup... 1 minute and 19 seconds of a worm crawling up the window. I laughed at her which was when I found out that ...... yes, she felt the need to write "a little ditty" about the situation. Totally made my day!

And then life got even better!! I found another site that was, again, selling worms. Only this time, there was a full fledged song with guitar cords and a chorus. There is even the capability to listen along to the song! AND they had worm jokes. AND (I wish I could make that even bigger than caps! Wait!) AND it just so happens that if you feel the need to spice up your child's birthday, they will come to your kid's party and you can have a worm party!!! SERIOUSLY!!!!!!!! Oh man..... Canadians are weird.....

Here are the links should you feel the need to enjoy the randomness!

http://www.redwormcomposting.com/fun-stuff/red-worm-on-my-window/
http://www.cathyscomposters.com/
http://www.marionparsons.com/Marion_Parsons_Songbook/Vermicomposting_Song.html

Joy.

Creature of Habit

I am a creature of habit. No, that is not quite true. I am just so averse to change that I fall into habits in an effort to hide from change and the unknown that is coupled with it. I am the kind of person that is completely thrown off EVERY single September, January, and May because life changes. Even something as simple as returning to school can throw me for a loop that will inevitably drive me, my roommates, and my mother crazy (since they are the ones who usually have to listen to me rant). That being said, I continue to marvel at the fact that I enjoy throwing myself into these adventures abroad. EVERYTHING about Mexico is different; the people, the culture, the language, the food, the buses, the grocery stores, the music, the social interactions, etc, etc. I come to these countries and I throw myself 10000% out of my comfort zone and then I spend the next X number of months fighting against the immense challenge this change is to me. My time abroad is inescapably a wide array of emotions. (Who am I kidding? My LIFE is a wide array of emotions.) Sometimes I do really well and I have a blast and I laugh and experience and learn and grow. Sometimes I just suck at it and I cry like a little baby for my mom... literally. Haha!

I miss my family and the comfort of a mother’s or sister’s hug. I long for my friends and for the peaceful feeling of walking into a room and feeling completely comfortable because I know I am surrounded by friends who love and support me. I miss people understanding me! Stupid language.... I love the language, I just miss that I can’t express my personality to the same degree in Spanish and I sometimes end up coming across a little bit dull.

So, I slip back into my habits to dull the change for a little bit until I am back on top of my game. I eat Canadian food, I listen to Dan Mangan’s CD (yet again), and I reminisce about home. The point is that sometimes it sucks being abroad. But, if I could rewind time and do this whole semester all over again, would I change anything? Nope, not at all, because although it sometimes sucks being abroad, the vast majority of the time is freaking awesome. If I did it all over again, I would still be here in Mexico. I would still live with a roommate who is 100% opposite of me. I would still abandon all comfort and throw myself into this situation where I can grow and salsa dance and eat tacos while speaking Spanish. I know without a doubt that at the end of it all, I will come home and I look back and I will be immeasurably glad that I abandoned everything that I cling to for comfort to have this experience. I will be better for it.

Thank heavens for the bitter to make the sweet that much more delicious!

Vegan Burgers, Work Party, and Drunk Boss

Holy crap, funnest night of my life! Seriously, so much fun that I used the word funnest. Hey! I didn't start this post with so! Go me! It is late and I am kinda all over the place if you can't tell! Haha!

Anyways, our post just got a new Consul and so we had a welcoming BBQ for her this evening at my boss' place and ohhhhh how much joy this party brought me. I found joy in a number of things.

1) Mango Pico de Gallo - I have no idea how Dave made this but dang do I need to learn because it tasted sooooo good! Throw that on your bean and chipotle burger and you have one fine vegan burger! I even ate a stuffed mushroom today! Look how adventurous I am being with foods I NEVER eat in Canada. You should be proud of me.
2) Conversations in Spanish - I sat and talked with one of the Mexican students that also works at the Consulate. The Canadian students don't really have a chance to interact with the Spanish ones so it was really nice to have the chance. We are actually going to go and see a movie tomorrow! Yay for friends that speak Spanish!
3) Mexican Feeling - I don't know what it is but Mexicans just have this different feeling when they socialize. I have no idea what it is but it is so nice to just feel this different culture and the observe how they interact and what they say and how they say it and such. It is seriously my favorite part of travelling.
4) Drunk Boss = Drunk Ted - ohhhhh my goodness. My boss got PLASTERED tonight. It was one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen. I have seen him drink before but never like he did tonight. He said he drank two bottles of wine and tequila. That being said, he was drunk when he was telling me this so who knows how much he had. But, basically, for anyone that has seen How I Met Your Mother, he was EXACTLY like drunk Ted. Brought me SOOO much joy. Good times, good times.

Basically, I really feel the most comfort when I am at work in this country and even more so after this party. It was entertaining and hilarious and I laughed and laughed and joked and spoke up and was myself and still was able to uphold my standards and actually have quite a long conversation about the church. That being said, it was with my drunk boss so I don't know if that counts :) Haha! All and all. Good times.

