Lost! Mission Impossible Style

Today started out fabulously.  Got up at 5:40 AM, was gonna take a shower, but then my roommate needed to take one.  So, I ended up getting everything ready to go, eating breakfast, and then getting ready for the day (little spin on the normal routine).  The best part was, we actually CAUGHT the bus.  We got there about a minute before it arrived.  Which meant that we were still on time for school, despite the fact that we were running a little late this morning.  ('Twas a nice change.  I felt very blessed).

School went pretty well.  I did focus today (as was my goal) and learned lots about the Haciendas henequeneras  we are gonna go see on Friday (it was a huge plantation sort of thing that was a major industry for the Yucatan for a couple centuries.  But due to reforms and other economy changes, the industry stopped in 1934.  Now they import it from Brazil instead of growing it.  But, I learned that the time period where it was a booming industry was when the Koreans immigrated over here, looking for work. Which is why there are Korean societies in the Yucatan today  #crashcoursehistorylesson).  My grammar class was pretty fun as well.  I gave a presentation on my superpower and super-weakness and only had three mistakes.  Also, I have my last homework assignment for that class due tomorrow.  Yay!

After school, Conner, Claire, Raquel, Christina, and I decided to go to the Grand Plaza to watch Mission Impossible.  So we hop on the bus and then, bout five minutes later, get off.  Thinking we were at the grand plaza.  Turns out, there's a mall close to the school, and we found it.  It.  Was.  Awesome!  So glad we ran into it.  There was a bowling ally, an arcade (which we may go back and do on Saturday or Monday) and lots of shoe shops.  It also had a movie theater (like the Grand Plaza).  So we bought our tickets for the 1:20 PM showing, then commenced our journey to find food (we had an hour before the movie).  After asking for directions, we found the food court.  Claire and I decided to eat at a little place called Gorditas.  The others got Chinese food.  It took soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long to get our order.  But it was pretty good, I guess :)  Here's a picture ('cause you just gotta have a picture of food!):

I got a quesadilla and cochinita pibil

After food, we went to our movie.  Upon arriving at the movie theater (well, while waiting in line for popcorn) I realized that we all had forgotten to throw away our trash (oops...I felt bad about that).  Yeah...but, we got our popcorn, I used the ladies room, and then we headed to our movie!  Almost.  We got stopped because of our backpacks.  So we had to go back to the ticket desk, drop off our backpacks (a little nerve racking since I happened to have my computer on me today), go back to the little 'check your ticket' area, and then proceed.  (Random thing next to popcorn line.  Here's a pic):

I've seen an extinguisher before, but not a firefighter outfit!

The movie was awesome!  Even though I couldn't understand it like, at all (you know, the whole it was in Spanish thing).  I would have loved to have seen it in English, but then, it was our last movie day here (that is...such a sad thing to say), so we watched it in Spanish.  But yeah.  Totally recommend it.  Also, the nice thing was, we had the theater all to ourselves!  We had our feet up at one point, but a police officer (no idea why he was in there) told us to put our feet down, so we did.  But other than that, great experience!

After the movie, we explored a little bit.  We went through the arcade, I stopped at a home decor store to drool over the decorations (that's the FACS ed coming out in me), checked out the candy store, etc.  Here's some pictures from that.

Arcade Friendly Mushroom!!  (Ten points if you get that reference).

Home decor store.  That's a rhino.

View from the bowling alley window.  Looked cooler from far away.  Also, just gotta say, that bowling ally was so legit.  They even serve you your food at the tables by your lane (that is, if you want food).  Seems like a pretty sweet deal.

After checking out the mall pretty thoroughly, it was time to figure out how to return home. Surprisingly, it wasn't too difficult.  And, maybe not so surprisingly, we were all pretty chill about the fact that we had no idea where we were.  (Course, we figured it out pretty quickly with Raquel's street smarts of that area, and finding a bus isn't too difficult to do around here).

