The best day ever

So, yesterday we all went to our first day at the language school. We had been trying to figure out where we were going to stay while we were in San Cristobal because the farm doesn´t provide a place for us to stay and the hostels would be expensive and camping would also be expensive because we would have to eat out all the time. There happened to be a flyer outside of our school for a house for rent, but it had a minimum stay of 4 months. We decided to look into it anyway, and it turns out that it´s owned by the woman who runs the language school. She´s a ridiculously nice person and incredibly cute and she brought us to see the house and she told us that we actually could stay in it for a month. So...WE´RE RENTING A HOUSE IN MEXICO!!! It´s definitely the most exciting thing that´s happened to us so far. Eating will be cheap because we can cook for ourselves and everything at the market is soooo cheap. You can get a bag of fruits or avocados or a beautiful assortment of beans for 15 pesos. It´s amazing! We´re moving into the house in a couple of hours from now. We also made some friends who are volunteering on the farm we will be at next week. Pretty much San Cristobal de las Casas is a most magical city. Hay muchas personas indigenas quien venden zapatas, frutas, muñecas, ropa, y muchas otro cosas. ¡Es una ciudad bonicima! Y ahora, es tiempo para mis fotos de San Cristobal de las Casas. Never mind, the computer won´t upload my photos right now, so I´ll do it later.

the first week: cancun, chichen itza, campeche

So these are some pictures from our first week in Mexico. We flew into Cancun and didnt stay there for long. The pictures appear in reverse order here because Im still learning how to get everything working just right. The bottom photos are from our first hostel in Cancun, which was really quite nice. It was 20 us dollars per person, or 200 pesos to stay there for the night wich is kind of expensive for a hostel, but it was a great place to crash our first night. Everything is colorful and made out of concrete or adobe, and all of the sidewalks are extremely narrow. Trying to get down a crowded sidewalk with my backpack really makes me feel like a giant. Theres no recycling in mexico, so there are A LOT of plastic bottles and other trash on the sides of the road which is a real bummer. Right now were in San Cristobal de las Casas and its beautiful. We will be here for a month, so we are going to rent a house! Its really cheap, only 1300 pesos for the month each, and it will be really comfy and save us a bunch of money. I have a bunch more pictures of San Cristobal that Ill put up sometime in the next week or so. Using the internet is kind of a hassle because you either have to pay for it, or you have to hope that no one else is using it. Oh well. More thoughts later. Oh, and the keyboards here are different and I cant figure out how to use the apostrophe.

The walkway near the library in Campeche

Some fancy dancers with beer bottles on their heads, campeche

Im not sure what this is counting down to exactly, but it is counting down to 2010

Campeche dancers

My most delicious tamale in a banana leaf

The ocean side in Campeche. Its on the gulf of Mexico.

Ocean

There are weird shaped lights on the buildings in Campeche

There is also a wall surrounding the city of Campeche

A cathedral

Bricks that make up many of the roofs

There is never a dull floor in Mexico

or door

or hallway

or sidewalk aparently. There are HUGE steps down to the street in some places,

and you really have to watch your step.

A campeche street

The wall looking in to the park

Las tres amigas

An awesome hallway in Chichen Itza

And a great wall in Chichen Itza

Some of the ruins of Chichen Itza

and again

An iguana!!!!!

Our first hostel











the three of us on our beds the first night

And we begin

Today is the day before we head out to Mexico. I've been extremely unrelaxed the last 2 weeks, perhaps one might even ascribe the word anxiety to my situation. Large transitions such as this really get me going which is silly because it's not like I had no choice in the matter. Luckily tomorrow I'll be on a plane and I can stop worrying about leaving, I will have already done it.
We arrive in Cancun (mostly because it's the cheapest) at 8 pm tomorrow and check into a hostel soemwhere in the outskirts of the touristy city. Cenotes, Chichen Itza, and other awesome things are where we're headed for the first few days and then we're off to language school and our first farm in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas where we'll also spend our Dia de Los Muertos. I've got everything together except for a few phone calls and a trip to the bank. My heart is filled with excitement bordering on the edge of anxiety, disbelief, curiosity, and a simultaneous sense of longing for adventure and desire to have a home. Mostly you could call my feelings mixed or conflicted. Awesomeness always wins out though and I get everything I need no matter where I am. And tomorrow I'm in Mexico.