Day Effie (Mexico City)

So, at the beginning of October.... Do I start every one of my posts with so?? Wow... I never professed to be an amazing author. I guess that proves it! Anyways, at the beginning of October, I went to DF (Mexico City) for the weekend with my roommate. It was quite excellent!

We jumped on a bus at midnight and had quite an uncomfortable sleep for the next 7 hours. Oh, side note, these buses TOTALLY trump Greyhound buses. Seriously. This is like sitting in first class on a plane, but with more room! Still isn’t quite a bed though. I should have taken the bus that comes with a bed. Someone should invent that. Anyways, rode the bus. Got to DF. Rode the subway. Dude! This city has a subway system quite similar to New York City. It was AWESOME! I love NYC and I love anything that reminds me of NYC. Quite great. And sooooo cheap! It costs 3 pesos to ride which is like 25 cents ish. So great!

We took the subway to the temple and spent most of the day there. I LOVE the temple in DF. It is one of the most beautiful ones I have seen. It has this Aztec feeling to it. My roommate went and did a session because she is endowed while I tried to get in to do baptisms. I failed. 3 stakes in a row failed to show up. The little old men at the door were so kind to me though. We sat and talked for quite awhile and laughed and it was great. At the end I went to use the washroom and ended up walking through the baptismal area. It literally took my breath away. It is the most beautiful baptismal font I have seen in the temples I have been to. I so wish I could have done baptisms. It’s all good though. I got to spend a bunch of time in the visitor’s center. It is quite similar to Salt Lake City’s visitor’s center, just on a smaller scale. I spent a bunch of time and money in the bookstore too. I love the church bookstore! Especially when it is Mexico cheap! Ps... living in Mexico is not as cheap as you would expect.

After this, we went to Moni’s aunt’s house to drop off our stuff. We spent the evening out on the town. We went down to Centro Historico and saw all of the crazy decorations they had up for the Bicentennial, and all of the old architecture, and the Cathedral all lit up against the night sky. And then we went out dancing with some of Moni’s friends. I really dislike getting stuck in these situations. On the one hand, it is too dangerous for me to get in a taxi and go home and I could direct a taxi to Moni’s aunt’s place if I wanted to. On the other hand, I really hate going into these clubs and these bars. I thought it would be different if I were living with a member, but nope. Members down here have different standards than in Canada.

Day 2 was spent seeing the sights. We went and walked through the cathedral. I love seeing other people’s churches. It creeped Moni out but I find it fascinating to see these grand cathedrals with gold everywhere and statues and high ceilings and arches and domes. I still like our temples more, but it is interesting. After that we spent a couple hours in some Aztec ruins. Before Spain conquered Mexico, there was this huge Aztec village. After the Spanish came they literally built their Cathedral practically on top of the Aztec town. So, there is this underground Aztec museum that is right next to the Cathedral which was placed as what you could call a symbol of the Spanish dominance. Super interesting. There was also this museum with all of these different artefacts that have been recovered. After we spent tons of time there we went through the craziest market I have been in! It was sooo ridiculous and busy and filled with people.... EVERYWHERE!

That night we went to Moni’s friend’s wedding. It was in a castle. Like, literally, it was in a castle. It was quite an adventure. There was a fully catered meal and a dance and awesome wedding type games. There was this one thing they did where first all of the girls did this congo line. The bride and groom stood on chairs and made a London-Bridge-Is-Falling-Down type bridge and had two people holding onto each of them. The whole point of the congo line was to try and knock them off the chairs as you went under this bridge. The girls were dainty in their Mexican high heels and such, but when it was the guys turn, oh man was it hilarious! It was quite an excellent night.

The next day was conference in the morning and then I jumped on a bus and came home! Overall, Mexico City is a HUGE city that is hip-happening and has this feeling of energy. It has a REAL big city feel and I loved it! I don’t think I could ever live there. It is too big and wayyyyy too polluted for me. But it is a must see if you are down in Mexico. And that’s all I have to say on that.

8 Hours a Day of Awesomeness!!

Sooooo..... holy junk has a lot happened since my last post. And I shall tell you all about it right now! Probably in more than one post; it just makes more sense. Let’s start with the super, fabulous, wonderful, marvellous, awe-inspiring, enjoyable, tremendous, excellent job that I love, like a lot.

Right now I am working as an intern for the Canadian Consulate in Guadalajara. This post only offers two of the three services that Consulates can offer; the trade sector and consular services (helping Canadians who go to jail, lose their passport, etc.). I am working as a research/legwork assistant to a couple of the trade commissioners. I mainly work with David, the Vice-Consul who is from Canada, is super young for the position he has and is quite hilarious ! Basically, a super awesome boss and a lot like me in many ways. For example, the other day he walked into my office and said, “Randi, your work sucks. You need to do better.” And then he immediately started talking about how on ANTM they give feedback that really is useless and doesn’t help them at all. Haha! So much joy!

