Thursday, July 23, 2009

What a week....

Friday--Left San Miguel. Spent four hours laid over in Houston. Arrived in Indy well after midnight.
Saturday--Slept for eight-ish hours. Drove to Des Moines. Met my beautiful new nephew. Fed said nephew a bottle and sang to him a bit (a selection of U2 and Apoptogyma Bezerk songs).
Sunday--Drove back from Des Moines. Started unpacking from trip to Mexico.
Monday--Saw five apartments. Went to test drive a Honda Fit Sport (manual, Blackberry Pearl).
Tuesday--Saw four apartments. Filled out application for apartment in St. Agnus Apartments. Went to Martin to get my office keys and sign my contract. Picked up Mom from the airport.
Wednesday--Got apartment. Went back to Honda dealership for financing and grueling negotiation.
Thursday--Agreed on car price. Started packing to move. Found car insurance. Made appointment to sign lease and get keys for apartment tomorrow.
Tonight--Pick up new car.
Tomorrow--Sign lease. Move. Get Internet. Take Mom and Dad out for dinner. Drive around in my new car.
Saturday--Unpack. Revel in new environment. Probably make Korean fried rice.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Almost time to leave Mexico....

Well, I've turned in papers, read dozens of short stories, wrote nonfiction (weird, I'm better at making stuff up), and walked a lot. I'm kind of ready to head home even though it's been pretty fantastic.
I'm posting a couple more pictures, but I may put more up on Facebook. Anyway, here they are.
This first picture is of my strange pink and yellow room. Notice the mural signed "Jesus J.S. Dic. '02."


This is a sign outside of the hot springs. I sort of thought this was amusing. Notice the fifth bullet: I think it says something close to "We won't tolerate any antisocial behavior that disrupts the peace of this place."


Outside of the city, this is what it looks like: kind of flat and green, and you probably wouldn't guess that this is like 7,000,000,000 feet above sea level. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little.


A group of us went to this really strange church at Atotonilca. They call it the Mexican Sistine Chapel (notice the following picture). Really, this Jesus statue is a large draw, too, because he apparently has real hair and teeth.


This is a picture of the ceiling of the church, with the scaffolding for the restoration work.


This picture doesn't really show the extent of the bougainvillea in this city.


Last one for now: evening overlooking San Miguel.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Two weeks in Mexico

A few items of note:
1. If you haven't heard, I have a new nephew. This is so fantastically exciting.
2. After taking a tango lesson and two salsa lessons, I realize that dancing can be kinda cool.
3. Mole (pronounced mol-eh) is so good, I'm may have to figure out how to make it. Forget that, I'm going to buy some in a can.
4. Had to do a reading on Wednesday. It wasn't the catastrophe it could have been.
5. Went to Guanajunto, but I missed seeing the mummies. Boo.
6. Writers can be harsh.
7. Writers can be great.
8. The breakfasts at this little hotel (La Casa de Elvia) continue to be enough food to get me through much of the day. They have a farm somewhere (not on the premises), so breakfasts continue to involve foreign things like homemade butter, homemade yogurt, and chile killyas. The last one's spelling is questionable.
9. Masses in English are preferable to masses in Spanish.
10. Spanish is much easier than Korean. I don't care what anyone says.

Okay, here's a link to some informational stuff about the program here:
http://lowres.uno.edu/sanmiguel/
If you click on housing, you can see some pictures of La Casa de Elvia.