Flower we found on the way to the bustop.  Conner tried to sneak it in my backpack after this picture, but with my ninja senses, I caught him.  Well, more like I was reaching back close up my backpack right as he tried to do that.  But if that's not ninja senses, I don't know what is!

When we did reach the bustop (oringally we were gonna try to find Claire a bus to city center, but that didn't work out, so she just came home with us, then caught another bus to city center), we found some workers putting up a bus stop sign (pretty rare sight.  Most bus stops do not have signs.  I guess they decided to start putting them up).  So that was fun to watch.  What was entertaiing was, when they were done, three of the five climbed onto the back of the small truck, held onto the pole frame thing, and just stood there, right on the edge.  I was so amazed, I took a picture.  Not a very good one, but I took it!

See that small truck in the back of the picture?  Yeah, that's it, right there.

After that, Conner took a picture of us with his nice camera (and apparently the new bus stop sign) right before the bus came.  (It was literally coming round the corner.  It was a fast picture.

The bus ride wasn't too horribly long.  But it was horribly stuffed with people.  So I plugged in my music to calm my claustrophobic nerves (some good John Denver music), and managed to survive the ten or so minute bus ride home.  When we got there (we being Conner, Claire, Christina, and I.  Raquel got off at an earlier point), Conner and Claire came to our house for a few minutes to use our WIFI (Claire wanted to be sure someone was at the house that could let her in).  Then they left (Conner was a gentleman and saw Claire to her bus stop).

After that, Christina and I rested somewhat (I took a nap) before eating dinner (well, technically, it was lunch.  Tostadas!)  We chatted about this and that (mostly story stuff, which was fun), then came back to work on our last paper of the term.  Which I just barely finished five minutes ago.  Not because it was hard, but because I was going to do it tomorrow during my first class.  But, then I realized my only chance to get it printed off (because we are turning in all of our written assignments tomorrow) was through Claire, who needed it tonight.  So, I finished it up real quick and sent it off (along with my other 6 small writing assignments).  Can I just say, it feels so good to be done with all the homework for the term!!!!!!  Except a test and a presentation, I am set!  Kind of a bitter-sweet thing.  Sweet because these classes are almost done.  Bitter because it means I'll be leaving this place soon.

Oh!  And before I forget, Profe and his wife and their kids didn't something super sweet tonight.  They surprise brought each house a thing of brownies!  I haven't tried one yet (it's a little late, and I already filled up on nutella)  The Profe and his wife also brought me some meds (my infection has returned.  Yay), which was very kind of them.  Basically, they are awesome.  And I love their family.

That's basically it for tonight.  Makes me sad to think that this is the last Wednesday night I'll be in Mexico.  The last time I'll be listening to band night outside of my window.  *sigh*  It feels like I'll never leave (in the good sense).  Part of me is so ready to go home, but part of me just wants to stay here.  Course, without my group of friends, it wouldn't be as much fun as it has been.  Hopefully our group will still stay in touch after this (Claire and I have been talking about swimming in the morning.  And Claire, Christina, and I were talking about running together this upcoming semester).  #hereshoping

As for my last Wednesday in Mexico, it was a pretty awesome one.  I'm glad I got to spend it with friends.  I'm glad I got to get lost one more time and explore something new (and eat popcorn).  Hopefully these last few days will continue to be full of adventure and fun.  (With the plans we have, I'm pretty sure they will be).

'Til Tomorrow.

R J Carr

PS Today, at school, us kids (don't know what else to call us, lol) talked about how used to the bugs we are now.  Tiny ants crawling on you?  No problem.  Mosquitoes.  Eh.  Beetles.  Still gross.  You get the picture.  #officiallyadapted  I have no idea what I'm going to do when I get back to the states.  AC all the time.  Cooler, dryer weather.  No bugs crawling on you.  English speakers everywhere.  Some-what sane drivers.  Tasteless food.  No gross restrooms (well, not like here).  *sigh*  I'm gonna miss this place.  #sixmoredays