I swear I got the good end of the stick on this job. There is one other Canadian student here right now from the UofA, Peter. He got here a week later than me and I swear that week was SUCH a blessing for me. It meant that I got paired with David. This is awesome for a number of reasons. A) His sectors are more interesting to me. Right now I am mostly working with the forestry industry and I also am working on this report about the level of danger present in Guadalajara. I believe this beats the cattle sector and marbles. Haha! B) David and I get along and can relate a lot better than I can with the other trade commissioners. We have a similar sense of humour which means we joke around a lot more than I do with the other commissioners and we are closer in age than the other trade commissioners. C) I seem to get some pretty awesome activities that for some reason, Peter, just seems to miss out on for whatever reason.

For example, I got to attend the Aerospace Meetings – this giant expo about, well, Aerospace. This was a three day event and it was a BLAST. On Monday night there was a cocktail party that the Canadian Consulate and Embassy were hosting together. It was interesting to watch this networking meeting. It was really like an ant farm of people schmoozing. I felt COMPLETELY out of place because I was a student and really had no need to network with anyone but I enjoyed the free food and drinks! Hahaha! And at the end of the night, I didn’t need to catch a cab home because David drove me home! Bonus!! Day 2 was a really, really long day. I started at 8:30 at the expo. Basically my job for two days was to man the booth that we had and promote the Canadian Aerospace Industry and hand out information. It was really interesting. Something most people won’t know – Spanish in a French accent is practically impossible to understand. There were a lot of people from Quebec there so I interacted with a lot of French. I decided I need to learn that language, especially if I want to end up working for the Federal Government which I really think I want to do. So, I hung out in the booth and practised my Spanish, stumbled through French, and made a bunch of contacts. Pretty awesome. I finished up at around 6 and was going to head home, but there as this Gala Dinner and Vero convinced me that I should go and I am SOOOO glad that I did! It was awesome. I drove there with David and we just laughed and joked. Seriously, it is so nice to have at least one person here who I can joke around with. The Mexicans really don’t get my humour most of the time. The Gala Dinner was at Cabañas, which is this huge castle like building in Centro Historico. This is the same building that Obama came to when he came down to visit Calderón and they had a big catered dinner for him. When you go in, there is this gorgeous courtyard with orange trees all around. We stood around for awhile and had more alcohol. I love the looks people give you when you turn down tequila down here. (ps.... Jalisco, the state I am in, is the home of tequila.) The whole time there was a full on Mariachi band playing in their cute little outfits. So quaint! After that we went through this hall where there are tons of super famous murals on the roof. It was breath taking and the pictures really don’t do it justice. Finally, we ended up in the inner courtyard where they had DECKED out the place. This was an all on gala dinner. Nothing was held back. There was your choice of basically anything to drink and waiters in their little outfits everywhere. While we were eating the mariachi band played and we had a bunch of traditional dances. David and I made fun of their outfits basically the entire time. We mocked everything from the guy who looked like he had a ping pong paddle on his head to the person who looked like a walking piñata. Dinner was hands down THE best meal I have ever had. Seriously. We started with a bunch of appetizers. Who knew I would like a tuna stuffed/breaded chilli pepper? Then we had basil soup. I seriously wish my camera hadn’t died cuz I wish I had pictures for you. First they brought out all of the dishes that were decorated at the bottom like a little colourful garden and then they came around and poured the soup on top of it. It felt so rich and classy! Then we had a choice of fish or some kind of meat. I have given up on asking questions about the meat here. Finally we had THE BEST dessert I have ever had. It was this banana, chilled sorbet-ice cream thing that was to DIE for!! Seriously, sooooo good! We left at that point but as we were leaving they were giving you a choice of whatever coffee you would like, espressos, lattes, the whole bit. It was the coolest thing I have ever been to. Seriously, the perks of my job are awesome!

And then on Friday, Vero asked me to help her with some photocopying and such and as I finished it she said she was going to do a presentation at the University of Guadalajara and asked if I would like to come. I said sure. It beat doing research on pesticides in Guadalajara! On the way she briefed me on the purpose of the presentation and then told me that I would have 2-5 minutes to talk about my University back in Canada and tell the kids in this auditorium to take advantage of the exchange programs. At the end of her explanation I said, “So, I can do this in English right?” And everyone in the car hesitated and then said “No...... Spanish would be better.” So, here I was with about 15 minutes to prep a 2-5 minute presentation on the UofA. Turns out I really don’t know a whole lot about my school! Thank heavens for the little brochure they gave me! I totally nailed it though! It was awesome! I really didn’t think I would but it worked out soooo good! I even had the whole place laughing and got to sit and talk to some of the students after. It was so awesome! And then I got free lunch (even though I got tricked into eating sushi. Oh and I had a cucumber and lime drink. Quite good actually!) and the rest of the afternoon off to go and see the Alberta Learning Office thing that is set up here in Guadalajara.

Basically, after all of my rambling, the conclusion you should draw is that my job is awesome. It is exactly what I have been studying in University. It deals with different cultures and languages which I love. It gives people the opportunity to explore the world and travel around to different areas and get paid to learn different languages. Basically it is my dream job. So, I am now taking applications for any boys who want to be my husband and travel the world with me. Contact me if you want further information on the application process.